Scholars urge to preserve Telugu language

Hyderabad: Scholars who are teaching Telugu and Indian Modern languages at different universities in the country from the non-Telugu States have stressed on a new agenda for Telugu. Several of them while stressing on the promotion of the language, however, warned against isolating it, from its interconnectedness with other languages, cultures, and economy.

Speaking to The Hans India, Prof Shree Rama Challa, Department of Telugu, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, said that more and more students from the northern parts of the country were evincing interest in learning and studying Telugu. It is spoken by the second highest number of people after the Hindi in the country. However, we had been neglecting the importance of its promotion.

The language had met with injustice for so long from its own children. For this, he said there was an important to respect the functional forms of Telugu spoken by people in different parts of the states as well as the standard form of the language. The task ahead was to get the act together to act in all seriousness to protect and promote the language, he said.

Stressing the importance of protecting and promotion of Telugu and other Indian languages, Prof A Nujum, Chairman, Department of Modern Indian Languages, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) said the Department had introduced Telugu, besides Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi and Kashmiri languages. This is part of the university’s objective to study all the Indian languages in one place.

He said those involved in planning to promote Telugu should not see it in isolation. While promoting the language, they should also consider its’ interconnectivity to the economics of it, to reap the benefits. For example, the neighbouring China and Europe had given first priority to their mother tongue. They pursue even specialised fields like technology and medicine in their own language. “Wherever such process had been adopted, there we see the GDP growth rates galloping upward,” he added.

Taking a similar line, Prof Pradyumna Dube, from Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies of BHU, feels, Acharya Nagarjuna from the Telugu States had immensely contributed to the spread of the culture, architecture and Mahayana Buddhism, in countries like Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan and the like with his ‘Sunyavada’. Taking up transnational studies about language, culture and the transnational impacts between the two would immensely beneficial, he said.

Expressing a similar view, Prof C S Vasudevan, Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, Kannada University, Hampi said, “Telugu and Kannada have come from the same source and they are closely related. There is a tradition of exploration of one another going on for several centuries. We were together for so long and geographical division should not come in the way of exploring this common heritage of language and culture. At least now we should explore our language and preserve for the future,” he said.

By V R C Phaniharan