Home > Language > Tamil and Telugu Compared

Difference Between Tamil and Telugu

Jan 2nd, 2011 | By

email

Tamil vs Telugu

Tamil and Telugu are two of the many languages spoken in India. They show differences between them although they belong to the Dravidian family of languages. Philologists have named the four languages, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam as the ones that come under the Dravidian family of languages. All these four languages are spoken in the southern part of India.

Tamil is spoken in the major part of the state of Tamilnadu in the southern part of India and in some other countries such as Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia and Mauritius, whereas Telugu is spoken in the major part of the state of Andhra Pradesh in the southern part of India.

There is a big difference between the two languages when it comes to their origin. Tamil is considered the oldest of the four Dravidian languages. It is believed that Tamil has existed for over two thousand years. Sangam literature, considered as the earliest period of Tamil literature can be dated between 3rd century BC and 3rd century AD. The earliest inscription of the Telugu language on the other hand dates back to 575 AD. It is attributed to the Renati Cholas. Nannaya, Tikkana and Erra Preggada were the three who wrote the Mahabharata in the Telugu language. The Telugu literary period really started from the 10th century AD.

Telugu was strongly influenced by Sanskrit whereas Tamil was not much influenced by Sanskrit. Tamil has its own grammar that is not dependent on the Sanskrit grammar. Telugu grammar on the other hand was deeply influenced by the Sanskrit grammar.

The script of the both language also differ. The modern Tamil script consists of 12 vowels, 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam. The consonants and vowels combine to form 216 (18 x 12) compound characters. Overall it has 247 characters. Whereas, Telugu script consists of sixty characters that include 16 vowels, three vowel modifiers and forty-one consonants. All the words in Telugu end with the sound of Vowel.

Tamil scholars categorize the history of the language into three periods, namely, Old Tamil period, Middle Tamil period and the Modern Tamil period. Both the languages have produced some excellent literary masterpieces and due to their richness they were conferred the status of Classical languages by the Government of India.


Related posts:

  1. Difference Between Kerala and Tamilnadu
  2. Difference Between Bangalore and Hyderabad
  3. Difference Between East and West

Tags: , , , , , , ,

  • Somunaidu

    The existence of Telugu and Tamil languages in the South Indian continents doesn’t mean that each language had depended on each others for terms of writing, communicating and in the daily life of this ethnics.

    Though some Tamilians claim that the Tamil Language is the oldest language of all the Indian languages, I don’t think this is correct. The simple reason being the Tamil grammer and it’s pronounciations are very much limited to their alphabets. One example is in Tamil, the alphabet pa is the same for ba, Ka is the same alphabet for ga and many other words too. Only pronounciations had been modified with their limited alphabets. So you ask a common man, he will find to read Tamil language contradicting to their alphabets thus they prone to pronounce wrongly.

    Wherease in Telug language, every pronounciations have their own alphabets and their grammer is much wider than the Tamil language grammer.

    Beside the language, the complexions differences among the Tamils and Telugus are also different in the sense that most of the Telugus have fair or brown complexions wherease the Tamilians are mostly of dark of complexions. The features of this two ethnics too are distinctively varies.

    There is much cultural differences among this two groups of people too.

    The Telugu group had much connected to the Sanskrit language in terms of language, pronounciations, cultural backgrounds and the way of life compared to the Tamil fellow brother and sisters.

    So the argument of Tamil as the original language and other South Indian languages came from the Tamil language is baseless.

    • BALUMANIAN BALU

      THE ARGUMENT YOU HAD MADE IS ABSOLUTELY WRONG MY FRIEND.

