Namasthe
everybody! You
came here to learn Telugu, one of the most aesthetically audible languages in
the world. We
call ‘Telugu’ as
an aesthetically audible language because listening to Telugu gives a soothing
feeling, and the audience likes to listen to it again and again, especially,
the poetry in Telugu when sung in a rhythmic tune, they spellbind the audience.
Before going to
learn Telugu, it is very apt to know the greatness of the language.
Telugu is the most
extensively spoken Dravidian language in India spoken by more than 85 million
people in India. It
is the third most spoken native language in India after Hindi and Bengali.
Telugu is the
primary language in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states and also in the towns
of Yanam and Puducherry. In Karnataka, Tamil Nadu,
Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands also, a significant
portion of people speak the Telugu language.
Telugu ranks third
by the number of native speakers in India and fifteenth in the Ethnologue list
of most-spoken
languages worldwide. Telugu, along with Kannada, was
declared as one of the classical languages of India in the year 2008.
Telugu sounds
beautiful when pronounced correctly. It is quite common
to compare Telugu with the Italian language. The
words in Telugu end with a vowel sound like the Italian language. Hence,
foreigners called Telugu as the “Italian of the East.”
Like many other
Indian languages, Telugu is also influenced by Sanskrit and contains many
Sanskrit words. However,
Telugu retained its features and importance.
The formal language
which is being taught in schools is different from the colloquial language,
which varies with region and social status of the people.
Telugu script was
derived from the Brahmi script. There are 56
alphabet in Telugu. Out
of them, 16 are vowels, 37 are consonants, and the remaining three (full
zero, half zero, and visarga) are called
ubhayaksharalu.
Out of 16 vowels, ‘Lu’ and
‘LU’ letters
have not been in use for a long time. Even the letter ‘RU’ also
does not have any words. In consonants, ‘Cha’ and
‘Jha’ are
extinct from the usage. ‘Ksha’ is
not a consonant, but it is a bi-consonant letter (Samyuktaksharam).
The Telugu language
consists of ‘Ottulu’ to
stress a letter. There
are three types of ottulu. (ద్విత్వాక్షరాలు) Dvitvaksharalu, సంయుక్త అక్షరాలు (Samyukta
aksharalu) and
సంశ్లేష అక్షరాలు (Samleshaksharalu). In
another way, we can simply call them a single-consonant
letter, a bi-consonant
letter, and a multi-consonant letter.
Dvitvaksharalu
means the letter with the same consonant sound, for example, ‘Kka’ – here
only ‘Ka’ consonant
is present. Samyuktaksharalu means two different consonant sounds, ex: ‘Rga’ – here
two sounds like ‘Ra’ and
‘Ga’ are
in it, and Samleshaksharalu means more than two consonant sounds, ex: ‘Shtra’ –
here ‘Sha,’
‘Ta’ and
‘Ra’ are
there.
Though it seems
tough to understand and learn Telugu, one can learn it easily if he/she
has a keen interest and strong determination.
In everyday conversations,
a single word or short phrase is often used to convey the meaning of a whole
sentence. Pronouns
and the verb to be are frequently omitted.
Telugu, like many
others, may be viewed as consisting of three branches, namely - common
conversational languages, the language of prose books, and the
language of poetry.
A word - పదము / padhamu- is
a letter or group of letters conveying some meaning and having a Vibhakti
termination at the end. A group of words makes a sentence వాక్యము / -Vaakyamu-. Sometimes
a single word becomes a sentence.
When we speak to
elders and respectable people, we add 'andi' at the end of the sentence in
Telugu, to show our regard for them. The traditional Telugu
honorific is the suffix Garu. Thus, Potti
Sriramulu would be Potti Sriramulu Garu.
Before concluding
this, we wish all of you good luck in becoming a part of learning Telugu, one
of the most classical languages and the most widely spoken Dravidian language.
Statistical data reference: Wikipedia
Compiled by Praveen Ragi, PR Learning Lab, WhatsApp: +91 8978500864, Email: praveen2006@gmail.com
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