- 4. They have recorded existence for seven centuries with certainty of long previous currency.
- 5. They can try conclusions with the corresponding literary forms in respect of antiquity and connections with polite forms in cognate languages.
- 6. Some of the forms with St died out of current speech and were felt to be so important as to retain a place to this day in the traditional prose dialect.
34. Yet these forms failed to find a place in the kavya dialect of the poets. Nor do they find a place in the Sub-Committee’s lists. Can there be a stronger proof of the tradition of grammatical fixity of the poetic dialect, or of the compelling influence which it exercised over the minds of Messrs. V. Venkataraya Sastry and K.V. Lakshmana Row when they prepared lists of current and archaic forms?
35. There are many other widely current, non-literary, spoken, grammatical forms which can be traced to hoary antiquity. I shall content myself with instancing a few typical forms.
36. Nouns ending in mu (ము) - Many nouns in the poetic dialect denoting non-rational beings, inanimate objects and abstract ideas, end in mu (ము). A large proportion of such forms are Sanskrit derivatives. In standard speech these nouns appear with a final anuswara in which form they are current in Nellore also.
37. It is doubtful if the sound corresponding to the symbol mu (ము) of the literary form, was ever widely current, or if the symbol correctly represented the modification which the anuswara sound underwent when Sanskrit and Prakrit neuter nouns were naturalised in Telugu.
38. Sanskrit neuter nouns in a (అ) take am (మ్) in the nominative case. In Prakrit this m is replaced by an anuswara
