[14] Telugu is also spoken in the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and the union territories of Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

It is also spoken by members of the Telugu diaspora spread across countries like United States, Australia, Malaysia, Mauritius, UAE, Saudi Arabia and others.

[19][20] The earliest Telugu words appear in Prakrit inscriptions dating to c. 4th century BCE, found in Bhattiprolu, Andhra Pradesh.

[35][36] Avadhānaṃ, a literary performance that requires immense memory power and an in-depth knowledge of literature and prosody, originated and was specially cultivated among Telugu poets for over five centuries.

[46] Over the centuries, many non-Telugu speakers have praised the natural musicality of Telugu speech, referring to it as a mellifluous and euphonious language.

[60] George Abraham Grierson and other linguists doubt this derivation, holding rather that Telugu was the older term and Trilinga must be the later Sanskritisation of it.

[64][65] Comparative linguistics confirms that Telugu belongs to the South Dravidian-II (also called South-Central Dravidian) sub-group, which also includes the non-literary languages like Gondi, Kuvi, Koya, Pengo, Konda and Manda.

[85] Several Telugu words, primarily personal and place names, were identified at Amaravati, Nagarjunakonda, Krishna river basin, Ballari, Eluru, Ongole and Nellore between 200 BCE and 500 CE.

The first long inscription entirely in Telugu, dated to 575 CE, is attributed to the Renati Choda king Dhanunjaya and found in the Kadapa district.

Initially, Telugu literature appeared in inscriptions and poetry in the courts of rulers, and later in written works, such as Nannayya's Andhra Mahabharatam (1022 CE).

[104] In the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, the influence of the English language was seen, and modern communication/printing press arose as an effect of British rule, especially in the areas that were part of the Madras Presidency.

[104] In the princely Hyderabad State, the Andhra Mahasabha was started in 1921 with the main goal of promoting Telugu language, literature, its books and historical research.

[108] Since the 1930s, what was considered an "elite" literary form of the Telugu language has now spread to the common people with the introduction of mass media like movies, television, radio and newspapers.

Telugu speakers are also found in the neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, some parts of Jharkhand, and the Kharagpur region of West Bengal in India.

Many Telugu immigrants are also found in the states of Gujarat, Goa, Bihar, Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan.

Examples that use this nomenclature are Nellore, Tadepalligudem, Guntur, Chintalapudi, Yerpedu, Narasaraopeta, Sattenapalle, Visakapatnam, Vizianagaram, Ananthagiri, Vijayawada, Vuyyuru, Macherla, Poranki, Ramagundam, Warangal, Mancherial, Peddapalli, Siddipet, Pithapuram, Banswada, and Miryalaguda.

[153] Other dialects of Telugu are Berad, Dasari, Dommara, Golari, Kamathi, Komtao, Konda-Reddi, Salewari, Vadaga, Srikakula, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, Rayalaseema, Nellore, Guntur, Vadari Bangalore, and Yanadi.

This grammar followed patterns described in grammatical treatises such as Aṣṭādhyāyī and Vālmīkivyākaranam, but unlike Pāṇini, Nannayya divided his work into five chapters, covering samjnā, sandhi, ajanta, halanta and kriya.

[164] As with other Dravidian languages, gender in Telugu follows a semantic system,[165] in the sense that it is mostly the meaning of the word which defines the noun class to which it belongs.

[156] annaolder.brotherwaccāḍucome-past-MASCanna waccāḍuolder.brother come-past-MASCThe older brother cameammamotherwacc-indicome-past-FEMamma wacc-indimother come-past-FEMMother cameIn terms of the verbal agreement system, genders in marking on the Telugu verb only occur in the third person.

"Vibhakti" (case of a noun) and "pratyāyamulu" (an affix to roots and words forming derivatives and inflections) depict the ancient nature and progression of the language.

[178] Telugu has full-zero ("anusvāra" or "sunna" ) ( ం ), half-zero ("arthanusvāra" or "candrabindu" or "ara-sunna" ) (ఁ) and visarga ( ః ) to convey various shades of nasal sounds.

[179] Amarāvati Stupa is a ruined Buddhist stūpa at the village of Amaravathi, Palnadu district, Andhra Pradesh, India, probably built in phases between the third century BCE and about 250 CE.

[citation needed] In the earliest period Telugu literature existed in the form of inscriptions, precisely from 575 CE onward.

This grammar followed the patterns which existed in grammatical treatises like Aṣṭādhyāyī and Vālmīkivyākaranam but unlike Pāṇini, Nannayya divided his work into five chapters, covering samjnā, sandhi, ajanta, halanta and kriya.

[citation needed] Gona Budda Reddy: His Ranganatha Ramayanam was a pioneering work in the Telugu language on the theme of the Ramayana epic.

[citation needed] Viswanatha Satyanarayana won India's national literary honour, the Jnanpith Award for his magnum opus Ramayana Kalpavrukshamu.

Ravuri Bharadhwaja won the third Jnanpith Award for Telugu literature in 2013 for Paakudu Raallu, a graphic account of life behind the screen in film industry.

Other modern Telugu novelists include Unnava Lakshminarayana (Maalapalli), Bulusu Venkateswarulu (Bharatiya Tatva Sastram), Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao and Buchi Babu.

Subsequently, various browsers, computer applications, operating systems, and user interfaces were localised in Telugu language for Windows and Linux platforms by vendors and free and open-source software volunteers.