[Tel. short for rammu.] In addressing intimate friends or very low class persons, this is used as a suffix; thus, emira, endukura, emira, endukura.
In ancient Telugu, when it was under influence of the Kanarese literature the letter ra was used, but it is now obsolete. It is called sakatarephamu, alaghurephamu orbandi ‘ra’ while the ra is called manci ‘ra’ or laghurephamu. The ra is never used in Sanskrit words. It is said to have been pronounced hard, and to have had the force of two ra sounds; so that in rra there are supposed to be four R sounds included, which is absurd on the face of it. According to the ancient spelling taracu means to churn,tarucu thick. pera is a bee hive, pera other, strange.perugu is curd, perugu to curd, perugu to grow. veru means a root, veru different. marugu means to hide, marugu too boil. In modern Telugu the ra is unknown and thus both sets of words are splet alike. The ancient poets distinguished these sounds, never allowing ra to rhyme with ra. Modern Telugu poets such as the translator of the Bhagavata disregard this distinction. In recent years attempts have been made to revive the use of this obsolete letter, but without success.