Re: [jayaprabha marOsAri]

Hari K Tadepalli (hari_k_tadepalli@ccm.co.intel.com)
Fri, 03 Oct 1997 12:34:50 -0700


    > You're correct, from a communicator's or poet's perspective.  It's seems
    > to me that jayaprabha's above quote reflect's a linguist's perspective.
    > Language sets the ground rules for what people see, understand and talk
    > about.  A histogram of words in terms of usage in literature tells us a
    > lot about the culture that language represents.

Admitted with a minor correction: replace "ground rules" with "ground facilities".
In other words, one has all the liberty to extend those facilities to suit one's specific
communication needs (including poetry). A linguist or any analyst of literature (worth
one's salt), in my opinion, also -produces- the histogram before drawing inferences,
while being aware of the limitations of such tools & techniques.

    > Poetry, as you said, is certainly capable of conveying things for which
    > there's no word defined directly in that language.  But that's not the
    > point in jayaprabha's quote.

Just as Annamayya did - he didn't invent his diction, he only used existing
diction for his facility of expression. But again, the physical beauty of #alamElu
mangamma# is not the whole point in #annamayya#'s songs. So, if Jayaprabha
is in love with the lord of the seven hills, she probably has all the Telugu
diction in her language reserves to express it (just as #mIrAbAyi# did to
Krishna).


T. Hari Krishna