326 M. M. Chakravarti —Language and Literature of Orissa. [No. 4, 
Not only the speech but the written letters have also changed. A 
Dantani letter in free hand looks on its face like Bengali, the 
roundness of the Oriya letters giving way to triangles and straight lines. 
Like Bengali on the north, Telugu on the south has affected tlie 
Oriya. Being alien in nature, and being separated by a different 
administration, the Telugu has not influenced the Oriya of the adjoin¬ 
ing main tract so much as the Bengali. In the main tract one feels 
its influence first along the borders of the Chilka lake. Its force is 
however best seen in the Ganjam District, which became a part of the 
Madras Presidency from 1759 A. D. when the Northern Sirkars came 
under British rule. Since then the court language has been Telugu, 
and most of the Government posts are monopolised by the Telugus. 
The bulk of the trade is also in the hands of the Telugus. No wonder 
therefore that the spoken Oriya is more or less different. 
The first noticeable change is in the pronunciation. The tone is 
flowing and tripping without much stoppages. At first sight one would 
think that the words have no accent, but though there is such, it is 
light, and is not often on the first syllable. The conjunct consonauts are 
more or less softened or disjointed ; the palatals ^ and W softened with 
a touch of the dental (as in the Eastern Bengal) ; aud the cerebrals 
are more freely used. Poliowing Telugu, the letter u is often added at 
the end of proper or common nouns, such as TWTIPi 
(names of places) ^fTC^, (Saheb), (road). 
The next change is in addition to the vocabulary either by bor¬ 
rowing from Telugu entire words, or by changing the old signification. 
The entire words borrowed are, e.g., (obtained a certificate of 
leave), (Judgment), (oral evidence), (relinquishment): 
^5^1 (consent), ^T¥^!T (to stick with obstinacy), (to escape 
or get rid of), (bathing ghat or seashore), qfTT^rT and (illness), 
(diameter), and (export and import), (boat), 
^TTW (guava fruit), (a beam), (upstaired house), ^3^ (neces¬ 
sity), (cultivation), (irfk), (census). In the following 
the Sanskrit meaning has been restricted in imitation of Telugu usuage, 
(condolence), (haste), (doubt), (sorrow, anxiety) 
(favor), qrc (week), 1 . 
Telugu hns influenced the grammar also, but not to a large extent 
on account of its alien nature. The chief change that I noticed w ? as 
that the past participle genitive was largely used for present tense, 
e.g., ^r^riT, tfaraPC, for Jlf%. The written 
characters have also been affected, the letters in Acchu (^^) or 
1 For most of these words I am indebted to Babu Bipra Charn Chatterjea, the 
leading pleader of the Berhampur bar. 
