Official Languages Act 1963

South Indian languages comprise one of the five Dravidian languages of Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Tulu. Besides, these languages also serve as official languages for the concerning states and its governmental purposes. The approximated population of South India comes to a count of 233 million. The largest linguistic groups in South India encompass the  Telugus, Tamils, Kannadigas, Malayalis, Tuluvas, Kodavas and Konkanis, which, quite manifestly mirrors the diversification and overlapping of language cultures and customs. According to the 2001 Census, Telugu possessed the third largest base of native speakers in India (74 million), after Hindi and Bengali. Telugu as such, was awarded the status of classical language in 2008. Tamil was granted the status of classical language by the Government of India in 2002 and had approximately 60 million native speakers. Kannada possessed 38 million, whereas Malayalam had 33 million native speakers respectively. Each of these south Indian languages is enlisted as an official language of India, as per the Official Languages Act (1963).