about telugu

Telugu language

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Telugu
Native to	India; worldwide diaspora
Region	Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Yanam and neighbouring states
Ethnicity	Telugu people
Native speakers	75 million  (2007)[1]
Language family	Dravidian Southern South-Central Telugu languages Telugu
Writing system	Telugu alphabet(Brahmic) Telugu Braille
Official status
Official language in	India
Language codes
ISO 639-1	te
ISO 639-2	tel
ISO 639-3	tel
Distribution of native Telugu speakers in India (as of 1961)
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbolsinstead of Unicode characters.

Telugu /ˈtɛlʉɡuː/^[2] (తెలుగు telugu,IPA: [t̪el̪uɡu]) is a Dravidian languageand is the only language other than Hindi and Bengali that is predominantly spoken in more than one Indian stateincluding Telangana, Andhra Pradesh,Andaman and Nicobar and in the union teritory of Yanam where it is also anofficial language. It is also spoken by significant minorities in the statesChhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra,Odisha, Tamil Nadu, the union territoryPuducherry, and by the Sri Lankan Gypsy people. It is one of six languages designated a classical language of India.^[3][4] Telugu ranks third by the number of native speakers in India(74 million),^[5] thirteenth in the Ethnologue list of most-spoken languages worldwide^[6] and is the most widely spoken Dravidian language. It is one of the twenty-two scheduled languages of the Republic of India.^[7]

Telugu still contains some features ofSanskrit that have subsequently been lost in Sanskrit's daughter languages such as Hindi and Bengali, especially in the pronunciation of some vowels and consonants.^[8]

Etymology