Page:Gurujadalu English.djvu/394

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

Local variations of words are not many, and when they are introduced into literature they are easier learnt than poetic forms.

2) Literary cultivation of Modern Telugu necessitates a study of it, and the study of a refined living vernacular has great cultural value.

“Command of a noble vernacular involves the most valuable discipline and culture that a man is capable of receiving. It conditions all other discipline and culture. Reference is not now made to its scientific study, to its history and phonology, its lexical and grammatical elements; what is meant rather is the man’s growing up in the language, so to speak, and using it for all the purposes of his mental life.” (Hinsdales’ --Teaching the Language Arts, Page 17)

3) If school books are written in Modern Telugu, vernacular education will improve at one bound. At present elementary school books are written in a bad type of the poetic or Kavya dialect and the elementary school teachers who are required to teach those books are, as a class ignorant of the literary dialect. To impart instruction to little urchins in an unfamiliar literary dialect contravenes the first principles of educational method. To this fact should be traced the failure of vernacular studies in the Madras University. In this connection, I invite attention to an article on the Arabic Language Question in Egypt which appeared in the Asiatic Quarterly Review of October, 1912. (Appendix H)

4) A study of Modern Telugu will prove the best training for a proper study of the language of the poets. A scientific study of Telugu can begin only with the spoken vernacular, and without such a study, a study of the poetic dialect would continue to be irrational and blind. Far from supplanting the study of old literary Telugu, a study of Modern Telugu will improve it and strengthen