Page:Gurujadalu English.djvu/333

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(Vide Hemachandra’s Prakrit grammar, Sutra 13, Page 5, Appendix to Vol. IX, Bombay Sanskrit series; also Trivikrama’s Prakrita Sabdanusasanarn, sutra 40, page 13, Vizagapatam, Arsha Press edition). The same tendency is still prevalent in Telugu so that Telugu scribes replace the final rn ()of Sanskrit words by an anuswara at the end of metrical lines. This feature is found also in many Sanskrit books printed in Telugu type. Sanskrit words first came into Telugu from the vernacular Prakrits and the learned Sanskrit of the Prakrit-speaking Brahmans. It may, therefore, be presumed that Sanskrit neuter nouns in a () came into Telugu with a final anuswara as they are to-day in polite speech. When a u () was sometimes added to the anuswara in the process of naturalisation the resultant sound, represented a nasalised semi-vowel vu (). At the present day the symbol mu () represents a nasalised semivowel in such words asparnu () Chirna(73) and demudu () which are pronounced as pavu, Chiva, devudu.

39. Whether or not the final mu () which Sanskritic neuter nouns take in the literary dialect correctly represented a speech- sound which really existed in the past, the spoken form with an anuswara has claims to be considered at least as ancient as the form in mu (). This view receives support from the fact that according to grammarians, ancient Canarese neuter nouns in a () took an anuswara in the nominative.

40. The Conjunctions ci and (yun and nun). The conjunctions c5 and of the literary dialect, are no longer in use in living speech. In Modern Telugu the lengthening of the final vowel of a word gives a copulative sense. Sometimes a or is added to the final long vowel. and cD are also used as conjunctional post-positions, generally in writing.

41. In Parent Dravidian the copulative post-position was probably urn or un which took an initial semi vowel in