Tulu () is a Dravidian language whose speakers are concentrated in Dakshina Kannada and the southern part of Udupi of Karnataka in south-western India and in the northern parts of the Kasaragod district of Kerala. The native speakers of Tulu are referred to as Tuluva or Tulu people and the geographical area is unofficially called Tulu Nadu. The Indian census report of 2011 reported a total of 1,846,427 native Tulu speakers in India. The 2001 census had reported a total of 1,722,768 native speakers. There is some difficulty in counting Tulu speakers who have migrated from their native region as they are often counted as Kannada speakers in Indian census reports. Separated early from Proto-South Dravidian, Tulu has several features not found in Tamil–Kannada. For example, it has the pluperfect and the future perfect, like French or Spanish, but formed without an auxiliary verb. Tulu is the primary spoken language in Tulu Nadu, consisting of the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts in the western part of Karnataka and the northern part of Kasaragod district of Kerala. A significant number of native Tulu speakers are found in Kalasa and Mudigere taluks of Chikkamagaluru district and also found in Thirthahalli taluks of Shivamogga district. Non-native speakers of Tulu include those who are residents in the Tulunadu region but who speak the Beary language, the Havyaka language and also Konkani and Koraga as their mother tongues. Apart from Tulu Nadu, a significant emigrant population of Tulu speakers are found in Maharashtra, Bangalore, Chennai, the English-speaking world, and the Gulf countries. The various medieval inscriptions of Tulu from the 15th century are in the Tulu script. Two Tulu epics named Sri Bhagavato and Kaveri from the 17th century were also written in the same script. The Tulu language is known for its oral literature in the form of epic poems called pardana. The Epic of Siri and the legend of Koti and Chennayya belong to this category of Tulu literature. Classification Tulu belongs to the southern branch of the family of Dravidian languages. It descends directly from Proto-South Dravidian, which in turn descends directly from Proto-Dravidian, the hypothesized language from which all extant Dravidian languages ultimately descend. The Tulu language originates in the southern part of India. Etymology Linguist P. Gururaja Bhat specified in Tulunadu (a research book) that originated from the word (), where means 'cow' and refers to the place dominated by