Telangana Telugu an offshoot of Dakhni?

where is carvaka's original post with the contrasting examples that rashmun is quoting? how come i don't see the original post anywhere in this thread?

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:where is carvaka's original post with the contrasting examples that rashmun is quoting? how come i don't see the original post anywhere in this thread?

I was trying to edit it to clear up the formatting. But I lost most of the text in the process. So I just deleted the whole thing because I can't be bothered to retype it.

Max, here is my original post in its entirety. I will try to clean up formatting, but may not succeed. (I typed this up in Word because of the Unicode fonts, but copy-paste does weird things to posts here.)

---

Since the dog's tail is bent, let me list some ways in which Telugu grammar is fundamentally different from Sanskrit grammar.

1. Number: For declensions of nouns and conjugations of verbs, Sanskrit has three forms, singular, dual and plural. Telugu has two, singular and plural.

2. Gender: in Sanskrit, gender does not follow meaning; there is a masculine word for wife दारा:, dArAh. In Telugu, gender follows meaning, and most inanimate objects have neuter gender.

3. Verb conjugations: the verb system of Sanskrit is very complex, while the verb system in Telugu is much simpler. This is the reason that students of Sanskrit to spend a lot of time memorizing verb conjugations, while students of Telugu do not. The difference is like the difference between French (with a complex verb system) and English (with a simpler verb system).

4. Sandhis: in Telugu there are two types of sandhis. The Sanskrit sandhi rules apply to tatsama (literally, "equal to that") words borrowed from Sanskrit, while separate Telugu sandhi rules apply to Telugu words that are not borrowed from Sanskrit. A simple illustration is what happens when a word that ends in the short sound a (అ, अ) is followed by another word that begins in the same sound. Per Sanskrit rules, the connecting sound has to become a dIrgha ("long") vowel A (ఆ, आ). Per Telugu rules, the sandhi results in the short sound a, not the dIrgha A. Let me illustrate with an example.

Sanskrit sandhi: పుండరీక + అక్షుడు = పుండరీకాక్షుడు punDarIka + akshuDu = pundarIkAkshuDu
Telugu sandhi: రవ్వ + అంత = రవ్వంత ravva + anta = ravvanta

Crucially, when a tatsama joins a Telugu word, the Telugu sandhi rule applies (e.g. rAma + akka = rAmakka, not rAmAkka, although rAma is a tatsama word).

5. Clusivity: Telugu has a distinction between the exclusive and inclusive variants of the first person plural pronoun ("we" in English). Sanskrit does not.

Telugu grammar has incorporated significant elements of Sanskrit grammar. That much is beyond question. But to suggest that Telugu grammar completely follows Sanskrit grammar is wrong. To suggest that Telugu grammar follows Sanskrit grammar for the most part with minor modifications, is also wrong. The truth is, Telugu grammar absorbed some elements of Sanskrit grammar into it, but those elements did not displace other elements of Telugu grammar. What happened is not "taking of Sanskrit grammar rules and making some changes around the edges." What happened is that Telugu had its own grammar which was not codified just like Vedic Sanskrit had a grammar which was not codified until Panini came along. When Nannaya came along, he codified grammar for literary purposes, borrowing liberally from Panini's constructs. But the spoken language still follows pre-Sanskritized rules, and Nannaya is said to have written about this grAmya ("of the village") variant as well.

The role of the grammarian is not of creating language, but of codifying and structuring patterns of what is in use to make it more easily understandable by students of the language. Nannaya did not create Telugu anymore than Panini created Sanskrit. Finally, even Sanskrit, with all its fine rules, was not always used in a grammatical fashion. Literary Sanskrit was always grammatical, but the term apabhramSa was used to describe non-grammatical variants of the language in popular use. Hindi arose out of one of those apabhramSas.

This, incidentally, is also the reason why that Berkeley researcher could do a meaningful comparison between Dakhini Urdu and Telugu. If Telugu grammar had followed Sanskrit grammar for the most part, then there would be no huge differences in the first place between the grammars of Hindi-Urdu and Telugu, and the similarity would be via Sanskrit rather than because Telangana Telugu absorbed grammatical constructs from Dakhini Urdu. The two claims you are making are therefore mutually contradictory.

BTW, Max, you may find this interesting. The latest PhD thesis that Rashmun has trotted out says this on page 9, at the end of the chapter titled Introduction:

This thesis has a two-fold purpose: Firstly, it attempts to study the influence of the Sanskrit compound-formation on the Telugu compound-formation and seeks to emphasize the limitations of such an influence. Secondly, it is an attempt to study the structure of the Telugu compound-structure in the context of modern linguistics.

Yet another installment in The Exciting Adventures of the Weekend Linguist!

here is another irritating thing about rashmun. i bet if he reads the compound word distinctions being made in the three dravidian languages in that thesis, he wouldn't even know how to begin to pronounce them! i'd really like to hear him try. i bet it would sound comical.

i can't even read the ones in telugu and kannada since i've never heard them uttered. i'm able to read the tamil compounds and make sense of them, but since i have only partial knowledge (one of the four languages being discussed), i'm in no position to critically judge whether what this guy is saying has any merit. but rashmun doesn't let any of this bother him. for him this is just grist for his agenda mill. any and all writing he finds on the internet can be used without critical examination as long as it furthers his particular agenda. and he expects us to take him seriously! it's like me trying to argue about swahilian grammar with a native swahili speaker solely based on material i gather on the internet.

charvaka wrote:Max, here is my original post in its entirety. I will try to clean up formatting, but may not succeed. (I typed this up in Word because of the Unicode fonts, but copy-paste does weird things to posts here.)

