Desia language

Desia
Desiya, Desia Odia, Kotia, Adivasi Odia, Koraputi Odia, Southwestern Odia
ଦେଶିଆ
Native toIndia
RegionOdisha (Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Nabarangpur) & Andhra Pradesh ( Vizianagaram District, Alluri Sitharama Raju district , Visakhapatnam District, Anakapalli district)
EthnicityOdias
Native speakers
230,000 (2011 census)
Odia
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
dso  Desiya
ort  Adivasi Oriya
Glottologadiv1239

Desia, also Desiya, Kotia, Adivasi Odia, Desia Odia or Koraputia or Southwestern Odia, is an Indo-Aryan language variety (sociolinguistically considered as a dialect of Odia) spoken in Koraput, Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Malkangiri districts Odisha and in the hilly regions of Vishakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts of Andhra Pradesh. The variant spoken in Koraput is called Koraputia.

Desia serves as the lingua franca among the different ethnic groups in the area and is the major regional tribal-non-tribal dialect continuum of the undivided Koraput district of the Southwestern Odisha region.