Kannada
Kannada is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a second or third language for 15 million speakers in Karnataka. It is the official and administrative language of Karnataka. It also has scheduled status in India and has been included among the country's designated classical languages.
Kannada was the court language of a number of dynasties and empires of South India, Central India and the Deccan Plateau, namely the Kadamba dynasty, Western Ganga dynasty, Nolamba dynasty, Chalukya dynasty, Rashtrakutas, Western Chalukya Empire, Seuna dynasty, Kingdom of Mysore, Nayakas of Keladi, Hoysala dynasty and the Vijayanagara Empire.
The Kannada language is written using the Kannada script, which evolved from the 5th-century Kadamba script. Kannada is attested epigraphically for about one and a half millennia and literary Old Kannada flourished during the 9th-century Rashtrakuta Empire. Kannada has an unbroken literary history of around 1200 years. Kannada literature has been presented with eight Jnanpith Awards, the most for any Dravidian language and the second highest for any Indian language, and one International Booker Prize. In July 2011, a center for the study of classical Kannada was established as part of the Central Institute of Indian Languages in Mysore to facilitate research related to the language.
Geographic distribution
Kannada had 43.7 million native speakers in India at the time of the 2011 census. It is the main language of the state of Karnataka, where it is spoken natively by million people, or about two-thirds of the state's population. There are native Kannada speakers in the neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Kerala and Goa. It is also spoken as a second and third language by over 12.9 million non-native speakers in Karnataka.Kannadigas form Tamil Nadu's third biggest linguistic group; their population is roughly 1.23 million, which is 2.2% of Tamil Nadu's total population.
The Malayalam spoken by people of Lakshadweep has many Kannada words.
In the United States, there were 35,900 speakers in 2006–2008, a number that had risen to 48,600 by the time of the 2015 census. There are speakers in Canada, 9,700 in Australia, 22,000 in Singapore, and 59,000 in Malaysia.
Development
Kannada, like Malayalam and Tamil, is a South Dravidian language and a descendant of Tamil-Kannada, from which it derives its grammar and core vocabulary. Its history can be divided into three stages: Old Kannada, or Haḷegannaḍa from 450 to 1200 AD, Middle Kannada from 1200 to 1700 and Modern Kannada from 1700 to the present.Kannada has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Prakrit—in morphology, phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. The three principal sources of influence on literary Kannada grammar appear to be Pāṇini's grammar, non-Pāṇinian schools of Sanskrit grammar, particularly Katantra and Sakatayana schools, and Prakrit grammar. Literary Prakrit seems to have prevailed in Karnataka since ancient times. Speakers of vernacular Prakrit may have come into contact with Kannada speakers, thus influencing their language, even before Kannada was used for administrative or liturgical purposes. The scholar K. V. Narayana claims that many tribal languages now designated as Kannada dialects could be nearer to the earlier form of the language, with lesser influence from other languages.
The work of the scholar Iravatham Mahadevan indicates that Kannada was already a language of rich spoken tradition by the 3rd century BC. Based on native Kannada words in Prakrit inscriptions of that period, Kannada must have been spoken by a broad and stable population.
Kannada includes many loan words from Sanskrit. Some unaltered loan words include,,,, and. Some examples of naturalised Sanskrit words in Kannada are,, and rāya from. Some naturalised words of Prakrit origin in Kannada are derived from vaṇṇa, from puṇṇivā.
History
Early traces
The earliest Kannada inscriptions are from the middle of the 5th century AD, but there are a number of earlier texts that may have been influenced by the ancestor language of Old Kannada.Iravatam Mahadevan, author of a work on early Tamil epigraphy, argued that oral traditions in Kannada and Telugu existed much before written documents were produced. Although the rock inscriptions of Ashoka were written in Prakrit, the spoken language in those regions was Kannada as the case may be. He can be quoted as follows:
Kannada linguist, historian and researcher B. A. Viveka Rai and Kannada writer, lyricist, and linguist Doddarangegowda assert that due to the extensive trade relations that existed between the ancient Kannada lands and Greece, Egypt, the Hellenistic and Roman empires and others, there was exchange of people, ideas, literature, etc. and a Kannada book existed in the form of a palm-leaf manuscript in the old Alexandria library which was subsequently lost in the fire. They state that this also proves that the Kannada language and literature must have flourished much before the library was established in between c. 285-48 BC. This document played a vital role in getting the classical status to Kannada from the Indian Central Government. The Ashoka rock edict found at Brahmagiri has been suggested to contain words in identifiable Kannada.
