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.