      • Manjula

        U R right he is wrong

    • Raja

      Tamil has kept its purity till this day and has withstood the onslaught of Sanskrit, Arabic, Urdu/Hindi,english, French, Dutch, Portugese,Armenian,Greek etc. It can stand alone with capacity to develop own vocabulary drawing from its own roots, for any emerging phenomenon, which other languages lack because of their dependence on Devanagari table of alphabets as well as prolific mix-up of Sanskrit words. But Telugu depends on Sanskrit
      I agree with Somunaidu…Yes tamil has only limited alphabets, since it is oldest language. As new languages emerge they can add alphabets for new sounds.
      Tamil literature is as old and as rich as Greek, Sanskrit and Chinese literatures.
      Tamil grammar is much wider than most of Indian language even before 2500 years ago. Here is the evidence.
      1. Tolkappiyam one of the greatest works that the world has ever produced is the oldest extant treatise in Tamil. Tolkappiyam has been dated variously between 1st CE and 10th CE. Its survival against vicissitudes is a wonder.
      2. Thirukural which is written before 2500 years ago. Its appeal is universal. It is the only tamil literary work (possibly after the Bible) that has been translated many times in almost all languages of the world. “Thirukural” the poetry which is common for all the religions and for all the countries. This Thirukural is the second book that have been translated in more languages where Bible stands first. Bible is the holy book only for Christian community but this Thirukural can be kept as Holy book for all the religions and for all the communities in the world.So there is strong evidence that Tamil language has its own grammar and cultural heritage  approach before 2500 year it self where most of the Indian language haven’t born.
      So there is strong evidence that Tamil language has its own grammar and cultural heritage  approach before 2500 year it self where most of the Indian language haven’t born.

    • Narayan

      you said correct..
       tamil language is entirely different from telugu language and tamil doesn’t had a chance that to be the origin for all southern languages. 

    • http://profiles.google.com/arungsb07 Arun Kumar

      Dude, get a life.  Tamil or Telugu or Sanskrit….it cannot be coincidence that all of the languages developed on their own…one must have come from the other.

      I don’t care about Sanskrit because it’s a dead language.  Tamil and Telugu are the only surviving language.  In my opinion, Telugu people are cousins of Tamil and VICE VERSA.  One should have come from the other.  It doesn’t do you any good by claiming which one came before the other.  We should all vie for one South India, which can counter balance the North India…so there is always competition to make our country India better.  Have less ill feelings and love thy neighbor.  

      RIP.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1434331456 Sai Kiran Sharma

        Is really Sanskrit a Dead Language? Do you really know what a dead language is? Sanskrit is still a surviving language. It lives 70%  in Telugu, 40% in kannada, 70% in Hindi and 100% in the Versions of Geeta, Ramayan etc. All mantras were composed in Sanskrit and not in any other language. 

        While Tamil has its own versions of Mantras, however, Tamil has existed since the time if Sanskrit. or may be even before that. One South India? For what? The South India cant support itself without the Indian Army which is more than 70% North India. 

        I wish you  realize the meaning of India.  North India has always taken the wrath of the Invaders. So they deserve their share of respect. 

        • suresh

          dear friend :
          india and hindu word is dervied from persian language so please read history properly and ask question yourself what is sankrit?
          and 2500 year before people from arabic migarated to india those people talking language is persian even now also punjabi=persian +sankrit , and
          sankrit = dravidian + persian, now everything has been proved indus valley civilization people is dravidian people because presently in irain there is language called brahuli language is dravidian language people are talking how is possible? iam not hurting anybody because our many history has been hidden so you can search internet and google book and take 10 days do research and finally come to conculsion if you need proof i will mail you and my id rpt1suresh@gmail.com

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1434331456 Sai Kiran Sharma

      I liked your post, however, you could have avoided the use of skin complexion my friend. you see what I mean. yes Telugu has emerged from Prakrit and Sanskrit. Hence forth its wrong to call Telugu a Dravidian Language in the first place. The slangs of Tamil came into Telugu at a much later stage. Literary Telugu is very similar to Sanskrit, Bhojpuri , Hindi along with Desi.

  • Jeeva Viswanathan

     @d144ac8c65ade6a4ecd2d812e2a49098:disqus Your Comments on Tamil are opinionated. Pleas possess Good Knowledge before commenting on any Substance.
    Best of Luck

Copyright © 2010-2012 Difference Between. All rights reserved.Protected by Copyscape Web Plagiarism Detection
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy : Legal.
hit counters
eXTReMe Tracker
hit counters