To the South of the Kannada territory, on the West coast of India, live the Tuluvas, speaking Tuḷu (about 800,000). The language has obvious affinities with Kannada (the Tuḷu alphabet is also based on that of Kannada). There is no developed written literature in Tuḷu.

Telugu is the official language of the state of Andhra, but may be heard also beyond Andhra frontiers, in the city of Madras, in Mysore, and in some South East Asian countries. It is spoken by about 40,000,000. The oldest Telugu inscription dates from A.D. 633. The first writer belongs to the 11th Century. Just like the other great literary languages of South India, Telugu has a dichotomy between the written language based on the usage of the kavitraya (the three classical poets of Āndhramahābhārata), Srīnātha and partly Peddana, and a sort of colloquial standard, the dialect of cultured middle class of Central Andhra. There is a number of sharply distinct local and regional dialects, chief among them the dialects of Telangana, Nellore-cum-Chittoor, Viśākhapatnam, Ganjam and Ralayaseema. There is also a distinction between the Brahmin, non-Brahmin and Harijan Telugu speech.

In the Northern part of Andhra live two Dravidian-speaking tribes: the speakers of Kolami (42,000) and Naiki (about 1000). In the district of Bastar (Madhya Pradesh) Parji is spoken by some 20,000 speakers, and in South Bastar, Dorli has been discovered recently. The Korapuṭ district of Orissa has yielded a number of non-literary Dravidian languages: nearly 6000 people speak Konda, in Korapuṭ and the adjacent parts of Andhra some 2000 Gadbas speak two closely related dialects, Ollari and Poya in Salur). Savara and Koya are also spoken in Korapuṭ. The Khond tribes of Orissa (some 600,000 people) speak the two closely related languages of Kui and Kuvi. On the vast territories of Madhya Pradesh and in some adjoining districts many groups of Gonds (nearly 2,000,000 of people) speak a number of dialects of Gondi, some of them only badly recorded and inadequately described.

Still more to the North, in the districts of Bihar, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, we meet with the speakers of Kurukh (Oraon), about 650 thousand in number, and near the borders of Bihar and West Bengal, 24,000 people speak Malto, closely relatedly to Kurukh.

The only Dravidian language spoken entirely outside India is Brahui. Out of the 225,000 Brahuis inhabiting the Qalat, Hairpur and Hyderabad districts of West Pakistan, only about 200,000 speak Brahui as their mother tongue. Brahui has undergone profound changes owing to Iranian and Indo-Aryan influences. According to unconfirmed reports, yet 40,000 Brahuis have recently been discovered in South Afghanistan.

The Dravidian languages, with about 120,000,000 of speakers, con-