Telugu

Abstract

Telugu (tel) belongs to the Dravidian family of languages and is spoken by 7.19% of the population of India (Census of India 2001b). At different stages of its development over centuries, the vocabulary of Telugu has been considerably influenced by various languages, such as Sanskrit, Prakrit,2 Perso-Arabic and English. A major consequence of this influence is that the phonemic system of Telugu has been extended by additional sets of sounds. Thus, the aspirates /pʰ bʱ tʰ dʱ ʈʰ ɖʱ ʧʰ ʤʱ kʰ ɡʱ/ and fricatives /ʃ ʂ h/, absent in the native phonemic system, entered the language through Sanskrit borrowings. Similarly, /f/ entered the language through Perso-Arabic and English borrowings. Some of the sounds from Perso-Arabic and English sources were nativized, for example, Perso-Arabic and English phoneme /ʃ/ was rendered as /ʂ/, which had already entered the language through borrowings from Sanskrit/Prakrit; Perso-Arabic phonemes /qx ɣ z/ were rendered as /kkʰ ɡ ʤ/ respectively; and the English phoneme /θ/ was rendered as /tʰ/. English borrowings also resulted in re-phonemicization. In native Telugu vocabulary, [ɛ] and [ӕː] are allophones of /e/ and /eː/ respectively, but they acquire phonemic status when words borrowed from English are included in the total vocabulary of the language.