Older forms of the name include Teluṅgu, Tenuṅgu and Teliṅga. Speakers of Telugu refer to it as simply Telugu or Telugoo.

12.4 Nannaya Bhattarakudu or Adi Kavi (1022–1063 CE)Ĭlass=notpageimage| Locations of Trilinga Kshetras.12.1 The Pre-Nannayya Period (before 1020 CE).2.5 Delhi Sultanate and Mughal influence.Roughly 10,000 pre-colonial inscriptions exist in the Telugu language. It is also the fastest-growing language in the United States, where there is a large Telugu-speaking community. It is the most widely spoken member of the Dravidian language family and one of the twenty-two scheduled languages of the Republic of India. With nearly 81 million speakers as per the 2011 census, Telugu is the fourth most used language in India and 15th in the Ethnologue list of languages by number of native speakers. It is one of six languages designated as classical language (of India) by the government of India.

Telugu is also a linguistic minority in the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Gujarat and Kerala and the union territories of Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

It is the most spoken Dravidian language and one of the few languages that has primary official status in more than one Indian state, alongside Hindi and Bengali. Telugu ( / ˈ t ɛ l ʊ ɡ uː/ తెలుగు, Telugu pronunciation: ) is a Dravidian language spoken by Telugu people predominantly living in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language.

The noun project back