Kannada language

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Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ also, less commonly, Kanarese) is one of the oldest and Well-known Dravidian languages and is spoken in its various dialects by roughly 120 million people. It is the state language of Karnataka, one of the four southern states in India. It is written using the Kannada script.

History

The development of Kannada as a distinct language from a proto-Dravidian language is probably impossible to date. However, the written tradition of this language is around 1500-1600 years based on the archeological evidences. The initial development of the Kannada language is similar to that of other Dravidian languages. During later centuries, Kannada, along with Telugu, has been highly influenced by Sanskrit vocabulary and literary styles.

Kannada is a highly inflected language with three genders (masculine, feminine, neutral or common) and two numbers (singular, plural). It is inflected for gender, number and tense, among other things.

Dialects

There is also a sharp distinction between the spoken and written forms of the language. Spoken Kannada tends to vary from region to region. The written form is more or less constant throughout Karnataka, however. The ethnologue identifies about 20 dialects of Kannada. Notable of them are Kunda (spoken exclusively in Kundapura), Havyaka (spoken mainly by Havyaka Brahmanas of Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada, Shimoga, Sagara, and Udupi districts), Are Bhashe (spoken mainly in Sullia region of Dakshina Kannada), Soliga Kannada, Badaga Kannada, Gulbarga Kannada and Dharavada Kannada, Chitradurga Kannada.....

Classification

The written Kannada language has come under various religious and social influences in its 1600 years of known existence. Linguists generally divide the written form into four broad categories.

• Poorvada Halegannada (Pre-ancient Kananda) : This is the language of Halmidi scripture thought to be from fourth or fifth century.
• Halegannada (Ancient Kannada) : From ninth century CE onwards, until fourteenth century Kannada works were classified under 'Ancient Kannada'. In this period Kannada developed into a matured language. Mostly Jain and Saivite poets produced works in this period.
• Nadugannada ( Middle Kannada) : In this period Brahmanical Hinduism had a great influence on Kannada. A Kannada grammar based on Sanskrit grammar was developed by Keshiraja Bhatta. Language itself Sanskritized to a large extent. Non-brahmin Hindu saints like Kanakadasa also produced devotional poems in this period.
• Hosagannada ( Modern Kannada) : The Kannada works produced by the end of nineteenth century and later are classified under Hosagannada or Modern Kannada. However, till the beginning of twentieth century there were Kannada literary works that could still be classified under Middle Kannada. Most notable among them is poet Muddana's works. Sometimes, his works were described as the 'dawn of Modern Kannada'. Generally, linguists treat Indira Bai or Saddharma Vijayavu by Gulvadi Venkata Raya as the first literary work in Modern Kannada.

Modern Kannada in twentieth century has been influenced by many movements. Notable among them are Navodaya, Navya, Dalita/Bandaya.

Geographic distribution

Kannada is mainly spoken in Karnataka in India, and to a good extent in the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and in Kerala. There are significant Kannada speaking populations in the United States and the United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent in Canada and Australia.

Official status

Kannada is one of the 22 official languages of India and is the official language of the state of Karnataka.

Kannada script

Main article: Kannada script

The language has 52 letters phonemic and according to academic profile 49 letters are present in Kannada language. These 49 letters are divided into two groups: Swaragalu (15 letters) and "Vyanjanagalu" (34 letters), similar to the vowels and consonants of English, respectively. The character set is almost identical to that of other Indian languages. The script itself, derived from brahmi script, is fairly complicated like most other languages of India owing to the occurrence of various combinations of "half-letters", or symbols that attach to various letters in a manner similar to diacritical marks (such as aigüe, grave, and cédille marks) in the Romance languages. The number of written symbols, however, is far more than the 52 characters in the alphabet, because different characters can be combined to form compound characters (ottaksharas). Each written symbol in the Kannada script corresponds with one syllable, as opposed to one phoneme in languages like English. The script of Kannada is also used in other languages such as Tulu, Kodava Thakk and Konkani.

Transliteration

Several transliteration schemes are used to type Kannada characters using a standard keyboard. These include Baraha (based on ITRANS) and Nudi, the government of Karnataka's standard for Kannada transliteration.

Unicode

Extinct Kannada Letters

Until thirteenth century, Kannada literary works employed letters 'rh', 'lh(zh)', whose manner of articulation most plausibly could be akin to those in present day Malayalam. Tamil is supposed to exhibit only 'lh' and not 'rh'. The later Kannada works replaced 'rh' and 'lh' with ರ(ra) and ಳ(La) respectively.

Another letter (or unclassified vyanjana(consonant)?) that has become extinct is 'nh' or 'inn'(Again this has its equivalent in Malayalam). The usage of this consonant was observed until eigth decade of twentieth century in mostly coastal Karnataka(especially, Dakshina Kannada district) Kannada works. Now hardly any mainstream works use this consonant. This letter has been replaced by ನ್(consonant n).

See also

• Languages of India
• List of national languages of India
• List of Indian languages by total speakers

External links

General

• Ethnolouge report for Kannada
• Description of the Kannada language
• History of Kannada Language and Literature

Learning Resources

• Kannada Learning Center
• Learn Kannada (with audio)
• Learn Kannada
• Basic sentences in Kannada
• Romanized to Unicode Kannada transliterator

da:Kannada de:Kannada eo:Kanara lingvo fr:Kannara hi:कन्नड kn:ಕನ್ನಡ ka:კანადა (ენა) nl:Kannada ja:カンナダ語 nn:Kannada pl:Język kannada fi:Kannada sv:Kannada te:కన్నడ భాష zh:卡纳达语