by experience, that both these are unknown to all but pedants. Yet as few students continue the study after acquiring a smattering of Telugu, the emptiness of these instructions generally remains undetected.*
Some modern pedants among the Telugus have attempted (in imitation of some Devanagari printing to abolish the O • thus instead of wotf sfa,-,, and as-c^jSn they affect to write «|sS», and J)sS». This idle whim appears in some recent publications both Sanscrit and Telugu. It is an empty innovation and is not likely to become popular.
From what has been stated the reader will observe that there are (as in some other languages) two or even three modes of spelling: one in daily use and indispensable; this alone is used in the present grammar; the second mode is poetical, and uses particular forms of certain initial and final letters, as 2-s)^«jsx> for (in common spelling) "^fc^ssfco, and ^r°?>§^~ for sr>PiP; and a third, which is pedantic, using the obsolete R and the obsolete semi-nasal.
- The ordinary teachers are apt to speak to students on some learned subjects which are ill suited to beginners. The tutor should on such occasions be desired to read the following caution.
ss\Oftf)Sos>3r»5b £J-0^sS» U«sS fT'tfo
^oftjO^fJSSS ^!Ctfg«S»"^4S>. In reading any manuscript with a learned Bramin, we shall find him object to the spelling in almost every line: asserting that the ignorance of the transcribers has yitiated the book. But our business is to study the language as it is: to take it as we find it: and errors that do not injure the sense or the metre may safely be left unaltered. Much that is pressed upon our notice as highly Momentous, is in truth mere learned trifling.
