Tulu language

Tulu (Tulu: ತುಳು ಭಾಷೆ Tuḷu bāse [ˈt̪uɭu ˈbɒːsæ]) is a language spoken by around 2 million native speakers mainly in the southwest part of Indian state of Karnataka and a small part of northern Kerala, which is known as Tulu Nadu. It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages.

In India, circa 2 million people speak it as their native language (2011 estimation), they were 1,722,768 in 2001 increased by 10 percent over the 1991 census. According to one estimate reported in 2009, Tulu is currently spoken by three to five million native speakers in the world. Native speakers of Tulu are referred to as Tuluva or Tulu people.

Separated early from Proto-South Dravidian, Tulu has several features not found in Tamil–Kannada. For example, it has the pluperfect and the future perfect, like French or Spanish, but formed without an auxiliary verb.

Robert Caldwell, in his pioneering work A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages, called this language "peculiar and very interesting". According to him, "Tuḷu is one of the most highly developed languages of the Dravidian family. It looks as if it had been cultivated for its own sake." The language has a lot of written literature and a rich oral literature such as the Epic of Siri.