---

Since the dog's tail is bent, let me list some ways in which Telugu grammar is fundamentally different from Sanskrit grammar.

1. Number: For declensions of nouns and conjugations of verbs, Sanskrit has three forms, singular, dual and plural. Telugu has two, singular and plural.

2. Gender: in Sanskrit, gender does not follow meaning; there is a masculine word for wife दारा:, dArAh. In Telugu, gender follows meaning, and most inanimate objects have neuter gender.

3. Verb conjugations: the verb system of Sanskrit is very complex, while the verb system in Telugu is much simpler. This is the reason that students of Sanskrit to spend a lot of time memorizing verb conjugations, while students of Telugu do not. The difference is like the difference between French (with a complex verb system) and English (with a simpler verb system).

4. Sandhis: in Telugu there are two types of sandhis. The Sanskrit sandhi rules apply to tatsama (literally, "equal to that") words borrowed from Sanskrit, while separate Telugu sandhi rules apply to Telugu words that are not borrowed from Sanskrit. A simple illustration is what happens when a word that ends in the short sound a (అ, अ) is followed by another word that begins in the same sound. Per Sanskrit rules, the connecting sound has to become a dIrgha ("long") vowel A (ఆ, आ). Per Telugu rules, the sandhi results in the short sound a, not the dIrgha A. Let me illustrate with an example.

Sanskrit sandhi: పుండరీక + అక్షుడు = పుండరీకాక్షుడు punDarIka + akshuDu = pundarIkAkshuDu
Telugu sandhi: రవ్వ + అంత = రవ్వంత ravva + anta = ravvanta

Crucially, when a tatsama joins a Telugu word, the Telugu sandhi rule applies (e.g. rAma + akka = rAmakka, not rAmAkka, although rAma is a tatsama word).

5. Clusivity: Telugu has a distinction between the exclusive and inclusive variants of the first person plural pronoun ("we" in English). Sanskrit does not.

Telugu grammar has incorporated significant elements of Sanskrit grammar. That much is beyond question. But to suggest that Telugu grammar completely follows Sanskrit grammar is wrong. To suggest that Telugu grammar follows Sanskrit grammar for the most part with minor modifications, is also wrong. The truth is, Telugu grammar absorbed some elements of Sanskrit grammar into it, but those elements did not displace other elements of Telugu grammar. What happened is not "taking of Sanskrit grammar rules and making some changes around the edges." What happened is that Telugu had its own grammar which was not codified just like Vedic Sanskrit had a grammar which was not codified until Panini came along. When Nannaya came along, he codified grammar for literary purposes, borrowing liberally from Panini's constructs. But the spoken language still follows pre-Sanskritized rules, and Nannaya is said to have written about this grAmya ("of the village") variant as well.

The role of the grammarian is not of creating language, but of codifying and structuring patterns of what is in use to make it more easily understandable by students of the language. Nannaya did not create Telugu anymore than Panini created Sanskrit. Finally, even Sanskrit, with all its fine rules, was not always used in a grammatical fashion. Literary Sanskrit was always grammatical, but the term apabhramSa was used to describe non-grammatical variants of the language in popular use. Hindi arose out of one of those apabhramSas.

This, incidentally, is also the reason why that Berkeley researcher could do a meaningful comparison between Dakhini Urdu and Telugu. If Telugu grammar had followed Sanskrit grammar for the most part, then there would be no huge differences in the first place between the grammars of Hindi-Urdu and Telugu, and the similarity would be via Sanskrit rather than because Telangana Telugu
absorbed grammatical constructs from Dakhini Urdu. The two claims you are making are therefore mutually contradictory.

here is an example of the importance of Panini's grammar: the Ramayana and Mahabharata were, it is definitely believed, written before Panini. There are references to these texts by writers who precede Panini. But how is it that the Ramayana and Mahabharata that we know of today follows Panini's grammar? The answer is that these texts were re-written in accordance with Panini's grammar because the genius of this grammar was recognized. The Vedas were not re-written in this way because they were considered too sacred to be tampered with. At any rate, the fact that Telugu grammarians had deep reverence for Sanskrit and Sanskrit grammar and wrote their Telugu grammar texts in sanskrit and moreover consciously used the rules given by Panini to formulate their own rules for Telugu grammar is indisputable.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:here is another irritating thing about rashmun. i bet if he reads the compound word distinctions being made in the three dravidian languages in that thesis, he wouldn't even know how to begin to pronounce them! i'd really like to hear him try. i bet it would sound comical.

i can't even read the ones in telugu and kannada since i've never heard them uttered. i'm able to read the tamil compounds and make sense of them, but since i have only partial knowledge (one of the four languages being discussed), i'm in no position to critically judge whether what this guy is saying has any merit. but rashmun doesn't let any of this bother him. for him this is just grist for his agenda mill. any and all writing he finds on the internet can be used without critical examination as long as it furthers his particular agenda. and he expects us to take him seriously! it's like me trying to argue about swahilian grammar with a native swahili speaker solely based on material i gather on the internet.

The thesis is interesting. He makes the point that Tikkana -- who is one of the most influential figures in the Telugu canon -- did not follow the Sanskrit-based rules codified by the Panini-influenced grammarians. This substantiates what I was saying about the role of a grammarian -- not creating or extending language but codifying it. It is the poets and writers -- and ordinary speakers -- who create language.

i gathered as much and to your point about the evolution of language, one of my favorite thinkers on the subject:

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_language_and_thought.html

charvaka wrote:BTW, Max, you may find this interesting. The latest PhD thesis that Rashmun has trotted out says this on page 9, at the end of the chapter titled Introduction:

This thesis has a two-fold purpose: Firstly, it attempts to study the influence of the Sanskrit compound-formation on the Telugu compound-formation and seeks to emphasize the limitations of such an influence. Secondly, it is an attempt to study the structure of the Telugu compound-structure in the context of modern linguistics.

