Telugu language

Telugu belongs to the family of Dravidian languages and is the official language of the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is also one among the 19 official national languages of India. In India, Telugu is the most spoken mother tongue after Hindi. 19th century Englishmen called it the "Italian of the East" as all words in Telugu end with a vowel sound and are often quite melodic to the ear.

Telugu (Telugu)
Spoken in:	India
Region:	Andhra Pradesh and neighboring states
Total speakers:	80 Million
Ranking:	12
Genetic classification:	Dravidian South-central Telugu Telugu
Official status
Official language of:	India
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	te
ISO 639-2:	tel
SIL:	TCW

History

Telugu was initially called Andhra bhasha (the language of Andhra). Andhra was the name of the area consisting of the present coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh. In 1956, 10 Nizam districts and 4 districts of Rayalaseema were merged to Andhra and the collection was called Andhra Pradesh. Prakrut had significant effect on Telugu in earlier ages. But from Nannayya, Sanskrit had major influence on Telugu for the next 500-600 years.

Classification

Telugu is a member of the Telugu languages, along with Chenchu language, Savara language, and Waddar language. The Telugu languages are part of the South-central branch of the Dravidian languages.

Geographic distribution

Telugu is mainly spoken in Andhra Pradesh in India and in neighboring states in India, but it is also spoken in Bahrain, Fiji, Malaysia, Mauritius, United States, Singapore, and United Arab Emirates. Telugu people live almost in all parts of the World.

Official status

Telugu is one of the official languages of India.

Dialects

The dialects of Telugu identified by the Ethnologue are Berad, Dasari, Dommara, Golari, Kamathi, Komtao, Konda-Reddi, Salewari, Telangana, Telugu, Vadaga, Vadari, Srikakula, Vishakapatnam, East Godavari, Rayalseema, Nellore and Guntur.In Tamil Nadu the Telugu dialect is classified into salem, coimbatore, chennai Telugu dialects.

Derived languages

Creoles and other languages that are derived from this language.

Sounds

Vowels

Consonants

Phonology

Historical sound changes

Grammar

In Telugu, Karta (nominative case or the doer), Karma (object of the verb) and Kriya (action or the verb) follow a sequence. Linguists classify Telugu as a Dravidian Language as this pattern is found in other Dravidian languages but not in Sanskrit. Telugu also has the Vibhakthi (or preposition) tradition.

Telugu -	Ramudu bantini kottadu
literally -	Ramudu(Rama) ball hit
Reformatting it -	Ramudu(Rama) hit the ball

Vocabulary

tammudu = younger brother

anna = older brother

bamma = paternal grandmother

ammamma = maternal grandmother

taata = grandfather

Writing system

Telugu is usually written using the Telugu alphabet, a Brahmic script. The Telugu script is phonetic in nature. It has 56 characters in total. Its appearance is quite similar to the Kannada alphabet. It is assigned Unicode codepoints: 0C00-0C7F (3072-3199).

Examples

Literature in Telugu

The Vijayanagara dynasty produced one of the most prolific set of poets during the reign of Sri Krishnadevaraya. Tenali Ramakrishna, Dhoorjati, Allasani Peddanna were Krishnadevaraya's court poets.

Sri Pothuluri Verrabrahmendra Swami (like his western counterpart Nostradamus) composed "Kalagnanam", the records of the past, present, and future.