admissible polite form stares the majority of the Sub-Committee in the face and there is no escaping it.
11. The report of the majority of the Sub-Committee is vague. It does not formulate or discuss a body of principles to govern the classification of forms. I asked them to define the terms current and archaic. Mr. Lakshmana Row showed a disinclination to commit himself to definitions. I then handed in a slip of paper with the following question engrossed upon it.
“What is the meaning of the words current and archaic when applied to the literary dialect?”
Mr. Lakshmana Row told me that his report answered my question.
12. In the report there is no attempt at definition; nor can we gather from it in what sense the writers used the terms current and archaic. They have, however, defined spoken language. “By the spoken language the Sub-Committee understand the deliberate speech of the educated classes of the higher order of society, in the Telugu Country as a whole, and not the speech either confined to any particular area or to particular clan or tribe”.
13. ‘Telugu Country as a whole’ is another instance of the majority bringing up a lost point. When Prof. Rangachariar proposed his amendment to the 2nd resolution, Mr. Ramayya Pantulu suggested the addition of the words “in the whole of the Telugu Country” or words of similar import. Prof. Rangachariar declined to accept the suggestion. But that lost suggestion was to govern the classification of forms in these lists.
14. The majority claim to have striven to “establish harmony between the spoken and written languages”. To establish harmony is a convenient metaphor but it is not very informing. Whatever it may mean, this harmony has been attained here by strongly circumvallating the literary dialect.
