Telugu is a Dravidian language that belongs to the Southern branch of the Indo-Aryan language family. About 36 million people speak it in southern India, and Telugu is also the official language of Andhra Pradesh. Telugu is thought to have originated in the Telugu-Kannada region about 1500 years ago. Over time, it spread to other parts of southern India. Telugu is also spoken in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. Telugu is a tonal language, which means that the tones of a sentence can differ depending on the words being spoken.