People
The Deccan is home to many languages and people. Bhil and Gond people live in the hills along the northern and northeastern edges of the plateau, and speak various languages that belong to both the Indo-European and Dravidian families of languages. Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language, is the main language of the north-western Deccan in the state of Maharashtra. Speakers of Telugu and Kannada, the predominant languages of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka respectively, occupy those states' portions of the plateau. Tamil is the main language of Tamil Nadu to the south of the plateau, and Malayalam that of the hills and coast to the south-west, in the state of Kerala. The city of Hyderabad is an important center of Urdu language in the Deccan; its surrounding areas also host a notable population of Urdu speakers. The Urdu dialect spoken in this region is also known as Dakhini or as Deccani.
The chief crop is cotton; also common are sugarcane, rice, and other crops.
Apart from the states already mentioned, the state of Chhattisgarh is found in the northeast corner of the plateau. The three large cities in the Deccan are Chennai the capital of Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad the capital of Andhra Pradesh and Bangalore the capital of Karnataka. Other major cities include Mysore in Karnataka, Coimbatore and Salem in Tamil Nadu, Pune, Nagpur, Nanded and Aurangabad (in Maharashtra) and Raipur in Chhattisgarh.
Read more about this topic: Deccan Plateau
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