According to the Russian linguist Mikhail S. Andronov, Telugu split from the Proto-Dravidian language between 1500 and 1000 BCE. According to linguist Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Telugu, as a Dravidian language, descends from Proto-Dravidian, a proto-language. Linguistic reconstruction suggests that Proto-Dravidian was spoken around the third millennium BCE, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin in peninsular India.
