Odia (/əˈdiːə/;[1][11] ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ISO: Oṛiā, pronounced [oˈɽia] ⓘ;[12] formerly rendered as Oriya) is a classical language spoken in the Indian state of Odisha.

It is the official language in Odisha (formerly rendered as Orissa),[13] where native speakers make up 82% of the population,[14] and it is also spoken in parts of West Bengal,[15] Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Oriya, with Bengali, Bihari and Assamese forms one of the four speeches which together make up the eastern group of Indo- Aryan Language.

It has a long array of tenses, but the whole is so logically arranged, and built on so regular a model, that its principles are easily impressed upon the memory.

When an Oriya wishes to express the idea embodied in what in Latin would be called the initiative, he simply takes the appropriate verbal noun and declines it in the case which the meaning necessarily requires.

[38][39] Odia is also spoken in neighbouring states such as Chhattisgarh (913,581), Jharkhand (531,077), Andhra Pradesh (361,471), and West Bengal (162,142), as of 2011 Census.

Similarly, due to increasing worker migration in modern India, the western states Gujarat and Maharashtra also have a significant Odia speaking population.

[40] Additionally, due to economic pursuits, significant numbers of Odia speakers can be found in Indian cities such as Vishakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Pondicherry, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, Goa, Mumbai, Raipur, Jamshedpur, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, New Delhi, Guwahati, Shillong, Pune, Gurgaon, Jammu and Silvassa.

[42][43][page needed][need quotation to verify] It has a significant presence in eastern countries, such as Thailand and Indonesia, mainly brought by the sadhaba, ancient traders from Odisha who carried the language along with the culture during the old-day trading,[44] and in western countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and England.

The language has also spread to Burma, Malaysia, Fiji, Mauritius, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Middle East countries.

[57] Final vowels are pronounced in the standard language, e.g. Odia [pʰulɔ] contrasts Bengali [pʰul] "flower".

[62] Odia retains most of the cases of Sanskrit, though the nominative and vocative have merged (both without a separate marker), as have the accusative and dative.

The curved appearance of the Odia script is a result of the practice of writing on palm leaves, which have a tendency to tear if too many straight lines are used.

[65] Before Sarala Das, the most important works in Odia literature are the Shishu Veda, Saptanga, Amara Kosha, Rudrasudhanidhi, Kesaba Koili, Kalasa Chautisa, etc.

Other poets, like Madhusudana, Bhima Dhibara, Sadasiba and Sisu Iswara Dasa composed another form called kavyas (long poems) based on themes from Puranas, with an emphasis on plain, simple language.

In fact, the language was initially standardised through a process of translating or transcreating classical Sanskrit texts such as the Mahabharata, Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita.

Classical Odia literature is inextricably tied to music, and most of it was written for singing, set to traditional Odissi ragas and talas.

Three great poets and prose writers, Kabibar Radhanath Ray (1849–1908), Fakir Mohan Senapati (1843–1918) and Madhusudan Rao (1853–1912) made Odia their own.

Among the contemporaries of Fakir Mohan, four novelists deserve special mention: Aparna Panda, Mrutyunjay Rath, Ram Chandra Acharya and Brajabandhu Mishra.

Aparna Panda's Kalavati and Brajabandhu Mishra's Basanta Malati were both published in 1902, the year in which Chha Mana Atha Guntha came out in the book form.

20th century writers in Odia include Pallikabi Nanda Kishore Bal, Gangadhar Meher, Chintamani Mahanti and Kuntala Kumari Sabat, besides Niladri Dasa and Gopabandhu Das.

Prabhasa Chandra Satpathi is known for his translations of some western classics apart from Udayanatha Shadangi, Sunanda Kara and Surendranatha Dwivedi.

Poets like Kabibar Radhanath Ray, Sachidananda Routray, Guruprasad Mohanty, Soubhagya Misra, Ramakanta Rath, Sitakanta Mohapatra, Rajendra Kishore Panda, Pratibha Satpathy have made significant contributions towards Indian poetry.