The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Common script for Telugu, Kannada will foster unity: scholar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Dec 25, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Common script for Telugu, Kannada will foster unity: scholar

By K.V.S. Madhav

BANGALORE, DEC. 24. It was the ambitious plan of the Karnataka Government to evolve a common script for Telugu and Kannada given the striking similarity in their dialect and script that took a beating yet again following the cancellation of the inaugural function.

"A common script will be of immense help to people residing in the border districts of the States. Many of them speak their mother tongue, be it Kannada or Telugu, but do not know how to write the script. A common script will not only help them overcome this handicap, but also foster greater cultural and linguistic unity between people of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh," the former Head, Department of Telugu, Bangalore University, Tangirala Subba Rao, who worked on the common script, told The Hindu at the venue of the WTF conference. A proposal was also made to introduce this common script in primary schools of the State along with Kannada and Telugu recently.

`Vijaya lipi'

The common script aptly titled, `Vijaya lipi', takes off from the Vijayanagara dynasty, of which Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh were once an integral part. "We had the Vengi Chalukya dialect till the end of the sixteenth century when a few differences crept in leading to the emergence of Telugu and Kannada languages.

With the advent of printing press, the differences in these languages increased. But basically, it is only seven letters that are different from one another in these languages and people knowing one of these languages can easily read the other language's script too," he explained.

The common script proposal dates back to the mid-thirties and was first made by the Hyderabad Karnataka Sahitya Parishat way back in 1937. It has among its proponents the Telugu literary giant and Editor, Golkonda, Suravaram Prathap Reddy, Bhoodan movement crusader, Vinobha Bhave, the former Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, and Vavilala Gopalakrishnaiah. Finally, the proposal took off in 1988 with the former Karnataka Governor Pendekanti Venkatasubbaiah, as Chancellor of Bangalore University, giving the green signal.

Eminent language and epigraphy experts from Bangalore and Mysore universities headed by Prof. Chidananda Murthy and Prof. Tangiralla Subba Rao had worked on the project for more than a year in 1988 and produced the common script to benefit people residing in the Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh border districts. However, for some strange reason it was kept on the backburner for 15 years before seeing the light of the day as the countdown for the conference began.

"Fishing out the documents, I urged the university authorities to publish a book, but to no avail," Prof. Rao said, adding that he then passed on the proposal to MP, D.K. Adikesavulu Naidu, who also funded the research for the project under his Srinivasa Trust.

Ten thousand copies were published by the MP and were to be released by the Chief Ministers of both States on Friday.

Last heard, the organisers were toying with the idea of getting the script released at the valedictory function by the former Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, on December 26.

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