This website will be made avilable in two languages: Telugu (coming soon) and English. The English version will be a translation of the Telugu content.
This project’s primary goal is to celebrate the glory of the Telugu language, promote and preserve it for future generations.
The Maa Telugu Thalli Project strives to reverse the negative trend in the number of people who speak the language natively. In the two Telugu states – Andhra Pradesh and Telangana – it is hard to find people who speak the language for a minute or two without mixing words from other languages, primarily from English. It is not an exaggeration that a very tiny fraction of the population speaks the language natively.
We can reverse this trend by using advances in computing, communications, and written and spoken language technologies (natural language processing (NLP) and computational linguistics).
We are in the process of assembling a visionary team of volunteers – Telugu language teachers, scholars, poets, novelists, story writers and narrators, linguists, artists, musicians, students, and software professionals – to achieve the goals of the project. If you are passionate about this project, please contact https://www.maatelugu.org. The URL is easily remembered as “Maa Telugu” without the space between the words.
Natural languages are a miracle of human life. They have evolved and developed over thousands of years. Language is more than a medium for communication. Embedded in languages are cultural practices and ancient wisdom.
Cognitive evidence supports that learning in the mother tongue is easier than in a non-native/foreign language. Learning using the mother tongue is akin to using biological eyes for human vision, and learning using a foreign language is like using eyeglasses for vision. Like eyeglasses do not function without biological eyes, the mother tongue is vital for early learning and lays a solid foundation for higher learning.
There are 7,111 known living languages in the world, and many of them are on the path of decline and eventual extinction. The number of people who speak the languages natively is also on a rapid decline. This is more spectacular in Southern India than any other part of the world.
Countries across the globe generally take pride in their culture and language. They treasure speaking their mother tongue. For example, in Germany, Switzerland, and Japan, even medical and engineering education is imparted using native languages. In contrast, Indians generally take pride in their inability to read, write, and speak in their native language. Reading, writing, and speaking in one’s mother tongue and doing the same in a foreign language should not be viewed as mutually exclusive.
A native speaker is one who speaks the language natively. There are several reasons for the decline in the number of native speakers. They include the English language dominance on the World-wide Web, India’s colonial past, central government’s flawed language policies, and changing cultural and societal values.
Contrary to popular myth and propaganda, India has no national language. The constitution of India recognizes 22 languages as scheduled languages, and Telugu is one of them. Telugu is also one of the six languages to have India’s classical language designation bestowed by the Government of India. The other classical languages of India are Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Sanskrit, and Tamil.
Since India’s independence from the British, the central government has been aggressively enforcing Hindi on the non-Hindi speaking population with the eventual goal of replacing English with Hindi. The Constitution of India does not specify any language as the national language. Due to the central government’s ongoing misinformation campaign labeling Hindi as the national language, many people in India erroneously believe that Hindi is India’s national language. Hindi is a regional language, just like other languages of India. Hindi is not even a classical language of India.
When in power, some political parties have equated nationalism with having one language (i.e., Hindi) under the motto “One Nation, One Language.” The Government of India does not fund, for example, Marathi language research unless the Martahi language research is linked to the Hindi language in some manner. What happened to the noble and cherished motto: Unity in diversity and diversity in unity.
The Telugu movie industry is another endangerment for the language, where the actors and actresses lack language proficiency and set a bad example for the younger generation. Even the so called professionals in the Telugu mass media have severe language performance issues. These people make a lavish living in the name of Telugu without fluency in the language.
Not speaking one’s mother tongue is considered a social and cultural advancement. This flawed sense of elitism has created such insecurity that even some saints and sages began interjecting English words in their discourses and conversations to prove that they are not left behind.
The other challenges for the Telugu language are lack of new literature, a fast declining number of speakers who can speak the language natively, lack of institutional support, and societal apathy towards the language. These factors will reduce the language to a mere non-natively spoken language in the near-term and eventual extinction in the medium-term.
On a positive note, though the number of people who speak the Telugu language natively is declining rapidly in India, Telugu is the fastest growing language in the United States per a recent BBC news article (Do you speak Telugu? Welcome to America).
ALL natural languages are beautiful. They need to be preserved, respected, nurtured, promoted and celebrated. The advancement of one language should not come at the death of other languages. There is so much beauty in the diversity of languages, just as in mother nature. Imagine what will happen to the majestic and spectacular beauty of nature if it were uniform and devoid of diversity and variation.
Telugu is a melodic language with a long history, beautiful poetry, and vast literature.
The Telugu writing system (i.e., the script) won second place in The World Alphabet Olympics held in 2012.
Some features of metrical poetry are unique to the Telugu language. The Telugu poetry (called padyalu) employs an elaborate set of rules called Chandhas for defining structural features. The Chandhas also applies to prose, and it generates rhythm to the literature and poetry.
The Telugu language has unique literary traditions, for example, Ashtavadhanam. The latter is a public performance of an Avadhani (the performer) whose goal is to demonstrate her sharpness of memory and retention, mastery of the language, literature, grammar, and linguistic knowledge.
In Ashtavadhanam, eight peers take turns posing questions to the Avadhani and distract her with challenges. The Avadhani answers to peer’s questions must be constructed to adhere to specific grammatical constructions and other linguistic constraints.
Satavadhanam and Sahasravadhanam are advanced versions of Ashtavadhanam, where 100 and 1000 peers, respectively, ask questions and distract the Avadhani. These events last over several weeks.
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