Vernacular futures

Rama Sundari Mantena
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Rama Sundari Mantena: Kluge Fellow, Library of Congress

The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 2005, vol. 42, issue 4, 513-534

Abstract: The article explores how a new concept of historical time entered discourses on language in nineteenth-century south India. Particularly, I look at the work of C.P. Brown, a prominent scholar of Telugu in the nineteenth century, who through his philological intervention—his Telugu grammar, dictionary and definitive editions of Telugu literary classics—worked arduously to preserve the language. I argue that because colonial philology saw language as having a progressive history, i.e., the unfolding of language in progressive stages towards constant improvement, it instigated a profound intervention in language practices and thought, foreshadowing the great debates at the turn of the twentieth century on ‘modernising’ languages.

Date: 2005
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:indeco:v:42:y:2005:i:4:p:513-534

DOI: 10.1177/001946460504200405

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