obsessed with Bheem's switch from 'bhaiya' to 'anna' when he admits his identity to Ram, actually.
(rip to those who watched it in Hindi, idk how many of these nuances carried over in the dubs and subtitles. but! I had the delight of loving how Telugu's dialects are used in RRR, so figured I'd share some of what I noticed!)
[disclaimer: this is just based off my experience/what I've heard from others, not necessarily, y'know, academically studied.]
Bheem in RRR broadly speaks two different kinds of Telugu - one with his fellow Gonds, and one when he's pretending to be Akhtar. You'll also hear a third style of Telugu used by characters like Raju, Raju's folks, pretty much every non-Gond character actually, and the songs, etc.
The choices about which style of Telugu the film uses at different moments is absolutely delicious to dig into.
For one, when Bheem is speaking to other folks of his tribe, the pronunciations and words he uses are very distinct from the 'standardised' style of Telugu that the other characters primarily use.
(I call it standardised only because that's the form of Telugu taught in formal education. It's not just pronunciations and words that differ between different styles, but even the grammar and verb forms change!)
But when Bheem is pretending to be Akhtar, his language changes completely. What Akhtar speaks is closer to standardised Telugu with heavy Hindi/Urdu influences (words like 'bhaiya', meaning brother, are Hindi additions. In other styles of Telugu, you'd say 'anna'). 'Bhaiya' IS something you hear in some Telugu-speaking regions, plus this is Delhi so there's bound to be Hindi influencing the language. It absolutely makes sense for him to speak that way when he's pretending to live there.
So, Delhiite Akhtar calls Raju "bhaiya" and refers to Seeta as "bhabhi" - both of those are Hindi words. Hindi words that are definitely not used in other forms of Telugu.
And that's why the moment he admits his actual identity to Raju is SO satisfying, because he goes:
[in standardised Telugu] No matter how long we spend together, I always long to spend more time with you, bhaiya. But I need to leave. [beat] [in distinctly Gond style] Anna, I've hidden the truth from you.
Even if you can't make out the difference styles in Telugu, you'll notice that Bheem never calls Raju 'bhaiya' after that point. Because that's not the Gond style, and he's dropped the disguise. Raju is anna now, a very Telugu word.
(also while looking up the line I just noticed this: We see Akhtar through a curtain/veil when he's saying he needs to leave. It's when the camera pans past the curtain and the disguise lifts, that we see Bheem speaking as himself. nice.)
just, the way that scene is done, with the curtain and music in the background and the language/code-switching the moment he drops the disguise is SO satisfyingly done.
And the choices in what style of Telugu is used by whom throughout the film is DELIGHT to explore. I absolutely love this lil detail tbh, the attention paid to language in this film. <3
