Why is Kannada so famous?
A Dravidian language, Kannada, is spoken mostly by the people of Karnataka in Southwest India. Linguistic minorities in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Kerala and Kannadigas based overseas speak Kannada extensively. By 2011 it Kannada was believed to be spoken by around 43 million people as their mother-tongue. More than 12.9 million non-native speakers speak Kannada in Karnataka as a second and third language, with an average of a total of 56.9 million speakers. It is one of India’s 22 scheduled languages and the Karnataka State’s official and administrative languages.
Let’s now look at some of the most interesting facts that make the Kannada language so famous!
The earliest known mention of the Kannada language is from the words found in Tamil inscriptions going as far as the 3rd to 1st century BC.
Old Kannada texts, the earliest known written documents were written in Brahmi script and have been found to be as old as going to 450 AD.
700 AD was when the Kannada language started to be used in poetry. Kannada literature however surfaced no earlier than 850 AD.
The Tigalari alphabet, which evolved in Karnataka during the 12th century, was primarily used as the basis of writing Kannada in the 14th century.
The scripts of Kadamba or Cālukya, which were the descendants of the Brahmi script used between the 5th-7th centuries AD, were chiefly responsible for the development of the Kannada alphabet as we know it today.
These writings grew into the old script of Kannada which had been transformed into the scripts of Kannada and Telugu by approximately the 1500s.
The Kannada and Telugu scripts were standardised at the beginning of the 19th century under the influence of Christian missionary groups.
It is also called by names such as Banglori, Kanarese, Havyakas or Canarese.
Kannada uses the Abugida/Syllabic Alphabet for its writing system with an inherent vowel in all consonants. Diacritics that might appear above, below, before or after consonants show other vowels.
Vowels are written as independent letters when they come at the beginning of a syllable.
The Indian Government has classified Kannada as a classical language of India, on the basis of the recommendations received from the Committee of Linguistic Experts nominated by the Ministry of Culture.
As part of the Central Institute of Indian Languages in Mysore in July 2011, a Center for the Study of Classical Kannada was created to support language research.
The Kannada language literature has been honoured with eight Jnanapith honors, the most in any Dravidian language, and the second-highest for any Indian language.
To a significant extent, Kannada is influenced by Sanskrit. Kannada also exhibits strong influences from languages such as Prakrit and Pali.
Many tribal languages that display a lesser influence from other languages, and are currently categorised as Kannada dialects have been thought to be closer to the older form of the Kannada language.
There seem to be three sources of influence on the literary grammar of Kannada: Pāṇini’s grammar, non- Paninian Sanskrit grammar schools, and especially Katantra and Sakatayana schools.
Since ancient times literary Prakrit has been dominant in Karnataka.
Finally,
An ancient language that holds key to many secrets, Kannada is a beautiful language to learn. So why not start this journey of discovery from today!