Telugu alphabet

Origin

The Telugu alphabet is an descendant of the Brahmi script of ancient India. It is closely related to the Kannada alphabet. The earliest known inscriptions in the Telugu language date from the 6th century AD and Telugu poetry started to appear during the 11th century.

Until the 20th century, Telugu was written in an archaic style very different from the everyday spoken language. During the the second half of the 20th century, a new written standard emerged based on the modern spoken language.

Notable features

This is a syllabic alphabet in which all consonants have an inherent vowel. Diacritics, which can appear above, below, before or after the consonant they belong to, are used to change the inherent vowel.
When they appear the the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as independent letters.
When certain consonants occur together, special conjunct symbols are used which combine the essential parts of each letter.

Used to write:

Telugu, a Dravidian language spoken by about 75 million people in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and neighboring states, and also in Bahrain, Fiji, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore and the UAE.

Source: http://www.ethnologue.com