Regards,
Sreenivas
_______________________________________________________________________
DRAAVIDA BHAASHALU: A comparative study of grammar of
Dravidian languages; (Telugu) Aadhunika Bhaashaa Saastra
Siddhaantaalu; Principles of Modern Linguistics; Prof. P. S.
Subrahmanyam, published by Telugu University; Registrar, Telugu
University, Public Gardens, Nampalli, Hyderabad-500004. Rs. 40
each.
Bishop Robert Caldwell is considered to be the first
linguist who made a comparative research on Dravidian languages.
Though his work was published during the middle of the ninteenth
century, nothing elaborate was attempted by linguists for nearly
a century after this. During the last four decades there has been
a spurt in activity in this direction, though initially it was
again the western linguists who took the lead. Initial attempts
by linguists to prove that Telugu belongs to the Dravidian family
and has nothing to do with Sanskrit, were met with resistance,
but now it is all a forgotten story. Linguists like Prof. G. J.
Somayaji, Prof. Krishna Murthy, Prof. Chekuri Ramarao and others
have made extensive study on Dravidian linguistics.
Dr. P. S. Subrahmanyam is an eminent linguist, whose
works on comparative study of Dravidian languages have been
acclaimed all over. His style is lucid and simple and this
particularly helps in understanding a technical subject like
linguistics. He wrote several books and research articles
pertaining to linguistics and his book on modern Telugu grammar
is considered to be of immense help in understanding the language
by people whose mother tongue is not Telugu.
Dravida Bhashalu is a book on comparative study of
grammar of Dravidian languages. In this book the author deals
with the construction and formation of Telugu and other sister
languages of the Dravidian family. Based on this the author
attempts to reconstruct the proto-Dravidian language. This helps
the reader to see the similarities between various Dravidian
languages and how the proto-Dravidian language underwent changes
to form these languages. This is the first book in Telugu, on
comparative grammar of Dravidian languages. It is the comparative
study of grammar that is more useful in tracing the history of a
language, than the history of grammar of any one language.
Adhunika Bhasha Sastra Siddhantalu is a book dealing with
the principles of modern linguistics. This is a book intended for
study in post graduate courses where the student needs to know
the language and linguistics. In the first part of this book the
author deals with language, its grammar and the relationship
between the two. The second part deals with descriptive
linguistics where Dr. P. S. Subrahmanyam extensively dealt with
phonetics, phoneme, morphology, syntax, transformational grammar, p73
semantic structure, and language and its dialects.
In the third part of the book the author deals with
comparative history of linguistics under which we find chapters
on the classification of languages, the methodology adopted for
comparative study, internal reconstruction, the evolution of
phonemic reconstruction, semantic changes and linguistic
borrowing. The last part of this book deals with the evolution of
linguistics in the West and in India. This chapter concludes with
a study of Panini's Ashtadhyaayi and the modern science of
linguistics. In the appendix Dr. Subrahmanyam has aptly included
technical terminology in Telugu with their English equivalents.
Dr. Subrahmanyam deserves all praise for these two books
which have been found to be of great help for students as well as
teachers of linguistics.
Pappu Venugopala Rao