Telugu
The Italian of the East
The biggest Dravidian language, nicknamed for how many of its words end in a vowel.
- Nearly every word ends in a vowel, which is where the old nickname comes from and why it sounds so open.
- It is the most spoken Dravidian language, ahead of Tamil.
- Agglutinative: endings stack onto the stem, and one word can carry a whole clause.
- Its script is a cousin of Kannada's, and the two are close enough that readers of one can decipher the other.
- It has an inclusive and exclusive we: whether the person you are talking to is included is part of the pronoun.
The Italian of the East, they called it: nearly every word ends in a vowel. Eighty million speakers and the fastest growing language in the United States you have never studied. Tollywood out-produces Bollywood some years, Hyderabad is India's tech boomtown, and Telugu speakers are the fastest-growing community in the US.
Where Telugu parts company with the languages closest to it, and what each one would cost you from here.
Reading about a language is not speaking it. These are the places I would go to find someone to speak Telugu with.
The Telugu Passepartout is not out yet
Five printed pages that carry you through the arrival. Leave your address and you hear about it first, and nothing else.
Leaving takes one click.
Short stories written inside a measured vocabulary, with the word lists and nothing invented for a textbook.