Alupas and was known as Alva Kheda. This kingdom was the homeland of the Tulu-speaking people. However, the present-day Tulu linguistic majority area is confined to the region of Tulu Nadu, which comprises the districts of part of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi in the Indian state of Karnataka and the northern part of Kasaragod district of Kerala up to the river Payaswani, also known as Chandragiri. The cities of Mangalore, Udupi and Kasaragod are the centres of Tulu culture. Even today Tulu is widely spoken in the Dakshina Kannada, partially in Udupi district of Karnataka state and to some extent in Kasaragod of Kerala. Efforts are also being made to include Tulu in the list of official languages of India. As a whole, Tulu is largely contained to the southern part of India. The Indian state of Karnataka is where the language seems to thrive in the present day. Some of the major cities within the Tulu culture include Mangalore and Kasaragod. Writing system The various historical inscriptions of Tulu found around Barkur and Kundapura are in the Tigalari script. Historically, Brahmins of Tulu Nadu and Havyaka Brahmins used the Tigalari script to write Vedas and other Sanskrit works. The Tigalari script is descended from the Brahmi through the Grantha script. It is a sister script of the Malayalam script. However, very few works written in vernacular languages like Kannada and Tulu are available. Hence, the Tigalari script was employed by Tulu Brahmins to write Tulu and Kannada languages apart from the Kannada script. The National Mission for Manuscripts has conducted several workshops on this script with the help of a scholar, Keladi Gunda Jois. In the 18th century, the use of the Kannada script for writing Tulu and non-availability of print in the Tigalari script contributed to the marginalization of the Tigalari script. The script is studied by few scholars and manuscriptologists for research and religious purposes. The Kannada script has become the contemporary script for the Tulu language gradually. All contemporary works and literature are done in the Kannada script. The Tulu alphabet resembles the Malayalam script in many ways. It is also similar to many characters found in the Tigalari alphabet. This is from the same region in the state of Karnataka. The Tigalari and Kannada alphabets include a stress on vowels with "a" and "o" sounds. Other vowels include sounds such as "au" "am" and "ah".