Old Telugu
Old Telugu is the earliest attested stage of the Telugu language. It is attested in various inscriptions, labels, and in early loanwords.
Old Telugu later evolved into Middle Telugu around 1000 CE, which then evolved into Modern Telugu around 1600 CE.
Etymology
In Modern Telugu, the term used for Old Telugu is పాత తెలుగు . The first word, పాత ', meaning "old/ancient," is descended from Old Telugu ప్ఴాన్త / ప్రాఁత, ultimately from the reconstructed Proto-Dravidian word, of the same meaning. The word తెలుగు is descended from Old Telugu తెనుఙ్గు / తెనుఁగు.The reconstructed Old Telugu term for the Old Telugu language is ప్ఴాన్దెనుఙ్గు / ప్రాఁదెనుఁగు. This word was not attested in Old Telugu, but functions as a neologism commonly used for descriptive purposes. The word consisted of the adjectival prefix ప్ఴాన్- / ప్రాఁ, and a sandhi form of the word తెనుఙ్గు / తెనుఁగు. The adjectival prefix is the same morpheme as ప్ఴాన్త / ప్రాఁత, thus deriving from Proto-Dravidian '.
Phonology
In Old Telugu, the inherited Proto-Dravidian consonantal system was fairly well preserved except for incorporating the feature of voicing from the earliest known period. Other phonological innovations include:- 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 vs. pāṟum but it was mostly an allophone of ṟ before n, eg. mūnḏu.
- Voiceless stops appeared at medial positions, by the simplification of geminates after a long vowel and a nasal, eg. *tōṇṭṭa > tōṇṭa
'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 ; puḻōl-> pḻōlu
- 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 ; kaḍacina > gaḍicina
- nḏ has its reflex being voiced retroflex stop in Modern Telugu, <ṟṟ> was either pronounced or , former became rr while latter became ṭṭ, eg. goṟiya, puṟṟa > goṟṟe, puṟṟa > gorre, puṭṭa.
- ḻ became a plosive other than in clusters where it became r by Middle Telugu, *kuḻ-, *eḻu-paHtu > OTe. kḻocce, ḻebbadi > MTe. krocce, ḍebbadi > Te. kocce, ḍebbai. Some of the initial retroflexes became dental, e.g. *uẓupp- > duppi.
- Most pre-plosive nasals got deleted by nasalizing the previous vowel in Middle Telugu and later loosing nasalization in Modern Telugu, eg. teluṅgu > telũgu > telugu and other various cluster simplifications like krōlu > kōlu.
- Modern Telugu is mostly free from retroflex ḷ and ṇ. However, dialectally ḷ is preserved as a geminate in plurals as in *nīr-ḷ > nīḷḷu and regularly after retroflex ḍ and dental l, eg.: guḍi-ḷu > guḷḷu and pagul-ḷu > paguḷḷu.
Grammar
Morphology
Old 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, later getting analyzed as mrā̃ku-lu, creating a root mrā̃ku. Other examples include goḍugu, ciluka, eluka, īga.
The noun formative was -ambu, later -amu/-am > -aũ, eg. OTe. paṭṭambu > MTe./Te. paṭṭamu/paṭṭam > spoken Te. paṭṭaũ.
Old Telugu and Proto-Dravidian maintained contrast in nominative and oblique forms of masculine singulars; as in wāṉḏu vs wāni-, which is dialectally preserved in Modern Telugu.
Parts of speech
Nouns 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.Verbs
Old 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- and -VdV- respectively. Pure past marker *-iy/*-i appeared in third person. These markers were followed by personal terminations, also varied by number.
Pronouns
The pronominal system in Old Telugu marked person, number, and gender. Reflexive pronouns and a range of demonstratives, interrogatives, and indefinites were also used.- The third person is formed by personal & gender markers on demonstratives. eg.: *awanṯu > wāṉḏu : 'that man'; *iwanṯu > wīṉḏu : 'this man'; a-di : 'that thing' etc.
Declension
Syntax
The 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.Vocabulary
Native numerals
Primary colours
There are four primary colours in Old Telugu, with the root words being:- వెళ్-/తెల్- : 'white'
- కార్- : 'black'
- కెమ్-/చెమ్- : 'red'
- పచ్చ్-/పస్- : 'green' & 'yellow'.
Sample Texts
Indukur & 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...''