Even as the World Telugu Conference is being organised in a grand way by the Telangana State, a serious effort was made by veteran journalists to bring attention back to strengthening the Telugu language and updating its dictionary that’s long overdue.
A seminar on ‘Usage of Telugu in Print and Electronic Media’ held as part of the conference here on Monday provided an ideal backdrop to steer the narrative to a meaningful discussion on Telugu language by veteran and present-day journalists and editors of various Telugu newspapers.
Responding to the suggestions, Telangana State Media Academy Chairman Allam Narayana proposed a resolution to appoint a committee of language experts and editors to modernise and standardise the Telugu newspaper language and also prepare a dictionary and style-sheet. The Media Academy would take the resolution to the Chief Minister, K. Chandrasekhar Rao.
Prominent journalist and former Chairman of Press Academy Pothuri Venkateswara Rao, tracing the usage of Telugu in the news media, pointed out that in the last 50 to 60 years, the exchange of Telugu words between different regions increased significantly. “It’s a good development as it leads to strengthening of the Telugu language,” he said.
If creating new words for new expressions is one task, another one is to bring back the words that have receded into the background over the decades, he said.
One simply has to be in the midst of people from Srikakulam or Adilabad to know the usage of words to use them appropriately for translating them into an English expressions.
“If the words are collected in a proper manner, our vocabulary will be enriched. If a locally-used Telugu word is attractive and conveys the meaning of an English word in a near-about manner, that expression will come into existence,” Mr. Venkateswara Rao said.
He, however, said there should be an institution to study and collect the new words in a systematic manner and it would be better if the Press Academy takes up that initiative.
Collecting new words has become relatively easy for the media now as every rural area has contributors and they could send a list of words that are in usage in their respective region to be added in the dictionary.
Veteran journalist G.S. Varadachari cited various instances of how names of individuals when translated from English to Telugu sounded totally different from the original. There was a need to standardise the spellings in such a way that the names would not be misspelt when translated. It was high time Telugu should be brought into usage in all the sectors.
The way the conference is being held, it made one wonder if there was a realistic and scientific approach to address the concerns over the dominance of English over Telugu in administration and education, said Editor of Andhra Jyothy K. Srinivas.
More importance was given to literary traditions like Avadhanam as a source of entertainment than the issues obstructing the growth of Telugu language in the conference, he said.
He felt that the move to introduce Telugu language as a subject till Intermediate would not serve any purpose. “What is important is to impart science, social studies and mathematics lessons in Telugu language at least till class 7,” he said.
For successful implementation of Telugu as an official language, functional Telugu course should be introduced in the academic curriculum. The government should take the lead in introducing computers and Windows software in Telugu to enable students to do programming in their mother tongue as in Tamil Nadu. If leading publishers do not publish Telugu books, then the government should step in. Such measures would strengthen Telugu language, give it value and the bargaining power to the community at global platforms, he added.
