The Koya Alphabet

Koya ^[1] (ISO 639-3: kff) is a South-Central Dravidian language spoken by the Koya tribal community in the forested hill regions along the Godavari River in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, India.

The CIIL documents Koya as a South-Central Dravidian language in the same branch as Telugu, Gondi and Kolami.

Despite significant linguistic influence from Telugu, Koya maintains its own distinct Dravidian grammatical structure.

Koya ^[2] is spoken primarily in the hill and forest regions along the Godavari River in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, including in the districts of Bhadradri Kothagudem, East Godavari and Khammam.

The Endangered Languages Project records Koya speaker communities in these forested tribal areas.

The Koya people have historically been associated with the Godavari valley forests, where they have practised farming and forest-based livelihoods for generations.

Koya ^[1] and Telugu are related South-Central Dravidian languages — they share a common ancestor in the South-Central Dravidian branch of the Dravidian family. However, Koya is not mutually intelligible with Telugu and has preserved distinct Dravidian features.

The CIIL documents Koya as showing significant Telugu influence through centuries of contact and bilingualism, particularly in loanwords and some phonological features.

Despite this contact influence, the core Dravidian grammatical structure of Koya remains distinct from Telugu.

The Koya people ^[1] are a Scheduled Tribe community of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, India, historically inhabiting the forested hill regions along the Godavari River.

The CIIL documents the Koya as a tribal community with deep historical ties to the Godavari valley forests. The Koya are sometimes referred to as Gond or Koitor in different regional contexts, reflecting connections with the broader Gondi-speaking tribal communities of central India.

Despite these connections, Koya maintains its distinct linguistic identity as a separate South-Central Dravidian language.

Koya ^[1] has a more substantial speaker community than some smaller Dravidian languages, but it faces long-term pressure from Telugu — the official language of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and the medium of education and administration.

The CIIL documents Koya as a tribal language where bilingualism in Telugu is widespread.

Younger Koya speakers in areas with better access to Telugu-medium education and urban employment are increasingly shifting to Telugu as their primary language.

Koya ^[1] is written in the Telugu script in some community and educational materials, reflecting the close contact between the Koya community and Telugu-speaking society. There is no traditional indigenous script specific to Koya.

In academic and CIIL linguistic documentation, Koya is transcribed using the Latin alphabet with diacritics for retroflex consonants (ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ḷ) and aspiration marks.

The Telugu script use reflects practical bilingual conventions in the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh context.

Koya ^[1] belongs to the South-Central Dravidian branch of the Dravidian language family. The CIIL documents South-Central Dravidian as a subgroup that includes Telugu (the major literary language), Gondi, Kolami, Kui and Koya, among others.

This branch is distinct from the South Dravidian branch (Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada) and from the North Dravidian branch (Kurukh, Malto, Brahui).

Within South-Central Dravidian, Koya is most closely related to Gondi — the two languages sharing the most grammatical and phonological features.

Koya ^[1] has a 10-vowel system with five short/long pairs (a/aa, i/ii, u/uu, e/ee, o/oo) and 27 consonants including aspirated stops (ph, bh, th, dh, ṭh, ḍh, kh, gh) and the Dravidian retroflex series (ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ḷ).

The CIIL documents the aspirated stops as reflecting Telugu and Indo-Aryan influence — aspiration is not a native feature of the Dravidian phonological system but has entered Koya through prolonged language contact.

The retroflex consonants (ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ḷ) are the inherited Dravidian feature that most clearly distinguishes Koya from surrounding Indo-Aryan languages.