Yet another installment in The Exciting MisAdventures following the Weekend Linguist the Alberuni Manoeuvre!

The same PhD scholar, on page 3 of his thesis, says that in general Telugu grammar follows Sanskrit grammar.
http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00077060/00001/18j

What is indisputable is:
1. All the standard traditional texts of Telugu grammar which have been written by Telugu grammarians are in sanskrit. There is none in Telugu.
2. 60% of the words in classical telugu are of sanskrit origin.
3. The Telugu grammarians consciously followed the rules of sanskrit grammar when formulating the rules of Telugu grammar.

Rashmun wrote:the Ramayana and Mahabharata were, it is definitely believed, written before Panini. There are references to these texts by writers who precede Panini. But how is it that the Ramayana and Mahabharata that we know of today follows Panini's grammar? The answer is that these texts were re-written in accordance with Panini's grammar because the genius of this grammar was recognized.

Did you pick up this gem of knowledge from Samosapedia or Urbandictionary? What did they do with the previous non-Paninian version? Told everybody to forget the old shlokas, and they all promptly did that? You have no understanding of the processes involved in the creation of natural languages and literature.

Panini is normally dated to around the 6th century BCE. Mahabharata is dated a few of centuries before and around the time of Christ. Ramayana is dated to the first few centuries CE.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:i gathered as much and to your point about the evolution of language, one of my favorite thinkers on the subject:

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_language_and_thought.html

Alright, it's high time I read Pinker. One of my good friends has to talk about Pinker at least once during the course of an evening.

Rashmun wrote:The same PhD scholar, on page 3 of his thesis, says that in general Telugu grammar follows Sanskrit grammar.

He does not. He says "Telugu grammars" follow Sanskrit grammar. By that he means that textbooks on Telugu grammar follow Sanskrit grammar. He explains in great detail how in practice, the grammar of the language itself -- even that used by highly-influential poets -- does not follow those rules.

charvaka wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:here is another irritating thing about rashmun. i bet if he reads the compound word distinctions being made in the three dravidian languages in that thesis, he wouldn't even know how to begin to pronounce them! i'd really like to hear him try. i bet it would sound comical.

i can't even read the ones in telugu and kannada since i've never heard them uttered. i'm able to read the tamil compounds and make sense of them, but since i have only partial knowledge (one of the four languages being discussed), i'm in no position to critically judge whether what this guy is saying has any merit. but rashmun doesn't let any of this bother him. for him this is just grist for his agenda mill. any and all writing he finds on the internet can be used without critical examination as long as it furthers his particular agenda. and he expects us to take him seriously! it's like me trying to argue about swahilian grammar with a native swahili speaker solely based on material i gather on the internet.

The thesis is interesting. He makes the point that Tikkana -- who is one of the most influential figures in the Telugu canon -- did not follow the Sanskrit-based rules codified by the Panini-influenced grammarians. This substantiates what I was saying about the role of a grammarian -- not creating or extending language but codifying it. It is the poets and writers -- and ordinary speakers -- who create language.

Tikkana was a poet not a grammarian. In poetry one is free to violate grammar--many poets have done this. The fact remains that ALL the traditional Telugu grammarians had a deep reverence for sanskrit and consciously emulated the rules of sanskrit grammar when giving the rules for Telugu grammar. Regionalists would of course find this fact a little hard to digest.

if you are going to read pinker start with the language instinct and not the blank slate. the language instinct is a brilliant book. i think he is a better writer than speaker.

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:The same PhD scholar, on page 3 of his thesis, says that in general Telugu grammar follows Sanskrit grammar.

He does not. He says "Telugu grammars" follow Sanskrit grammar. By that he means that textbooks on Telugu grammar follow Sanskrit grammar. He explains in great detail how in practice, the grammar of the language itself -- even that used by highly-influential poets -- does not follow those rules.

As i mentioned earlier, the fact of poets violating the rules of grammar does not impress me. i have read poetry in hindi and english which has violated the rules of grammar. The fact remains that ALL the telugu grammarians had a deep reverence for sanskrit grammar and consciously used the rules of sanskrit grammar in formulating the rules for Telugu grammar. I am glad that you agree that the grammar found in the books written by Telugu grammarians follows Sanskrit grammar.

Rashmun wrote:Regionalists would of course find this fact a little hard to digest.

The only agenda-driven person exhibiting intense amounts of parochialism on this thread is you. You feel compelled to argue one language or other from the north -- be it Dakhni or Sanskrit -- exerted an outsized influenced on southern languages. Your insecurities on the language issue compel you to wade into torrents in which you cannot even hope to swim, given your complete lack of knowledge of the subject at hand. Yet you keep copy-pasting one thing after another and consistently misinterpret stuff or miss out the most important conclusions / findings of what you post. Every one of your arguments gets demolished with your own evidence, but your insecurities make you keep coming back.

As an Indian who cares deeply about India, let me advise you to try not to be nationalistic on behalf of my country. People like you do more harm to the cause of India's unity than good.

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:Regionalists would of course find this fact a little hard to digest.

