Telugu script (), an

abugida An abugida (; from Geʽez: , )sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabetis a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit ...

from the

Brahmic family The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India and are used b ...

of scripts, is used to write the

Telugu language Telugu (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language native to the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. Spoken by about 96 million people (2022), Telugu is the most widely spoken member of ...

, a Dravidian language spoken in the

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n states of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

and

Telangana Telangana is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated in the Southern India, south-central part of the Indian subcontinent on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ele ...

as well as several other neighbouring states. It is one of the

official scripts of the Indian Republic There are several official scripts of India, which are either used officially by the Union government or by the state governments. The official languages of the Indian Union are Hindi and English, whereas the Devanagari script is used to write Hin ...

. The Telugu script is also widely used for writing

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

texts and to some extent the

Gondi language Gondi (, ), natively known as Koitur (Kōī, Kōītōr, ), is a South-Central Dravidian language, spoken by about three million Gondi people, chiefly in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana ...

. It gained prominence during the

Eastern Chalukyas Eastern Chalukyas, also known as the Chalukyas of Vengi, were a dynasty that ruled parts of South India between the 7th and 12th centuries. They started out as governors of the Chalukyas of Badami in the Deccan region. Subsequently, they bec ...

also known as Vengi Chalukya era. It also shares extensive similarities with the

Kannada script The Kannada script ( IAST: ''Kannaḍa lipi''; obsolete: Kanarese or Canarese script in English) is an abugida of the Brahmic family, used to write Kannada, one of the Dravidian languages of South India especially in the state of Karnataka. I ...

History

The

Brahmi script Brahmi ( ; ; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system from ancient India. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as ...

used by

Mauryan The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in South Asia with its power base in Magadha. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya around c. 320 BCE, it existed in loose-knit fashion until 185 BCE. The primary sourc ...

kings eventually reached the

Krishna River The Krishna River in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau is the third-longest in India, after the Ganga, Ganga and Godavari. It is also the fourth-largest in terms of water inflows and river basin area in India, after the Ganga, Indus and Godav ...

delta and would give rise to the Bhattiprolu script found on an urn purported to contain Lord

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...

's relics.

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

spread to

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

from the nearby ports of Ghantasala and

Masulipatnam Machilipatnam (), also known as Masulipatnam and Bandar (), is a city in Krishna district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is a municipal corporation and the administrative headquarters of Krishna district. It is also the mandal headqua ...

(ancient Maisolos of

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

and Masalia of

Periplus A periplus (), or periplous, is a manuscript document that lists the ports and coastal landmarks, in order and with approximate intervening distances, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore. In that sense, the periplus wa ...

). Kadamba script developed by the Kadamba dynasty was derived from the

and later evolved into the Telugu-Kannada script after the 7th century.The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems by Florian Coulmas, p. 228Handbook of Literacy in Akshara Orthography, R. Malatesha Joshi, Catherine McBride (2019), p. 29 The Telugu and Kannada scripts then separated by around 1300 CE.Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in the Indo-Aryan Languages, by Richard Solomon, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 35, 40–41, The Muslim historian and scholar

Al-Biruni Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (; ; 973after 1050), known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously "Father of Comparative Religion", "Father of modern ...

referred to both the Telugu language as well as its script as "Andhri".

Vowels

Telugu uses sixteen

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

s, each of which has both an independent form and a

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

form used with

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

to create

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

s. The language makes a distinction between short and long vowels. The independent form is used when the vowel occurs at the beginning of a word or syllable, or is a complete syllable in itself (example: a, u, o). The diacritic form is added to consonants (represented by the dotted circle) to form a consonant-vowel syllable (example: ka, kr̥, mo). does not have a diacritic form, because this vowel is already inherent in all of the consonants. The other diacritic vowels are added to consonants to change their pronunciation to that of the vowel. Examples:

Consonants

The consonants and their combining forms (on the right) are provided below. Subscript letters are used in consonant clusters and geminate consonants.

Marginal and archaic consonants

* Additionally there are ౘ (ĉa) and ౙ (ẑa) for /t͡sa, d͡za/ which are rarely used, letters for are commonly used instead. They are referred in Telugu as dantya ca and dantya ja respectively. During the last century, ఱ (ṟa) known as banḍi ra in Telugu has been dropped. This letter is referred to as banḍi ra as opposed to ర (ra) which is referred to as repha. The letter for a voiced alveolar plosive is found in some inscriptions, it is thought to have been distinguished from the trill ఱ (ṟa) intervocalically rarely; its mostly found after a nasal as in మూన్ౚు (mūnḏu).

