Page:A grammar of the Teloogoo language.djvu/27

Rh of their own tongue. Indeed, the three inferior classes of Telingana, unlike their neighbours of the Tamil Nation, seem to have abandoned the culture of their language, with every other branch of literature and science, to the sacred tribe. The Vussoochuritru is the only Teloogoo work of note not composed by a Bramin. But, with the manners and habits of their ancestors, the Velmawars, Comtees, and Soodra casts, descended from the aborigines of the country, retain a great deal of the original language of Telingana, and are more sparing in the use of Sanscrit words than the Bramins.

It has been very generally asserted, and indeed believed, that the Teloogoo has its origin in the language of the Vedums, and many of the most eminent oriental scholars have given their authority in support of this opinion. It is not without much deference, therefore, that I venture publicly to state my inquiries to have led me to contrary conclusion; but I do so with the less hesitation, as I find myself supported by the concurrent evidence of all Native Authors who have ever written on the subject of the Teloogoo language.

On this, and on several other material points connected with the structure of the Teloogoo, I regret that my sentiments should be entirely at variance with those of so celebrated an orientalist as Dr. Carey, one of the learned Professors in the College of Fort William, to whom the Public are indebted for a very copious Grammar of the Sanscrit language, and for a series of works on the elements of the spoken dialects of India. In the preface to a Telinga Grammar, which issued from the press after the present work had been completed and submitted to Government, Dr. Carey writes as follows, “The languages of the South of India, i. e. the Telinga, Karnata, Tamil, Malayala, and Cingalese, while they have the same origin with those of the North” (viz. the Sanscrit) “differ greatly from them in other respects: and especially in having a large proportion of words the origin of which is unascertained;” or, as he afterwards terms them, “words current in the country, దేశ్యము, of which the derivation is uncertain.”