Teluga

Teluga

Introduction

History
The origins of Telugu are obscure. The oldest Telugu inscription is from 633 AD, and the literature begins with an 11th-century translation of the Sanskrit classic Mahabharata. Until the second half of the 20th century, Telugu was written in a classical style that was very different from the spoken Language, much like other classical languages such as Latin and Sanskrit. During the second half of the 20th century, a new written standard emerged based on modern spoken Telugu.

Telugu is the official language of the state of Andhra Pradesh in southeastern India where it is spoken by close to 70 million people. It is also spoken in Bahrain, Fiji, Malaysia, Mauritius, United States, Singapore, United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. The Telugu-speaking population of the world, including second languages speakers, is estimated to be around 75 million people (Ethnologue).

Telugu is one of the official languages of India.

Structure

Sound System

Telugu Woman

All words in Telugu end in a vowel.

Click here to listen to Voyager's greeting from Earth in Telugu.

Grammar

Men praying

Telugu is an agglutinative language with a grammar that is very similar to that of Tamil.

Vocabulary

Telugu Temple

Telugu has borrowed a significant number of words from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and most recently from English.

Writing

Telugu is written using the Telugu alphabet, a Brahmic script. Its appearance is quite similar to the Kannada alphabet, its closest cousin. It is a syllabic alphabet in which all consonants have an inherent vowel. The vowel can be modified or suppressed by the use of diacritics.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Telugu

Click here to learn more about the Telugu alphabet.

Listen to literary readings in Telugu

Lalita Kumari (1950- ) is a well known Telugu writer. She was born in Guntur, one of the big towns and educational centers in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
Click here to listen to her read excerpts from four of her works.

Nagabhairava Koteswara Rao ( 1931- ) a Telugu poet, was born in 1931 in a small village of Prakasam District in Andhra Pradesh.
Click here to listen to him read excerpts from five of his works.

Resources

Telugu Language Study Resources
UCLA Language Materials Project
Less Commonly Taught Languages Course Offerings
Yamada Language Center Guides
Languages on the Web - Telugu
Let's Learn Telugu (online Telugu lessons)
Online English-Telugu-English dictionary
Dravidian Dictionaries

How difficult is it to learn Telugu?
Since these languages are not taught at the Foreign Service Institute, they are not categorized for difficulty

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