Telugu literature 1

Telugu literature or Telugu Sahityam (Telugu: తెలుగు సాహిత్యం) is the body of works written in the Telugu language. It consists of poems, novels, short stories, dramas and puranas. 

Telugu literature has a rich and long literary tradition, that can be traced back to the early 11th century period when Mahabharatawas first translated to Telugu from Sanskrit by Nannaya.

 It flourished under the rule of the Vijayanagar empire, where Telugu was one of the languages spoken in the royal courts.

Telugu split from Proto-Dravidian between 1500-1000 BC. So, Telugu became a distinct language by the time any literary activity began to appear in the Tamil land, along with Parji, Kolami, Nayaki and Gadaba languages.[1]

 Even though it still retains some of the primitive Dravidian characters, it is heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Prakrit.[2]

Apparently Andhras adopted a form of Prakrit which, in course of development, became the immediate ancestor of Telugu literature.[3] Literary texts in Telugu may be lexically Sanskrit or Sanskritized to an enormous extent, perhaps seventy percent or more[4] and every Telugu grammatical rule is laboriously deduced from a Sanskrit canon.[5] 

Prakrit and Telugu alphabet are similar and exhibit one on one correspondence.[6]