Koya is a South-Central Dravidian language of the Gondi– Kui group spoken in central and southern India. It is the native language of the Koya people. It is sometimes described as a

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

of Gondi, but it is mutually unintelligible with Gondi dialects. Koya is the language spoken by the tribal community in Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), Rampachodavaram,

East Godavari East Godavari is a district in the Coastal Andhra region of Andhra Pradesh, India. Its district headquarters is at Rajahmundry. As of census 2011, it became the most populous district of the state with a population of 5,151,549. In the Madras Pre ...

district ; ITDA, Kotaramachandrapuram, West Godavari district; ITDA,

Bhadrachalam Bhadrachalam is a census town in Bhadradri Kothagudem district in the Indian state of Telangana. It is an important Hindu pilgrimage town with the Bhadrachalam Temple of Lord Rama, situated on the banks of Godavari river. It is located east o ...

Khammam district Khammam district is a district in the eastern region of the Indian state of Telangana. The city of Khammam is the district headquarters. The district shares boundaries with Suryapet, Mahabubabad, Bhadradri districts and with Eluru and NTR dis ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. The Koyas also live in the southernmost part of

Sukma Sukma is a town in Sukma district in Chhattisgarh, India. Geography It is located at at an elevation of 210 m above MSL.http://www.fallingrain.com/world/IN/37/Sukma.html Map and weather of Sukma Location Sukma is connected to Jagdalpur by ...

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (, ) is a landlocked state in Central India. It is the ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the seventeenth most populous. It borders seven states – Uttar Pradesh to the north, Madhya Prad ...

and

Malkangiri Malkangiri historically known as 'Malikamardhangiri' is a town and a Municipality in Malkangiri district in the Indian state of Odisha. It is the headquarters of the Malkangiri district. Malkangiri is the new home of the East Pakistani refugee ...

, the southwesternmost district of

Odisha Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...

. Koya is variously written in the Oriya,

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode ...

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

script.

Sathupati Prasanna Sree Sathupati Prasanna Sree (born 2 September 1964) is an Indian linguist. Career Sree is Professor of English and Chairperson of the Board of Studies at Andhra University. Throughout her career Sree has worked in preserving minority tribal langua ...

has also developed a unique script for use with the Koya language. With 270,994 registered native speakers, it figures at rank 37 in the 1991

Indian census The decennial Census of India has been conducted 16 times, as of 2021. While it has been undertaken every 10 years, beginning in 1872 under British Viceroy Lord Mayo, the first complete census was taken in 1881. Post 1949, it has been conducted by ...

. There are textbooks developed in Koya language under Mother Tongue based Multilingual Education Programme by Government of Andhra Pradesh and implemented in 50 primary schools in Koya habitations.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koya Language Agglutinative languages Dravidian languages Subject–object–verb languages