The only agenda-driven person exhibiting intense amounts of parochialism on this thread is you. You feel compelled to argue one language or other from the north -- be it Dakhni or Sanskrit -- exerted an outsized influenced on southern languages. Your insecurities on the language issue compel you to wade into torrents in which you cannot even hope to swim, given your complete lack of knowledge of the subject at hand. Yet you keep copy-pasting one thing after another and consistently misinterpret stuff or miss out the most important conclusions / findings of what you post. Every one of your arguments gets demolished with your own evidence, but your insecurities make you keep coming back.

As an Indian who cares deeply about India, let me advise you to try not to be nationalistic on behalf of my country. People like you do more harm to the cause of India's unity than good.

with respect to sanskrit, i am against the allergy that some regionalists depict for this national language of India. After all, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and the Vedas and Upanisads belong to all of India.

With respect to Dakhini, it is futile to run away from it because the Hyderabadi of your home town is none other than another name for Dakhini which is a variant of Hindustani. Sufi saints had spread their message of love in Dakhini, and the first ruler of Hyderabad had composed love poetry in it. Many other kings of the Deccan, including the kings of Hyderabad, had patronized or even written in Dakhini. It is sad to see you rejecting your own Hyderabadi culture which is a part of my own Indian culture.

When your father spoke to the autowalah in Chennai, he was speaking in Hindi (i.e. Hyderabadi Hindi or Dakhini) as you once told us. The very fact that your father--a hyderabadi--chose to use Dakhini to communicate with someone in Chennai tells its own story. It means your father prefers not to reject his Hyderabadi culture, unlike his son.

A very interesting presentation on the Telugu language:

http://www.slideshare.net/naramr/telugu-language-conf-in-harvard2

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In what follows, the words in quotes are from the presentation while words in parenthesis are mine:

'Language of literary Telugu has been different from its spoken form'. (But this applies also to Hindi.)

'The words, the meter, and the contents mostly originated from sanskrit.

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:The same PhD scholar, on page 3 of his thesis, says that in general Telugu grammar follows Sanskrit grammar.

He does not. He says "Telugu grammars" follow Sanskrit grammar. By that he means that textbooks on Telugu grammar follow Sanskrit grammar. He explains in great detail how in practice, the grammar of the language itself -- even that used by highly-influential poets -- does not follow those rules.

There is one other interpretation for the words 'Telugu grammars'. By 'Telugu grammars' he is including the minor variations in grammar which may be occurring because of the presence of dialects like the north-eastern andhra dialect.

some of my telugu colleagues told me that they were for the most part unable to properly comprehend the telugu of north-east andhra because of the prevalence of a high percentage of Oriya words.

Charvaka,
are you able to comprehend the telugu spoken in North-East Andhra Pradesh?

Rashmun wrote:with respect to sanskrit, i am against the allergy that some regionalists depict for this national language of India. After all, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, and the Vedas and Upanisads belong to all of India.

There has been no allergy to Sanskrit. If anything, I think I know more of the language than you do.

Rashmun wrote: With respect to Dakhini, it is futile to run away from it

There is no running away from it at all. I am a proud speaker of the language, and again, I know the language better than you do.

What is more, for all your interest in googling links about languages and their evolution, you conceded yourself earlier that my knowledge of Hindi-Urdu is superior to yours. Perhaps you can get more out of your interest in languages if you let those insecurities go. Then you can expend your energies on actually learning languages -- including your own -- better, rather than waste your time arguing about things you know nothing about.

Rashmun wrote:Charvaka,
are you able to comprehend the telugu spoken in North-East Andhra Pradesh?

Yes. Many of my classmates in college were from this region.

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:The same PhD scholar, on page 3 of his thesis, says that in general Telugu grammar follows Sanskrit grammar.

He does not. He says "Telugu grammars" follow Sanskrit grammar. By that he means that textbooks on Telugu grammar follow Sanskrit grammar. He explains in great detail how in practice, the grammar of the language itself -- even that used by highly-influential poets -- does not follow those rules.

There is one other interpretation for the words 'Telugu grammars'. By 'Telugu grammars' he is including the minor variations in grammar which may be occurring because of the presence of dialects like the north-eastern andhra dialect.

some of my telugu colleagues told me that they were for the most part unable to properly comprehend the telugu of north-east andhra because of the prevalence of a high percentage of Oriya words.

Just as a synthesis of Dakhini and Telugu took place in Telangana (which gave rise to Telangana Telugu), a synthesis of Oriya and Telugu languages seems to have taken place in North-East Andhra. And this is not counting the synthesis of Telugu and Sanskrit.

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote: With respect to Dakhini, it is futile to run away from it

There is no running away from it at all. I am a proud speaker of the language, and again, I know the language better than you do.

What is more, for all your interest in googling links about languages and their evolution, you conceded yourself earlier that my knowledge of Hindi-Urdu is superior to yours. Perhaps you can get more out of your interest in languages if you let those insecurities go. Then you can expend your energies on actually learning languages -- including your own -- better, rather than waste your time arguing about things you know nothing about.

i can hardly be blamed if the teachers in Hyderabad are so good in Hindi-Urdu. on the other hand, i have probably read more hindi literature (and also literature in other languages translated into hindi) than you have.

there is probably a lot of truth of the extent of kinship between telugu and sanskrit. i wouldn't know and i'm in no position to judge. i'll leave that to native telugu speakers who also know a lot of sanskrit like carvaka. but let me posit one other plausible political reason why some telugus try to distance themselves from the word "dravidian". many of them probably equate the word dravidian to tamil because of the 20th century dravidian movement that originated in tamil nadu. there are all kinds of historical political reasons for this including the separation of the madras presidency that created a lot of divisions amongst the two groups. it is therefore entirely possible that at least some of the allergy in acknowledging telugu's dravidian roots arises from this source. this is why i like bhadriraju krishnamurthi a true scholar who appears entirely unaffected by such extraneous political considerations.

edited to add: unfortunately this state of affairs only adds grist to the rashmun mill.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:there is probably a lot of truth of the extent of kinship between telugu and sanskrit. i wouldn't know and i'm in no position to judge. i'll leave that to native telugu speakers who also know a lot of sanskrit like carvaka.

