Dravidian language spoken by more than 66 million people in South India and in immigrant communities elsewhere.
It is the official language of the state of Andhra Pradesh . The earliest inscription entirely in Telugu is from the 6th century; literary texts begin in the 11th century. The Telugu script, derived from the writing of the Calukya dynasty , is closely akin to Kannada script (see Indic writing systems ). Like other major Dravidian languages, Telugu has very marked distinctions between formal or literary and colloquial registers and between social dialects.