Page:A grammar of the Teloogoo language.djvu/18

vi in the Poorans, the Ganges proper is described as passing through Calinga, a country which we know to be the region watered by the Godavery. So far, therefore, as regards the course of the Ganges through Calinga, described in these ancient books, it must be the Godavery to which they allude.

From the adjective Trilinga, by a general grammatical rule is derived Tilinga, or as it is more generally written Telinga.—From Tilinga also, by corruption, the Native Grammarians derive the words Tenoogoo and Teloogoo which is the name now generally given to the language in the country where it is spoken.—The little resemblance between Tenoogo or Teloogoo, and Telinga, may induce an English reader to question this derivation: but, as I have remarked in a subsequent part of this work, great deference is due by a foreigner to the testimony of Native Authors; and when it is considered that many words have passed into Teloogoo through the medium of the Pracrit, or other corrupted dialects of the Sanscrit, and have been naturalized in it for ages, the little connexion now to be traced between some original words, and their corruptions, ought not alone to invalidate the established etymologies of successive Grammarians.—It may not be irrelevant, however, to observe, that Teloogoo may possibly be derived from the adjective Tellu, fair, white, an appellation which might with much propriety be applied to the people of Telihgana, compared with the neighbouring nations;