There absolutely is. Much of Telugu literature is heavily influenced by Sanskrit, in its vocabulary, meter, alankAram (figures of speech), and recurring themes. Most of the greatest works of classical Telugu literature (excluding the literary aspects of Telugu compositions in karnATaka sangItam*) are translations of great Sanskrit works. Literary Telugu would be unrecognizable if you took out Sanskrit from it -- no, taking out Sanskrit from literary Telugu is pretty much impossible. When it comes to the quotidian language, however, the influence is less pronounced. The percentage of words that are from Sanskrit dwindles dramatically, and like I explained in the post on grammatical differences, Telugu rules take over. Many poets have written in the quotidian language, like Vemana and to a lesser extent, Tikkana.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:but let me posit one other plausible political reason why some telugus try to distance themselves from the word "dravidian". many of them probably equate the word dravidian to tamil because of the 20th century dravidian movement that originated in tamil nadu. there are all kinds of historical political reasons for this including the separation of the madras presidency that created a lot of divisions amongst the two groups. it is therefore entirely possible that at least some of the allergy in acknowledging telugu's dravidian roots arises from this source. ... unfortunately this state of affairs only adds grist to the rashmun mill.

This political reason sounds plausible. For my grandfather's generation that was uprooted from their hometown -- Madras -- because they wanted to keep their jobs with the state government, suspicions and resentments of Tamil ideas ran deep. By my father's generation, resentment was replaced with a deep disinterest. In my own generation, I don't see much impact of either. I personally am deeply interested in the history of my language, and am fascinated by the things that Telugu shares with both its Dravidian sisters and with Sanskrit. What I find odious -- and on occasion downright irritating -- are attempts by people like Rashmun (some of them from the Tamil side of the equation as well) who counterfactually try to assert, "the language of my ancestors was the mother language of Telugu." My interest is in knowing the true history as best as I possibly can, not in any agenda about "national integration" or a Dravidian identity. Telugu is a Dravidian language, and for all its wonderful exchanges with Sanskrit which I believe the Telugus benefited from, it certainly remains so in its living spoken form to this day in its basic structure, vocabulary and grammar.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:this is why i like bhadriraju krishnamurthi a true scholar who appears
entirely unaffected by such extraneous political considerations.

I want to read his book on Telugu grammar next. If Rashmun is still reading this: not all books on Telugu grammar are in Sanskrit. At least one is in English, and it is by Krishnamurti .

* Most of the Telugu compositions in karnATaka sangItam are original, and their connection with Hinduism is not through translation of prior Sanskrit works but through a strong undercurrent of spirituality in the content of the works.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:there is probably a lot of truth of the extent of kinship between telugu and sanskrit. i wouldn't know and i'm in no position to judge. i'll leave that to native telugu speakers who also know a lot of sanskrit like carvaka. but let me posit one other plausible political reason why some telugus try to distance themselves from the word "dravidian". many of them probably equate the word dravidian to tamil because of the 20th century dravidian movement that originated in tamil nadu. there are all kinds of historical political reasons for this including the separation of the madras presidency that created a lot of divisions amongst the two groups. it is therefore entirely possible that at least some of the allergy in acknowledging telugu's dravidian roots arises from this source. this is why i like bhadriraju krishnamurthi a true scholar who appears entirely unaffected by such extraneous political considerations.

edited to add: unfortunately this state of affairs only adds grist to the rashmun mill.

the standard text for telugu grammar (written in sanskrit) has been written by Nannaya. Nannaya was around in the 11th century AD. So your thesis collapses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nannayya

charvaka wrote:

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:there is probably a lot of truth of the extent of kinship between telugu and sanskrit. i wouldn't know and i'm in no position to judge. i'll leave that to native telugu speakers who also know a lot of sanskrit like carvaka.

There absolutely is. Much of Telugu literature is heavily influenced by Sanskrit, in its vocabulary, meter, alankAram (figures of speech), and recurring themes. Most of the greatest works of classical Telugu literature (excluding the literary aspects of Telugu compositions in karnATaka sangItam) are translations of great Sanskrit works. Literary Telugu would be unrecognizable if you took out Sanskrit from it -- no, taking out Sanskrit from literary Telugu is pretty much impossible. When it comes to the quotidian language, however, the influence is less pronounced. The percentage of words that are from Sanskrit dwindles dramatically, and like I explained in the post on grammatical differences, Telugu rules take over. Many poets have written in the quotidian language, like Vemana and to a lesser extent, Tikkana.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:but let me posit one other plausible political reason why some telugus try to distance themselves from the word "dravidian". many of them probably equate the word dravidian to tamil because of the 20th century dravidian movement that originated in tamil nadu. there are all kinds of historical political reasons for this including the separation of the madras presidency that created a lot of divisions amongst the two groups. it is therefore entirely possible that at least some of the allergy in acknowledging telugu's dravidian roots arises from this source. ... unfortunately this state of affairs only adds grist to the rashmun mill.

