ఈ పుటను అచ్చుదిద్దలేదు
136
ESSAYS
The most efficient means of preventing a language from changing are not the laws of the government, not the decrees of an Academy, not the reglations of the Universities, not the dictionaries or Grammars either, but careful education of all the members of the speech community, to teach them learn to speak and write "correctly." Literature certainly exerts its conservative influence on the national language, provided that the works of great writers are in fashion and are always read and studied by a large number of men and women and the words and expressions in books are concurrently used in colloquial speech to keep them alive and vigorous. In a country where education is compulsory and the teachers are careful regarding the pronunciation and the usage of words. Where books are written in the current language and the children cultivate a taste for reading, linguistic change will, of course, be reduced to a minimum. But in view of the fact that at present more than 92 per cent of Telugus cannot even sign their name who will be so fatuous as to hope that Telugu will be fixed at the bidding of the Telugu Academy or the university or the Text Book Committee? Who is so credulous as to believe that Telugu was fixed nine hundred years ago and has not changed since? How are we to account for the word-forward paraphrase of the classical poem published
