The Kannada–Telugu script (or Telugu–kannada script) was a writing system used in

Southern India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the States and union territories of India, Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and T ...

. Despite some differences, the scripts used for the

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

and

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 S ...

languages remain quite similar and highly mutually intelligible.

History

The Dravidian family comprises about 73 languages including Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam.

Satavahanas The Satavahanas (''Sādavāhana'' or ''Sātavāhana'', International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ), also referred to as the Andhras in the Puranas, were an ancient Indian dynasty based in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan region. Mos ...

introduced the Brahmi to present-day Telugu and Kannada speaking regions.

Bhattiprolu script The Bhattiprolu script is a variant of the Brahmi script which has been found in old inscriptions at Bhattiprolu, a small village in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, South India. It is located in the fertile Krishna river delta and the estuary ...

introduced by the Satavahanas gave rise to the Kadamba script. During the 5th to 7th centuries the early Bādāmi Chālukyās and Early Banavasi Kadambās used an early form of the Kannada script in inscriptions, called the

Kadamba script The Kadamba script is the first writing system devised specifically for writing Kannada and Telugu. It is a descendant of the Brahmi script. The Kadamba script is also known as ''Pre-Old-Kannada script''. The Kadamba script is one of the oldes ...

. The Kadamba script evolved into the Kannada script. When Chalukya empire extended towards Telugu speaking regions they establihed another branch in Vengi, namely the Eastern Chalukyas or the

Chalukyas of Vengi Eastern Chalukyas, also known as the Chalukyas of Vengi, were a dynasty that ruled parts of South India between the 7th and 12th centuries. They started out as governors of the Chalukyas of Badami in the Deccan region. Subsequently, they became ...

who later introduced Kannada script to Telugu language which devloped Kannada-Telugu script. which was used between the 7th and 11th centuries CE. Kannada became a written language ahead of Telugu. Kannada produced many poetries during the eighth century under

Chalukyas The Chalukya dynasty () was a Classical Indian dynasty that ruled large parts of southern and central India between the 6th and the 12th centuries. During this period, they ruled as three related yet individual dynasties. The earliest dynas ...

. Full-fledged literary works in Kannada appeared in the ninth century, two centuries later they became available in Telugu. The earliest known Telugu inscriptions date to the 6th century CE. Telugu poetry began to appear in the 11th century. Telugu writers waited until the 11th century because of socio-political factors (royal patronage, the influence of Buddhism and Jainism). Between 1100 CE and 1400 CE the

and

Telugu script Telugu script ( te, తెలుగు లిపి, Telugu lipi), an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write the Telugu language, a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as well a ...

s separated from the Kannada-Telugu script. Satavahanas and

influenced the similarities between Kannada and Telugu scripts.

Comparison

The following sections visualize the difference between modern-day

and

styles.

Consonants

There is another legacy consonant ೞ/ఴ (ḻa) used to represent , but currently not in use.

Vowels

Independent vowels

Numerals

Unicode

Although the alphabets for Kannada and Telugu languages could have been encoded under a single Unicode block with language-specific fonts to differentiate the styles, they were encoded separately by the governments due to socio-political reasons. Both the script variants were added to the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

Standard in October, 1991 with the release of version 1.0.

External links

Evolution of Telugu Character Graphs

Salankayana Telugu-Kannada script

Kadamba -> Old-Kannada -> Kannada and Telugu script

Inscriptions in Kannada-Telugu script

Kakatiya period Telugu-Kannada inscription
by poet Nrusimha Rushi dating between 1295 and 1325 found on hillocks near Urs on the outskirts of Warangal. * 13th-century Kakatiya er
Bayyaram stone inscription
found in Bayyaram mandal Andhra Pradesh.

Evolution and Development of Kannada-Telugu script

Evolution of Telugu-kannada script

Kalyana Chalukya Kannada script

Telugu Script Evolution - Brahmi to Vijayanagara script

References

{{reflist Writing systems Brahmic scripts