Telugu is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where it is the official language. It is the Dravidian language with the largest number of speakers (including non-native speakers), the second-largest spoken language in India after Hindi, and one of the 22 national languages of India. Telugu words appear in the Maharashtri Prakrit anthology of poems (the Gathasaptashathi) collected by the first century BC Satavahana King Hala( Popularly beleived to be collected by GUNADHYA).

Telugu speakers were probably the oldest peoples inhabiting the land between the Krishna and Godavari rivers. It is a popular belief that this region was originally called as "Trilingadesa" which means the land surrounded by three lingas (Srisailam, Kaleeshwaram and Draksharamam). Hence the language spoken in this region was called as "Trilingamu" or "Trilinga Bhasa" or "Telungu" which later transformed as Telugu. Many scholars consider this as a folk-etymology. Andhra society is one of the ancient societies of India, and the name Andhra has remained unchanged since antiquity. This is confirmed by the tales about Andhras in epics like Mahabharatam and Ramayanam, in great puranas, and in Buddhist Jataka Tales.

The first clear historical inscriptions in Telugu appear about the 7th century AD and known literature starts with Nannaya writing the Andhra Mahabharata in the 11th century AD. There has been prolific literature ever since, but the golden age is considered by many to be the 16th century, under the patronage of the Vijayanagar Emperor Krishna Deva Raya. Though Krishna Deva Raya was a Kanarese, he was so much impressed by Telugu that he praised, "Of all the languages spoken in the country, Telugu is the best" (Desa bhaashalandu Telugu lessa).

However this statement has also been attributed to the Telugu poet Srinatha. The poet Ravindranath Tagore is said to have stated that Telugu is the sweetest language. The famous Tamil poet Subramania Bharati has also sung thus "Sundara Telunginil Pattisaithu" which literally means "Sing in beautiful Telugu" However, the purest form of Telugu was spoken under the reign of the Kakatiyas. One of the greatest Telugu poets, Pothanna, hailed from this region too.

The western portion of the Telugu speaking lands came under the influence of Mughal rulers during and after the 14th century, and most recently by the Nizams of Hyderabad. Ancient Sanskrit, Persian and Hindi influences show most in the Telugu dialect from these regions. In 1956, 10 Nizam districts and four districts of Rayalaseema were merged to the so-called Northern Circar districts forming the modern Telugu vernacular state of Andhra Pradesh.

The Telugu and Kannada had same script till around 220 AD. One can see the common script carved on stone in Delhi National Museum. Old Kannada or HaleGannada is essentially the continuation of the Kadamba script. The Kadamba script itself evolved from Brahmic script. It was used to write South Indian languages of Kannada and Telugu. In fact, Old Kannada is also known as the Kannada-Telugu script. Differentiation of the Old Kannada script into the modern scripts of Kannada and Telugu began as early as the 13th century CE, but the process did not finish until the early 19th century CE with the arrival of printing. Even so, the Telugu and Kannada scripts have remained extremely similar.