Page:A Grammar of the Telugu language.djvu/8

ii study it with good success. To aid them in English has been one of my principle objects in writing this grammar. It may be worth while to remark that household servants at Madras talk a broken English with fluency; but the learner will find it profitable to employ only those domesticksdomestics [sic] who will speak to him in the language he is studying; such are always to be had. Our initiatory native instructors also speak English: but we should as soon as possible lay aside such aid and employ a teacher who speaks Telugu alone.

Having been employed by Government for several years the Telugu countries I soon perceived the necessity of studying the language: then, with a view to acquire the vernacular idiom, I was encouraged to read and translate Vemana, and a few others of the less learned but more popular authors. Experience daily proved to me that the grammar is best studied in metrical compositions. This we know to be the case in Greek, Sanscrit and French; and it is equally true as regards the modern languages of India wherein we are constantly obliged to transact business.

As I proceeded I met with many peculiarities, (chiefly, in the syntax,) which were not noticed in any work already published. able grammar of this language, which had then been a few years printed, conveys amply and correctly (see pages 180, and 233 of the present volume) all the rules found in the ancient philologists: and to these I have now added such explanations as appeared requisite. In the closing chapter of this volume, (on Elision and Permutation) I am particularly indebted (see page 258) to Mr. Campbell's learned and accurate definitions of principles which all acknowledge to be peculiarly refined.

But I have been led to adopt a new arrangement which may facilitate the study, and have excluded much which is intended for the guidance of native poets or etymologists alone. It will be seen (in page 247) that the elder grammarians wrote principally for poets: but I, as a foreigner, have chiefly regarded the wants of beginners. Much that I have excluded from the first chapters is now placed in the last, because some topickstopics [sic] which may be interesting to learned natives are to us of no advantage. These are the poetical sandhi or Elision (see pages 39, and 254) the saral adesam or softened Initials (see page 250) the sacata repha or Obsolete R (see pages 22, 245, and 252,) and ardha bindu or obsolete N (see pages 26, 116, 252). A perusal of the Chintamani (see page 180) and of the elaborate treatise on Telugu philology and prosody written by Appa Cavi (the of the language) led me to consider that if the refined principles of Orthography which that indefatigable etymologist inculates, are grounded on truth, they surely must be verified in the Mahabharat, and other ancient works to which he continually refers. I therefore examined these standard poems