Other diacritics

There are also several other diacritics used in the Telugu script. ్ mutes the vowel of a consonant, so that only the consonant is pronounced. ం represents a corresponding class nasal sound when followed by a consonant from that class (i.e., the last column of the corresponding consonant row for the first five rows of the consonants table); when not followed by anything or by a consonant from the first five rows of the consonant table, it represents a true nasal sound. ఁ represents a historically used that is no longer pronounced, or a nasalized vowel when transliterating other languages (e.g., Hindi) into the Telugu script. ః adds a voiceless breath after the vowel or syllable it is attached to. Examples:

Marginal and archaic diacritics and signs

*: Telugu nuqta *: Telugu avagraha *: Nakara pollu *: The combining candrabindu nasal vowel diacritic of the Telugu script *: Combining anusvara above *: Siddham sign *: Tuumu sign

Places of articulation

There are five classifications of passive articulations: : Kaṇṭhya:

Velar Velar may refer to: * Velar consonant Velar consonants are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (also known as the "velum"). Since the velar region ...

: Tālavya:

Palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sepa ...

: Mūrdhanya:

Retroflex A retroflex () or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consona ...

: Dantya: Dental : Ōshtya: Labial Apart from that, other places are combinations of the above five: : Dantōsthya:

Labio-dental In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants Place of articulation, articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth, such as and . In English, labiodentalized /s/, /z/ and /r/ are characteristic of some individuals; these may be written . Labio ...

(E.g.: v) : Kantatālavya: E.g.:

Diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

e : Kantōsthya: labial-velar (E.g.: Diphthong o) There are three places of active articulation: : Jihvāmūlam: tongue root, for

velar Velar may refer to: * Velar consonant Velar consonants are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (also known as the "velum"). Since the velar region ...

: Jihvāmadhyam: tongue body, for

palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sepa ...

: Jihvāgram: tip of tongue, for cerebral and dental : :

lower lip The lips are a horizontal pair of soft appendages attached to the jaws and are the most visible part of the mouth of many animals, including humans. Mammal lips are soft, movable and serve to facilitate the ingestion of food (e.g. sucklin ...

, for labial The attempt of articulation of consonants (Uccāraṇa Prayatnam) is of two types, : Bāhya Prayatnam: External effort :: Spṛṣṭa:

Plosive In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...

:: Īshat Spṛṣṭa:

Approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do prod ...

:: Īshat Saṃvṛta:

Fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...

: Abhyantara Prayatnam: Internal effort :: Alpaprānam:

Unaspirated In phonetics, aspiration is a strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with thei ...

:: Mahāprānam: Aspirated :: Śvāsa:

Unvoiced In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies vo ...

:: Nādam:

Voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refe ...

Articulation of consonants

Articulation of consonants is the logical combination of components in the two prayatnams. The below table gives a view upon articulation of consonants. The Telugu script has generally regular conjuncts, with trailing consonants taking a subjoined form, often losing the talakattu (the v-shaped headstroke). The following table shows all two-consonant conjuncts and one three-consonant conjunct, but individual conjuncts may differ between fonts. These are referred in Telugu as vattulu (వత్తులు).

Consonants with vowel diacritics

The consonants with vowel diacritics are referred to in the Telugu language as guṇintālu (). The word ''Guṇita'' refers to 'multiplying oneself'. Therefore, each consonant sound can be multiplied with vowel sounds to produce vowel diacritics. The vowel diacritics along with their symbols and names are given below. The following table contains the consonants with vowel diacritics in the Telugu language.

Numerals

NOTE: , , and are used also for , , , , etc. and , , and are also used for , , , , etc.

Unicode

Telugu script was added to the

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

Standard in October, 1991 with the release of version 1.0. The Unicode block for Telugu is U+0C00–U+0C7F: In contrast to a syllabic script such as

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

, where one Unicode

code point A code point, codepoint or code position is a particular position in a Table (database), table, where the position has been assigned a meaning. The table may be one dimensional (a column), two dimensional (like cells in a spreadsheet), three dime ...

represents the

glyph A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...

for one syllable, Telugu combines multiple

s to generate the glyph for one syllable, using complex font rendering rules.

iOS character crash bug

On February 12, 2018, a bug in the

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

operating system was reported that caused iOS devices to crash if a particular Telugu character was displayed. The character is a combination of the characters "జ", "్", "ఞ", "ా" and The Zero-Width Non-Joiner character which looks combined like this "జ్ఞా". Apple confirmed a fix for iOS 11.3 and macOS 10.13.4.

Notes

References

External links

Ethnologue Languages of the World - Telugu

Microsoft - Telugu Input tool

OLAC resources in and about the Telugu language

Telugu to English DictionaryTelugu Alphabets
{{DEFAULTSORT:Telugu Alphabet Brahmic scripts Abugida writing systems