language, in effect stifles its growth; to be too fearful of new words and phrases, new meanings, familiar and colloquial expressions, is little less fatal to the well-being of a spoken tongue than to rush into the opposite extreme. It is hardly needful to point out that these desirable conditions are much more nearly realised in the case of our modern cultivated and literary languages than in these of olden time, and that the former have, in all human probability, a destiny before them very different from that of the latter. In the present constitution of society, among the enlightened nations of Europe and America, the forces conservative of the general purity of language have attained a development and energy to which only a distant approach was made under the most favourable circumstances in ancient times. The conscious and reflective users of speech, the instructed and cultivated, the writers of their thoughts, have become everywhere a class powerful in numbers as well as dominant in influence. Education, no longer confined to the upper layer, more or less pervades the whole mass of the people. Books are in every one’s hands, assimilating and establishing the written and spoken usages of all. That form of the common speech in each country which has enlisted in its support the best minds, the sweetest and most sonorous tongues, is ever gaining ground upon the others, supplanting their usages, and promising to become and to continue the true popular language.” (Language and the Study of Language by Whitney, pp. 149 to 151. See also appendix H).
79. The cleavage existing between the literary dialect and polite speech in Telugu, hardly requires proof and has been attested to by eminent scholars. Dr. Sten Konow says, “On the other hand, the difference between the conversational language and the literary form is considerable” (page 577). “The greater part of Telugu literature consists of poetry and is written in a dialect which differs widely from the colloquial form of the language.” (page 579, Linguistic Survey of India). 1301 Minute of Dissent