This political reason sounds plausible. For my grandfather's generation that was uprooted from their hometown -- Madras -- because they wanted to keep their jobs with the state government, suspicions and resentments of Tamil ideas ran deep. By my father's generation, resentment was replaced with a deep disinterest. In my own generation, I don't see much impact of either. I personally am deeply interested in the history of my language, and am fascinated by the things that Telugu shares with both its Dravidian sisters and with Sanskrit. What I find odious -- and on occasion downright irritating -- are attempts by people like Rashmun (some of them from the Tamil side of the equation as well) who counterfactually try to assert, "the language of my ancestors was the mother language of Telugu." My interest is in knowing the true history as best as I possibly can, not in any agenda about "national integration" or a Dravidian identity. Telugu is a Dravidian language, and for all its wonderful exchanges with Sanskrit which I believe the Telugus benefited from, it certainly remains so in its living spoken form to this day in its basic structure, vocabulary and grammar.

--> i have never claimed that Telugu originates from Sanskrit so please don't go around putting words in my mouth. My only claim is:
1. 60% of the words in classical Telugu are of sanskrit origin
2. All the traditional Telugu grammar texts are in sanskrit.
3. Telugu grammarians had deep reverence for the sanskrit language and for sanskrit grammar and took all of their grammar rules, with minor modifications, from sanskrit grammar.

Rashmun wrote:

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:The same PhD scholar, on page 3 of his thesis, says that in general Telugu grammar follows Sanskrit grammar.

He does not. He says "Telugu grammars" follow Sanskrit grammar. By that he means that textbooks on Telugu grammar follow Sanskrit grammar. He explains in great detail how in practice, the grammar of the language itself -- even that used by highly-influential poets -- does not follow those rules.

There is one other interpretation for the words 'Telugu grammars'. By 'Telugu grammars' he is including the minor variations in grammar which may be occurring because of the presence of dialects like the north-eastern andhra dialect.

some of my telugu colleagues told me that they were for the most part unable to properly comprehend the telugu of north-east andhra because of the prevalence of a high percentage of Oriya words.

Just as a synthesis of Dakhini and Telugu took place in Telangana (which gave rise to Telangana Telugu), a synthesis of Oriya and Telugu languages seems to have taken place in North-East Andhra. And this is not counting the synthesis of Telugu and Sanskrit.

Max, what are your views on the synthesis of Oriya and Telugu languages which took place in North-East Andhra? Is this another example of a NI language synthesizing with a SI language?

Rashmun wrote:i can hardly be blamed if the teachers in Hyderabad are so good in Hindi-Urdu.

Actually my Hindi teachers couldn't speak fluent Hindi, nor did my English teachers speak fluent English. I had excellent Telugu, math and social sciences teachers, not so good science teachers, and atrocious Hindi and English teachers. I learned my Hindi-Urdu by speaking with native speakers -- both in Hyderabad and at college where we had students from all over northindia.

If you have a genuine interest in languages, you learn languages when any opportunity presents itself. I learned enough Hindi to pass off as a local in your home state during the time I spent there. When you spent years in Karnataka, you didn't learn Kannada (and perhaps thought for years that it was Kannadiga). You have no interest in languages; you have a pernicious agenda that is hurtful to the unity and integrity of India, and you want to pursue that agenda in the linguistic arena through your ill-informed posts about Telugu and Tamil.

Rashmun wrote:on the other hand, i have probably read more hindi literature (and also
literature in other languages translated into hindi) than you have.

Perhaps, but we are not discussing literature here, but knowledge of the language itself.

Rashmun wrote:My only claim is:

Your "only" claim was that Telugu grammar follows Sanskrit grammar completely. Until I proved you wrong .

Rashmun wrote:Max, what are your views on the synthesis of Oriya and Telugu languages which took place in North-East Andhra? Is this another example of a NI language synthesizing with a SI language?

Have you ever seen the Oriya script? It looks very different from the scripts of northindia, and very much like the scripts of Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam, with its rounded characters. What are your views about that?

Rashmun wrote:3. Telugu grammarians had deep reverence for the sanskrit language and for sanskrit grammar and took all of their grammar rules, with minor modifications, from sanskrit grammar.

Telugu grammar has fundamental differences from Sanskrit grammar. You just need to read what has already been posted, before repeating lies.

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:i can hardly be blamed if the teachers in Hyderabad are so good in Hindi-Urdu.

Actually my Hindi teachers couldn't speak fluent Hindi, nor did my English teachers speak fluent English. I had excellent Telugu, math and social sciences teachers, not so good science teachers, and atrocious Hindi and English teachers. I learned my Hindi-Urdu by speaking with native speakers -- both in Hyderabad and at college where we had students from all over northindia.

If you have a genuine interest in languages, you learn languages when any opportunity presents itself. I learned enough Hindi to pass off as a local in your home state during the time I spent there. When you spent years in Karnataka, you didn't learn Kannada (and perhaps thought for years that it was Kannadiga). You have no interest in languages; you have a pernicious agenda that is hurtful to the unity and integrity of India, and you want to pursue that agenda in the linguistic arena through your ill-informed posts about Telugu and Tamil.

--> i was able to get by with my hindi/hindustani in Karnataka. From fruit sellers to autowallahs, everyone knew hindi/hindustani. Now i know that the reason they knew hindi/hindustani was because of the prevalence of the Southern Indian language Dakhini which is the language which your father used when he communicated with the autowallah in Chennai in your presence. Your agenda is to reject the Dakhini language which is the lingua franca of Hyderabad. In a sense, your are kicking your own culture.

