Page:2015.396258.Vyasavali.pdf/137

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Freedom to use the current language

"Current words like current coin have a space value."

Admirers of classical Telugu evidently believe that in the twelfth century when Nannaya translated the Sanskrit Mahabharata into Telugu, the vernacular language had reached the acme of perfection and then formed a sort of crystallized linguistic machine with all its parts elaborated and finished; and that succeeding writers have been merely setting it in motion in order to produce their literary works. We know that such beliefs however eminent the persons who hold them may be, are founded on erroneous notions regarding the nature and growth of language. A Pandit whose conception of the nature of language is derived from his acquaintance with Sanskrit, devotes his life to the study of old Telugu and attempts to reproduce the older forms in his writings; he therefore inculcates the belief that a literary language ought to be as uniform as Sanskrit for all time. That some of the graduates of the modern universities follow the doctrines of the Pandit indicates that the study of the science of language is not what it ought to be.

In a monster memorial presented about six years ago to the Government of Madras in the name of the whole Telugu population, praying that “classical" and not "modern” Telugu should be