Dravidian · ISO 639-3 tcy
Tulu Language ತುಳು
Tulu is a Dravidian language spoken by about 2.0 million people in 1 country. It is written in the Kannada script.
Where Tulu is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
About the Tulu language
Tulu (ತುಳು) is spoken by about 2.0 million people, which makes it the 315th most spoken language in the world — just behind Upper Saxon (2.0 million) and ahead of Venetian (2.0 million). It belongs to the Dravidian language family and, more precisely, to the Tuluic group within the South Dravidian I branch.
Where is Tulu spoken?
Tulu is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in India (2.1 million).
Tulu is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Tulu is written in the Kannada script. Glottolog classifies it as threatened, meaning fewer children learn it than in the past.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 tcy.
Frequently asked questions about Tulu
How many people speak Tulu?
Where is Tulu spoken?
What language family does Tulu belong to?
What is Tulu called in Tulu?
Is Tulu an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.