Paniya is one of the Malayalamoid languages spoken in India.
It is spoken by the Paniya people, a scheduled tribe with a majority of its speakers in the state of Kerala.
It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages.
[1] According to the 1981 Census, there were 63,827 speakers of Paniya which includes 56,952 in Kerala, 6,393 in Tamil Nadu, 482 in Karnataka.
[2] Most of its speakers are found in the Wayanad, Kozhikode, Kannur and Malappuram districts of Kerala, and to the west of the Nilgiri Hills in Tamil Nadu.