తెలుగు భారత దేశము లోని దక్షిణ ప్రాంతములోని ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్ రాష్ట్ర అధికార భాష. భారత దేశం లో తెలుగు మాట్లాడే 7.4 కోట్ల (2000 సంవత్సరపు లెక్కలు) జనాభాతో ప్రాంతీయ భాషలలో మొదటి స్థానం లోవుంది. ప్రపంచంలోని ప్రజలు అత్యధికముగా మాట్లాడే భాషలలో పదమూడవ స్థానములోనూ, భారత దేశములో జాతీయ భాషయిన హిందీ తర్వాత రెండవ స్థానములోను నిలుస్తుంది. 1997 లెక్కల ప్రకారం ప్రపంచవ్యాప్తంగా 6.97 కోట్లు మందికి పైగా మొదటి భాషగా మాట్లాడతారు. అతి ప్రాచీన దేశ భాషలలో సంస్కృతము, తమిళముల తో బాటు తెలుగు భాషను అక్టోబరు 31, 2008న భారత ప్రభుత్వము చేర్చింది.

Telugu (తెలుగు telugu, IPA: [t̪eluɡu]) is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu, and is spoken in the bordering city of Yanam, in the neighboring territory of Pondicherry.Telugu as a language has a lot of (70% according to some estimates) words borrowed from Sanskrit,this has lead to a heated debate in linguist circles where a few bat for its origin from Sanskrit and Prakrit while many others vote for its Dravidian roots. According to the 2011 Census of India, Telugu is the language with the third largest number of native speakers in India (84 million), thirteenth in the Ethnologue list of most-spoken languages worldwide, and most spoken Dravidian language. It is one of the twenty-two scheduled languages of the Republic of India[3] and one of the four classical languages.

Spoken In : Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Madhya Pradesh.

Native Speakers: 84 million (2012 census

Language family: Dravidian > South-Central > Telugu languages > Telugu

Writing system: Telugu script.

Official language in: Andhra Pradesh.

Regulated by: No official regulation

Language codes: te (ISO 639-1), tel (ISO 639-2, ISO 639-3)

Telugu was heavily influenced by Sanskrit[6] and Prakrit. Telugu borrowed several features of Sanskrit that have subsequently been lost in Sanskrit's daughter languages such as Hindi and Bengali, especially in the pronunciation of some vowels and consonants.

References :
• Government: National Portal of India : india.gov.in
• Government of Andhra Pradesh : www.aponline.gov.in
• Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) : http://tdil.mit.gov.in/
• Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_language
• Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2000, Census of India, 2001.
• Ancient History of Andhras By Marepalli Ramachandra Sastry
• "Declaration of Telugu and Kannada as classical languages"
• "Telugu gets classical status". Times of India. 2008-10-01. Retrieved 2008-11-01
• Ethnologue report for Telugu
• Hints and resources for learning Telugu
• Wilkinson, Robert W. (1974). "Tense/lax vowel harmony in Telugu: The influence of derived contrast on rule application". Linguistic Inquiry 5 (2): 251–270
• bert Henry Arden, A Progressive Grammar of the Telugu Language (1873).