PREFACE.
The languages spoken by the Hindus in the Peninsula of India have for many ages been sedulously cultivated by a series of poets and philologists. From Madras southwards the Tamil is spoken; but Telugu fills the countries to the north and north-west. Still further west we meet the Canarese; and in the south-west the Malayalam. All these languages, with Hindustani, are taught in the College at Madras; and are as different from one another as English, French and German.
Sanscrit is to India, what Latin is to Europe, the basis of much learning, and the source of much etymology. In the Telugu poems we meet with many pages written in almost unmingled Sanscrit. And a knowledge of that unrivalled language, though not indispensable, is so great an aid in gaining a command of the modern tongues that every hour given to Sanscrit will materially aid the student in the acquisition of Telugu, Tamil, or any other Peninsular language.
But the fact that Telugu is an original language widely different from all others, and having a grammar wholly independant of Sanscrit, will soon be clearly perceived. Indeed no knowledge of Sanscrit will of itself enable us to understand a common letter, or a conversation in Tamil or Telugu. We shall also find that Sanscrit is read by few besides Bramins; and there are not many Telugu Bramins who possess a respectable acquaintance with Sanscrit.
The long continued sway of the Musulmans has introduced numerous Hindustani phrases into Telugu: yet very few of the people, even among the educated classes, can speak or read Hindustani; while Persian has fallen almost into oblivion. Musulmans under the Madras Government now transact their legal business in the vernacular Hindu dialects; and so unable are they to conduct business in Hindustani or Persian that we frequently meet with legal pleadings filed by musulman pleaders, but drafted in Telugu by a clever bramin. The Persian they use in correspondence is a sad jargon. But, as regards the Hindus, English is daily more and more extensively cultivated and it is to be hoped that the Telugus may in future
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