TELUGU is the language of Telingana, and the 17,000,358 people speaking it are partly subject to the British power, and partly to the Hyderabad State. The boundary line of this language may be roughly drawn from immediately north of Madras, where it meeta the Tamil, by Kirkambari and Cuddapalt to Bellary, where it meets the Cauarese, skirting which it rune to the west of Beder to Dangapura and Murkunda ; then, turning north and ea.stward and having Gondwana as ita northern boundary, it rejoins the line near Vizagapatam, and at Chicacole it begins to meet Uriya. The most westerly spot at which it is spoken is the small town of 3Inr kunda, about 30 miles weat of Beder, and it reaches this by a wavy line running wegterly from Sedashepet (Satyassi) on through Sungnam and Beder and Dungapura to Murghpetta or Murkunda; the villages in the whole of the line from Sedashepet to 3furkuntla, speak Telugu, Canarese, and Malirati, and are called Si bliasha basti, three - tongue towns. In ancient times, Telugu seems to have been spoken as far north as the mouths of the Ganges. This appears both from the geographical limits which the Greeks have assigned to the territory of the Andhra race, or Northern Telugu people, and from many of the names and places mentioned by Ptolemy up to that delta being found to be Telugu. Even now the Teling are tolerably pure along the southern boundary of Buatar, but Goud tribes are dwelling amongst them. Telugu is also called Telegu. Telinga, and Telunga, and its meaning is doubtful. It is the Andhra of Sanskrit writers, a name mentioned by the Greek geographers as that of a nation dwelling on or near the Ganges. It is the same language which, until lately, Europeans termed the Gentoo, from a Portuguese word signifying heathen or gentile. In respect to antiquity of culture and glossarial copiousness, it ranks next to the Tamil in the list of Dravidian idioms, but it surpasses all of them in euphonic sweetness. See Telinga.
The Telugu people are a taller and a fairer race than the Tamilar, many of the more northern of them being equal in stature to the Aryan Hindu of the north. They are more Brahmanical than the Tamilian races, and are as bold and energetic as the latter, though less restless.
The Telugn people are the most numerous branch of the Dravidizut race, although the Tamil surpass them in restlessness and enterprise, and in that self-reliance which supports them in their emigrations. Including the Naik or Naidu (Nayaka), Reddi, and other Telugu tribes settled in the Tamil country', who are chiefly the descend ants of those soldiers of fortune by whom the Pandiya and Chola kingdoms were subverted, and who number not less than a million of souls, and including also the Telugu settlers in Mysore, and the Telugu inhabitants of the Nizam's terri tory and other native states, the people who speak the Telugu languagu are ascertained (1881) to amount to seventeen millions. Tamil
and Telugu roots are in the great majority the same, but peculiarities in inflection and dialectic changes have so modified the modern tongues, that they differ from each other 118 much as Portuguese from Spanish, Irish from Welsh, Hebrew from Aramaic, and Hindi front Bengali.
The Teling race are good farmers, carefully storing the rainfall in artificial ponds or lakes. They have been good infantry soldiers, but are not horsemen • they repeatedly drove back' the Golconda and' Beder .armief3. A considerable portion of the force with which Lord Clive fought the battle of Plassey was composed of Telings, and, until late years, perhaps even now, Teling was the term given in Northern India to the irregular foot soldiers employed there. Those engaged in civil life push their way fearlessly aroongst the other nations on their south and west ; many of them are seafaring men, under taking long voyages, and a portion of them in former ages conquered and held large islands in the Eastern Archipelago, where, under the term Kling, from the Kalingapatam rulers, the peoples of India are still known. The Telings are partly Aryan, partly a non-Aryan people, but most of them follow outwardly the Brahmanical teachings,-thongh adhering to many unorthodox rites ; they are sober and staid, little impression able, and not easily excited. A body of them, known as Reddi, a very energetic, enterprising race, have held large municipal rights for cen turies. An extensive colonization of Southern India, by the Teling race, took place under the Bijanagar dynasty, and they still exist there as distinct communities. The Reddi migrated from their original seats near Rajamundry over the whole of Southern India, and even into the Maharashtra country, where they stre met with as far north-west as Poona, and are considered the most thriving ryots. The Reddi are large men, good cultivators. Many of those in the Cuddapah collectorate were, till A.D. 1865, addicted to dacoity. In their marriages, in the south of India, a young woman of 16 or 20 may be married to a boy 5 or 6 years old, but she lives with some other adult male, perhaps a maternal uncle or cousin, or it may be with the boy-husband's father, i.e. her father-in-law, though she is not allowed to form connection with the father's other relatives. The offspring of these mange ments are fathered on the boy-husband. When he grows up, the wife has become old or past child-bearing, and he adopts the same course.