--> you learnt hindi-urdu as a child because Hydrabadi (which is a variant of Hindustani) is the lingua franca of your city and also because you formally learnt the language from childhood. So you had to put in zero effort when you communicated with the locals in U.P. during your visit.

charvaka wrote:

* Most of the Telugu compositions in karnATaka sangItam are original, and their connection with Hinduism is not through translation of prior Sanskrit works but through a strong undercurrent of spirituality in the content of the works.

and it is for this reason that if the opportunity presents itself, the one indian language i'd like to learn is telugu. to come to a deeper appreciation of thyagaraja, shyama shastri, and annamayya's krithis that i already enjoy so much.

Rashmun wrote:

Max, what are your views on the synthesis of Oriya and Telugu languages which took place in North-East Andhra? Is this another example of a NI language synthesizing with a SI language?

no idea. i know neither language. i know only two indian languages, and one of them with only conversational familiarity. wait, that's not entirely true. i know a third quite well too; the one i am writing in right now.

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:3. Telugu grammarians had deep reverence for the sanskrit language and for sanskrit grammar and took all of their grammar rules, with minor modifications, from sanskrit grammar.

Telugu grammar has fundamental differences from Sanskrit grammar. You just need to read what has already been posted, before repeating lies.

in an earlier post in this thread you wrote:

charvaka wrote:He says "Telugu grammars" follow Sanskrit grammar. By that he means that textbooks on Telugu grammar follow Sanskrit grammar.

--> do you agree that textbooks on telugu grammar follow sanskrit grammar? it is sad to see you tying yourself up in knots again. there is nothing special if one well known Telugu poet violated the rules of Telugu grammar. There are many english and hindi poets who have also violated the rules of grammar in their poetry. there is also nothing special if spoken telugu is different from written telugu. the same is true for hindi also.

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:

Rashmun wrote:

Max, what are your views on the synthesis of Oriya and Telugu languages which took place in North-East Andhra? Is this another example of a NI language synthesizing with a SI language?

no idea. i know neither language. i know only two indian languages, and one of them with only conversational familiarity. wait, that's not entirely true. i know a third quite well too; the one i am writing in right now.

Max, i think you are being modest about the extent of your hindi knowledge considering that you once tried reading Premchandra and gave up after you didn't like him.

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:Max, what are your views on the synthesis of Oriya and Telugu languages which took place in North-East Andhra? Is this another example of a NI language synthesizing with a SI language?

Have you ever seen the Oriya script? It looks very different from the scripts of northindia, and very much like the scripts of Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam, with its rounded characters. What are your views about that?

the whole world is convinced that Oriya is a Indo-Aryan language and that most of its vocabulary is derived from Sanskrit. For instance:
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/language/about/oriya.html

it is also correct to say that classical Telugu, despite having 60% words of sanskrit origin, is of dravidian origin.

So the Telugu spoken in North-West Andhra does represent a synthesis of an NI language and an SI language since it incorporates Oriya words to such an extent that my Telugu colleagues told me they were unable to comprehend this particular dialect of Telugu.

Rashmun wrote:i was able to get by with my hindi/hindustani in Karnataka.

You could have gotten by sign language. You had no curiosity or interest in Kannada. You are purely driven by a nefarious agenda.

Rashmun wrote:Your agenda is to reject the Dakhini language which is the lingua franca of Hyderabad. In a sense, your are kicking your own culture.

--> you learnt hindi-urdu as a child because Hydrabadi (which is a variant of Hindustani) is the lingua franca of your city and also because you formally learnt the language from childhood. So you had to put in zero effort when you communicated with the locals in U.P. during your visit.

You couldn't be more wrong about all this.

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:Max, what are your views on the synthesis of Oriya and Telugu languages which took place in North-East Andhra? Is this another example of a NI language synthesizing with a SI language?

Have you ever seen the Oriya script? It looks very different from the scripts of northindia, and very much like the scripts of Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam, with its rounded characters. What are your views about that?

the whole world is convinced that Oriya is a Indo-Aryan language

As am I. So why do you think the script looks like that of Dravidian languages?

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:the Ramayana and Mahabharata were, it is definitely believed, written before Panini. There are references to these texts by writers who precede Panini. But how is it that the Ramayana and Mahabharata that we know of today follows Panini's grammar? The answer is that these texts were re-written in accordance with Panini's grammar because the genius of this grammar was recognized.

Did you pick up this gem of knowledge from Samosapedia or Urbandictionary? What did they do with the previous non-Paninian version? Told everybody to forget the old shlokas, and they all promptly did that? You have no understanding of the processes involved in the creation of natural languages and literature.

Panini is normally dated to around the 6th century BCE. Mahabharata is dated a few of centuries before and around the time of Christ. Ramayana is dated to the first few centuries CE.

--> Panini is dated to circa 4th century BC (and not 6th century BC as you wrongly say). Now, with respect to the Mahabharata, there was a time when the current Mahabharata and a smaller Mahabharata were existing concurrently. We know this because there are references to the two different texts in sanskrit literature. This smaller version is generally considered more representative of the original Mahabharata than the longer inflated Mahabharata we have today. The fact that manuscripts sometimes become extinct is perhaps unknown to your mental processes.

-----
The oldest preserved parts of the text are not thought to be appreciably older than around 400 BCE, though the origins of the story probably fall between the 8th and 9th centuries BCE.[2] The text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta period (ca. fourth century CE).[3] The title may be translated as "the great tale of the Bhārata dynasty". According to the Mahabharata itself, the tale is extended from a shorter version of 24,000 verses called simply Bhārata.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata

--> Many Sanskrit texts were re-written in accordance with classical Sanskrit during the time of the Guptas.

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:3. Telugu grammarians had deep reverence for the sanskrit language and for sanskrit grammar and took all of their grammar rules, with minor modifications, from sanskrit grammar.

