Sociolinguistic analysis of South African Telugu (history and structure)

Abstract

This article is based on the study undertaken on present-day South African Telugu speakers in Kwazulu-Natal and in Transkei, the former homeland of South Africa, where a few immigrant Telugu speakers have settled. This article briefly focusses on the history of Telugu language in India and South Africa. The major focus of the article is on the dialects of Telugu in Andhra Pradesh and the writer attempts to answers the question ‘how far does the STe resemble the original Telugu dialects that were brought into the country?’. In conclusion, the writer illustrates STe as a separate dialect which developed on its own due to its contact with various languages in South Africa.