Telugu grammar

The first treatise on Telugu grammar (Telugu: వ్యాకరణం vyākaranam), the "Andhra Shabda Chintamani" was written in Sanskrit by Nannayya, who was considered as the first poet and translator of Telugu in the 11th century A.D. After Nannayya, Atharvana and Ahobala composed sutras, vartikas and bhashyam.

In the 19th century, Chinnaya Suri wrote a simplified work on Telugu grammar called Bāla Vyākaranam, borrowing concepts and ideas from Nannayya's Andhra Shabda Chintamani, and wrote his literary work in Telugu.

According to Nannayya, language without 'Niyama' or the language which doesn't adhere to Vyākaranam is called Grāmya or Apabhraṃśa and hence it is unfit for literary usage. All the literary texts in Telugu follows Vyākaranam.

Telugu is more inflected than the other literary Dravidian languages. Telugu nouns are inflected for number (singular, plural), gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and case (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, vocative, instrumental, and locative).

Telugu has three genders:

In Telugu the suffix (–Du) is almost always indicative of masculine gender. For example:

However, there are more masculine nouns that do not end in (-Du). For example:

Some masculine nouns ending in (Du) can be converted to feminine nouns by deleting the (–Du) suffix and adding a suffix (-I).

Some masculine names ending in (Du) can be converted to Feminine names by deleting the (Du) and adding the suffix (rAlu).

In Telugu the suffix (–Mu) or (-Am) or (-u) is almost always indicative of the neuter gender. For example:

However, Telugu sometimes uses the same forms for singular feminine and neuter genders – the third person pronoun (అది /ad̪ɪ/) is used to refer to animals and objects.

Any thing in singular form is singular (ekavachanam). Any things more than one in number are called plural (bahuvachanam).

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