Ramayya Pantulu is of the opinion that those alone are competent to effect reforms “that have been trained in the literary and linguistic tradition”. One of the principal points of difference between the phonology of Kavya Telugu and modern Telugu consists in the change of the p sound in imperative, negative and other verbal forms to a ts sound. The habit of current speech or metrical exigencies were accountable for the occasional violation of literary usage by one or two good poets; but their violation was not accepted as a precedent by poets. In the report of the Sub-Committee as issued in manuscript, p and ts were made optional, but when the printed report came out, there appeared a note of dissent from Mr. V. Venkataraya Sastry, “I do not approve of this”. If Mr. V. Venkataraya Sastry has not been trained in the “literary and linguistic tradition” no one is.
152. But Mr. K. Veeresalingam Pantulu filled his works, even those in the Kavya dialect, with verbal forms with ts. e.g., o. Mr. K.Veeresalingam Pantulu has also affiliated verbal forms like which even second rate poets avoid.
WHO BROKE AWAY FROM TRADITION?
153. The charge is often laid at the door of the Modern School that we are revolutionary in our aims and that we have done violence to tradition. An impartial reader of this note will be convinced that, in this case, as it often happens, it is the criminal that raises the cry of ‘thief! The Modern School is strongly opposed, and for scientific and artistic reasons, to a violation of the grammar and precedents of usage of the early poets. We have declared this, in unmistakeable terms but Mr. J. Ramayya Pantulu will not understand it.
