Telugu Talli
Telugu Talli ( తెలుగు తల్లి ) is the personification of the Telugu language spoken in southeast India .
Probably the first representation of Telugu in personified form can be found in an illustration in the magazine Andhra Patrika from 1913. Here she appears as a woman dressed in a sari standing on a section of the map of Southeast India. There she is still referred to as Andhra Mata ("Mother Andhra"). At the time the illustration appeared, a movement was forming calling for the Telugu-speaking areas to be removed from the then Madras presidency . In 1953 the state of Andhra was finally founded , which in 1956 was united with the Telangana region, which also speaks Telugu, to form the state of Andhra Pradesh .
After the establishment of the state, Telugu Talli became an important symbol of Andhra Pradesh. The song Ma Telugu Talliki Mallepu Danda ("a jasmine wreath for our mother Telugu"), originally composed as a film song for the Telugu film Deena Bandhu (1942), was accepted as the state anthem . Statues of the Telugu Talli have been erected in numerous cities in Andhra Pradesh. In a particularly prominent place there is a 3.5 meter high statue of Telugu Talli in Hyderabad opposite the government building. It was unveiled in 2002 and replaced a Telugu Talli statue erected in the 1980s during NT Rama Rao's reign . The latter had been irreparably damaged in 1999 when attempts were made to reposition it to make way for an elevated road (known as the Telugu Talli Flyover ) under construction . After the unveiling of the new statue, controversy arose because the inscription on the base of the statue was in English . A little later it was replaced by an inscription on Telugu.
In the Telangana region, the Telugu language movement could never achieve the same level of impact as in the coastal region of Andhra Pradesh. Instead, many residents of Telangana felt disadvantaged compared to the economically stronger coastal region and called for Telangana to be separated from Andhra Pradesh. After prolonged agitation, the independent state of Telangana was finally founded in 2014. In the context of the Telanga movement, the figure of Telangana Talli ("Mother Telangana") was created as an alternative to Telugu Talli.
A figure similar to Telugu Talli is Tamil Tay , the personification of the Tamil language .
literature
- Lisa Mitchell: Language, Emotion, and Politics in South India. The Making of a Mother Tongue. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. pp. 91-96