Telugu grammar has fundamental differences from Sanskrit grammar. You just need to read what has already been posted, before repeating lies.

in an earlier post in this thread you wrote:

charvaka wrote:He says "Telugu grammars" follow Sanskrit grammar. By that he means that textbooks on Telugu grammar follow Sanskrit grammar.

--> do you agree that textbooks on telugu grammar follow sanskrit grammar? it is sad to see you tying yourself up in knots again. there is nothing special if one well known Telugu poet violated the rules of Telugu grammar. There are many english and hindi poets who have also violated the rules of grammar in their poetry. there is also nothing special if spoken telugu is different from written telugu. the same is true for hindi also.

I have already posted a detailed account of the fundamental differences between Telugu and Sanskrit grammar. You lack the knowledge to dispute even one single point I have listed. That is entirely your problem, not mine.

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:Panini is normally dated to around the 6th century BCE.

--> Panini is dated to circa 4th century BC (and not 6th century BC as you wrongly say).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata

--> Many Sanskrit texts were re-written in accordance with classical Sanskrit during the time of the Guptas.

Ah, good old Wikipedia. By the same source, Panini is dated to:

Pāṇini (c. 600-500 BCE), ancient Sanskrit grammarian

PS: I know monkeys at keyboards tend to get lost when printed material on the internet concerns multiple subjects. I am referring to the first result on the page.

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:Max, what are your views on the synthesis of Oriya and Telugu languages which took place in North-East Andhra? Is this another example of a NI language synthesizing with a SI language?

Have you ever seen the Oriya script? It looks very different from the scripts of northindia, and very much like the scripts of Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam, with its rounded characters. What are your views about that?

the whole world is convinced that Oriya is a Indo-Aryan language

As am I. So why do you think the script looks like that of Dravidian languages?

i cannot answer this because i have not studied the different scripts. I am more interested in the fact that a synthesis took place between an Indo-Aryan language (Oriya) and a dravidian language (Telugu) in North-East Andhra because of which many telugus are unable to understand the telugu spoken in North-East Andhra.

Rashmun wrote:to such an extent that my Telugu colleagues told me they were unable to comprehend this particular dialect of Telugu.

Perhaps your Telugu colleagues have language skills similar to yours! Haha.

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:to such an extent that my Telugu colleagues told me they were unable to comprehend this particular dialect of Telugu.

Perhaps your Telugu colleagues have language skills similar to yours! Haha.

Or perhaps they are telling the truth and not lying. Hahaha.

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:Panini is normally dated to around the 6th century BCE.

--> Panini is dated to circa 4th century BC (and not 6th century BC as you wrongly say).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata

--> Many Sanskrit texts were re-written in accordance with classical Sanskrit during the time of the Guptas.

Ah, good old Wikipedia. By the same source, Panini is dated to:

Pāṇini (c. 600-500 BCE), ancient Sanskrit grammarian

PS: I know monkeys at keyboards tend to get lost when printed material on the internet concerns multiple subjects. I am referring to the first result on the page.

Looks like wikipedia managed to confuse your monkey brain again:
Pāṇini (Sanskrit: पाणिनि, IPA: [pɑːɳin̪i]; a patronymic meaning "descendant of Paṇi") was an ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian from Pushkalavati, Gandhara (fl. 4th century BC[1][2]).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pāṇini

----

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:Panini is normally dated to around the 6th century BCE.

--> Panini is dated to circa 4th century BC (and not 6th century BC as you wrongly say).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata

--> Many Sanskrit texts were re-written in accordance with classical Sanskrit during the time of the Guptas.

Ah, good old Wikipedia. By the same source, Panini is dated to:

Pāṇini (c. 600-500 BCE), ancient Sanskrit grammarian

PS: I know monkeys at keyboards tend to get lost when printed material on the internet concerns multiple subjects. I am referring to the first result on the page.

Looks like wikipedia managed to confuse your monkey brain again:
Pāṇini (Sanskrit: पाणिनि, IPA: [pɑːɳin̪i]; a patronymic meaning "descendant of Paṇi") was an ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian from Pushkalavati, Gandhara (fl. 4th century BC[1][2]).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pāṇini

----

From about the 4th century BC, in the classical period of Iron Age Ancient India, Vedic Sanskrit gave way to Classical Sanskrit as defined by the grammar of Pāṇini.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedic_Sanskrit

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:

Rashmun wrote:

charvaka wrote:Panini is normally dated to around the 6th century BCE.

--> Panini is dated to circa 4th century BC (and not 6th century BC as you wrongly say).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata

--> Many Sanskrit texts were re-written in accordance with classical Sanskrit during the time of the Guptas.

Ah, good old Wikipedia. By the same source, Panini is dated to:

Pāṇini (c. 600-500 BCE), ancient Sanskrit grammarian

PS: I know monkeys at keyboards tend to get lost when printed material on the internet concerns multiple subjects. I am referring to the first result on the page.

Looks like wikipedia managed to confuse your monkey brain again:
Pāṇini (Sanskrit: पाणिनि, IPA: [pɑːɳin̪i]; a patronymic meaning "descendant of Paṇi") was an ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian from Pushkalavati, Gandhara (fl. 4th century BC[1][2]).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pāṇini

----

Pāṇini (Sanskrit: पाणिनि, IPA: [pɑːɳin̪i]; a patronymic meaning "descendant of Paṇi") was an ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian from Pushkalavati, Gandhara (fl. 6th century BC^[1][2]).

Born

An Indian stamp honoring Pāṇini

est. 6th century BC