Visakhapatnam is predominantly a Telugu speaking city. The Telugu spoken by the middle classes is a standard dialect, while a significant population who have settled down in the city from the adjoining villages and neighbouring districts of East Godavari, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam speak Uttarandhra (North Coastal) Mandalikam dialects. Historians believe that centuries ago, when Uttarandhra was part of the KalingaEmpire, Buddhist missionaries and merchants might have taken Telugu (Derived from Brahmi script) script to Southeast Asia from the shores of Uttarandhra where it parented into the scripts of Mon, Burmese, Thai, Khmer, Siam, Javanese and Balinese languages and even Sinhala of Sri Lanka. Their similarities to Telugu script can be discerned even today.
Visakhapatnam is home to a small Oriya, Maharashtrians,Bengali and Malayalee communities; their migration is of recent origin. Due to the Naval presence and high concentration of public sector industries, Visakhapatnam has a significant Hindi speaking population.