Kutiya

Kutiya (ISO-639-3 code: kfg)

Kudiya is a Dravidian tribe mainly settled in the Northern part of Kerala and in the southern part of Karnataka. The alternative names include Malekudiya, Malekudi etc. According to the reports and studies there are sixteen clans nearly and far situated at Karnataka and Kerala. Out of the sixteen clans foremost six are in Kerala. And the rest are settled in Karnataka. In Kerala, Kudiya people are mostly settled in four panchayats of Manjeswaram Block in Kasaragod district Kerala. They are paivalika, Enmageje, Puthige and Vorkady. Kudiya Language is known as Tulu Language by the Kudiya people. It is literally little known while compared with the other South Dravidian Languages like Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil.

According to the census report (2011), Kudiya, Malekudi are found in Kasargod District. There are 169 households with population 785. The population consists of 403 males and 382 females. They constitute of 0.162% of the scheduled tribal population. Their sex ratio is 948 out of 1000. Literacy rate is 80.8% in which 87.7% are male and 73.2% are female.