Telugu

Telugu, the largest division of the Dravidian race, Southern India [DRAVIDIANS], whose domain comprises the Northern Circars, parts of Mysore and of the Nizam's territmy, and the eastern seaboard generally from about the parallel of Madras to Orissa, with total population (1891) about 29,000,000. They are also numerous in Singapore, Penang, and other parts of Malaysia, where all the Hindu immigrants from India are commonly called Klings, a contracted form of Telinga or Kalinga, as the Telugus are called by their neighbours of Sanskritic speech. They are the "Gentoos." i.e. Gentiles, of the early Portuguese and English writers. Their copious and soft language, the "Italian of the East," has long been cultivated under Hindu influences, and the Telugu translations of the great Sanskrit epic poems date from the 12th century. The Telugu literature is also rich in original works, chiefly poetry, myths, proverbs, and tales. It employs a variety of the Grandonic Alphabet, more fully developed and of rounder form than the Tamil (q.v.). From the fact that Sanskrit writers call the Telugu language Andhra, Indian scholars have identified the Telugu people with Ptolemy's Andrae Indi, dominant in the ancient kingdom of Telingana in Central and East India. (C. P. Brown, Gram. of the Telugu Language.)