|
Old Telugu
Old Telugu (Telugu: ప్రాఁదెనుఁగు, ప్ఴాన్దెనుఙ్గు, పాత తెలుగు, romanized: prā̃denũgu, pḻāndenuṅgu, pāta telugu) is the earliest attested stage of the Telugu language.[1] Old Telugu is attested in various inscriptions, labels and as early loanwords in the literature of several other languages. EtymologyThe term పాత తెలుగు pāta telugu is the Modern Telugu word, referring to the Old Telugu language. The word పాత pāta and the adjectival prefixes ప్రాఁ prā̃, ప్ఴాన్ pḻān come from the reconstructed Dravidian word *paḻan-(tta), meaning old/ancient. HistoryFeaturesPhonologyIn Old Telugu, the inherited Proto-Dravidian consonantal system was fairly well preserved except for incorporating the feature of voicing from the earliest known period. Old Telugu maintained a three-way distinction of coronal consonants which includes, alveolar, retroflex and dental stops. ḏ was originally derived from PDr post-nasal *-ṯ- and constrasted with intervocalic trill -ṟ-. In very few cases -ḏ- did appear intervocalically, eg. caḏu (> ceḍu) vs pāṟum but it was mostly an allophone of ṟ before n, eg. mūnḏu.[2] Voiceless stops appeared at medial positions, by the simplification of geminates after a long vowel and a nasal, eg: *tōṇṭṭa > tōṇṭa (> tōṭa) :'garden'. Pre-plosive nasals are allophones in both Old and Modern Telugu; i.e: n before dentals, ṇ before retroflexes, ṉ before alveolars, ṅ before velars, ñ before palatals and m before labials. Aspirated consonants were borrowed from Indo-Aryan and were incorporated into the writing system, although colloquially the contrast of aspirated-unaspirated stops largely remained absent in most dialects and accents, even in Modern Telugu. Apical displacement was progressive for certain period of time, resulting in word-initial apical consonants in some words. This change was initiated in pre-historic times and is recorded historically. eg: *awanḏu > wānḏu ('that man'/'he'); puḻōl-> pḻōlu (> prōlu) ('city') Voicing of word-initial stops was progressive in some words. Both voiced and voiceless word-initials were recorded in inscriptions and might vary dialectally. eg: tūṟu > dūṟu ('to enter'); kaḍacina > gaḍicina ('that which is passed')
MorphologyOld Telugu is an agglutinative language primarily utilizing suffixes to express grammatical relationships. Noun morphology included gender markers and various derivational processes, while verb morphology was highly developed with distinct markers for tense, mood, and aspect. Old Telugu preserved the two-way masculine vs non-masculine gender pattern intact, which is said to be the original case with Proto-Dravidian and this is also inherited by Modern Telugu. Telugu branch is evidenced to have inherited three distinct plural markers which are: -ḷ, -kVḷ and -r. By the time of early writings, -kVḷ marker underwent back-stem formation with the root words, losing its status as a distinct plural marker, eg. mrā̃-kulu (< *maran-kVḷ), later getting analyzed as mrā̃ku-lu, creating a root mrā̃ku (> Modern māku). Other examples include goḍugu, ciluka, eluka. The noun formative was -ambu, later -amu/-am > -aũ, eg. OTe. paṭṭambu ('authority/power') > MTe./Te. paṭṭamu/paṭṭam > spoken Te. paṭṭaũ (coastal dialects). Old Telugu and Proto-Dravidian maintained contrast in nominative and oblique forms of masculine singulars; as in wāṉḏu (nom.) vs wāni- (obl.), which is dialectally preserved in Modern Telugu. Parts of speechNouns in Old Telugu could be primary or derived, with primary nouns often being free forms and derived nouns formed through suffixation. Gender was signaled by specific suffixes and the overall morphology was influenced by both native Dravidian elements and Indo-Aryan borrowings. VerbsOld Telugu verbs were categorized into finite and non-finite forms, with various suffixes indicating tense, mood, and agreement with subjects. The language had two primary tense paradigms: past, non-past. Past and non-past markers in Old Telugu were: -iti- (a combination of PDr past markers *-i- and *-tt-) and -VdV- (< PDr non-past *-t-) respectively. Pure past marker *-iy/*-i appeared in third person. These markers were followed by personal terminations, also varied by number.
PronounsThe pronominal system in Old Telugu marked person, number, and gender. Reflexive pronouns and a range of demonstratives, interrogatives, and indefinites were also used.
Declension
SyntaxThe structure of Old Telugu sentences typically involved nominative-accusative alignment, with case markers indicating the grammatical roles of nouns. The language employed a variety of case forms and postpositions to express detailed semantic relations. Numerals
Primary ColoursThere are four primary colours in Old Telugu, with the root words being: weḷ-/teḷ- : 'white'; kār- : 'black'; kem-/cem- : 'red'; pacc-/pas- : 'green' & 'yellow'. Both Old Telugu and Proto-Dravidian had absence of roots which distinguish green and yellow colours, a feature which still exists in Modern Telugu. Sample TextIndukur & Potladurthi inscriptions (600 CE)svasti srī cōḻa mahārājull ēḷan erigal dugarājul iccina pannasa kocciya pāṟa rēvasarmmārikīni ḻaccina wāṉḏu pañcamahāpataka samyuktuṉḏagu... ...oḷana inpuḻōli aṇapōtulu rēvaṇakālu puddaṇakālu iccina pannasa pen pāṟa iseṟēnikin dīni ḻaccina wāṉḏu pañcamahāpatakuṉḏagun asivairuvu likitam... Addanki Inscription (848 CE)paṭṭambu gaṭṭina prathamambu nēṇḍu balagarvvaṁ boppaṅga bai lēci sēna paṭṭambu gaṭṭiñci prabhu baṇḍa raṅgu bañcina samatta paḍuvatō bōya koṭṭãbulvaṇḍreṇḍu goṇi vēṅgi nāḍin goḷalci (ya) tribhuvanāṅkuśa bāṇa nilpi kaṭṭepu durggaambu gaḍu bayalsēsi kaṇḍukūr bejavāḍa gāviñcemecci... Bezawada inscription of Yuddhamalla (898 CE)...velayaṅga niyyeṭṭu ḻissi malinurai viḍisina vrōla gala tānapatulunu rājupaṭṭambu gaṭṭina patiyu naliyaṁ bayvūrala velvariñcina naśvamēdhambu phalambu pēkṣiñcina liṅgaṁ baḻisina pāpambu damaku... Research WorkSee alsoReferences
Sources
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Portal di Ensiklopedia Dunia