In some 3rd–1st century BC Tamil inscriptions, words of Kannada influence such as Naliyura, kavuDi and posil were found. In a 3rd-century AD Tamil inscription there is usage of oppanappa vIran. Here the honorific appa to a person's name is an influence from Kannada. Another word of Kannada origin is taayviru and is found in a 4th-century AD Tamil inscription. S. Settar studied the sittanavAsal inscription of first century AD as also the inscriptions at tirupparamkunram, adakala and neDanUpatti. The later inscriptions were studied in detail by Iravatham Mahadevan also. Mahadevan argues that the words erumi, kavuDi, poshil and tAyiyar have their origin in Kannada because Tamil cognates are not available. Settar adds the words nADu and iLayar to this list. Mahadevan feels that some grammatical categories found in these inscriptions are also unique to Kannada rather than Tamil. Both these scholars attribute these influences to the movements and spread of Jainas in these regions. These inscriptions belong to the period between the first century BC and fourth century AD. These are some examples that are proof of the early usage of a few Kannada origin words in early Tamil inscriptions before the common era and in the early centuries of the common era.
Pliny the Elder, a Roman historian, wrote about pirates between Muziris and Nitrias, called Nitran by Ptolemy. He also mentions Barace, referring to the modern port city of Mangaluru, upon its mouth. Many of these are Kannada origin names of places and rivers of the Karnataka coast of the 1st century AD.
The Greek geographer Ptolemy mentions places such as Badiamaioi, Inde, Kalligeris, Modogoulla, Petrigala, Hippokoura, Nagarouris, Tabaso, Tiripangalida, Soubouttou or Sabatha, Banaouase, Thogorum, Biathana, Sirimalaga, Aloe and Pasage. He mentions a Satavahana king Sire Polemaios, who is identified with Sri Pulumayi, whose name is derived from the Kannada word for Puli, meaning tiger. Some scholars indicate that the name Pulumayi is actually Kannada's Puli Maiyi or One with the body of a tiger indicating native Kannada origin for the Satavahanas. Pai identifies all the 10 cities mentioned by Ptolemy as lying between the river Benda or Bhima river in the north and Banaouasei in the south, viz. Nagarouris, Tabaso, Inde, Tiripangalida, Hippokoura, Soubouttou, Sirimalaga, Kalligeris, Modogoulla, and Petirgala —as being located in Northern Karnataka, which explain the existence of Kannada place names in the southern Kuntala region during the reign of Vasishtiputra Pulumayi who was ruling from Paithan in the north and his son, prince Vilivaya-kura or Pulumayi Kumara was ruling from Huvina Hipparagi in present Karnataka in the south.
An early ancestor of Kannada may have been spoken by Indian traders in Roman-era Egypt and it may account for the Indian-language passages in the ancient Greek play known as the Charition mime.
Epigraphy
The earliest examples of a full-length Kannada language stone inscription containing Brahmi characters with characteristics attributed to those of proto-Kannada in Haḷe Kannaḍa script can be found in the Halmidi inscription, usually dated, indicating that Kannada had become an administrative language at that time. The Halmidi inscription provides invaluable information about the history and culture of Karnataka. A set of five copper plate inscriptions discovered in Mudiyanur, though in the Sanskrit language, is in the Pre-Old Kannada script older than the Halmidi edict date of 450 AD, as per palaeographers.Followed by B. L. Rice, leading epigrapher and historian, K. R. Narasimhan following a detailed study and comparison, declared that the plates belong to the 4th century, i.e., 338 AD. The Kannada Lion balustrade inscription excavated at the Pranaveshwara temple complex at Talagunda near Shiralakoppa of Shivamogga district, dated to 370 AD is now considered the earliest Kannada inscriptions replacing the Halmidi inscription of 450 AD. The 5th century poetic Tamatekallu inscription of Chitradurga and the Siragunda inscription from Chikkamagaluru Taluk of 500 AD are further examples. Recent reports indicate that the Old Kannada Gunabhushitana ''Nishadi inscription discovered on the Chandragiri hill, Shravanabelagola, is older than Halmidi inscription by about fifty to hundred years and may belong to the period AD 350–400.
The noted archaeologist and art historian S. Shettar is of the opinion that an inscription of the Western Ganga King Kongunivarma Madhava found at Tagarthi in Shikaripura taluk of Shimoga district is of 350 AD and is also older than the Halmidi inscription.
Current estimates of the total number of existing epigraphs written in Kannada range from 30,000 by the scholar Sheldon Pollock to over 35,000 by Amaresh Datta of the Sahitya Akademi. Prior to the Halmidi inscription, there is an abundance of inscriptions containing Kannada words, phrases and sentences, proving its antiquity. The 543 AD Badami cliff inscription of Pulakesi I is an example of a Sanskrit inscription in old Kannada script.
Kannada inscriptions are discovered in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat in addition to Karnataka. This indicates the spread of the influence of the language over the ages, especially during the rule of large Kannada empires.
The earliest copper plates inscribed in Old Kannada script and language, dated to the early 8th century AD, are associated with Alupa King Aluvarasa II from Belmannu, and display the double crested fish, his royal emblem. The oldest well-preserved palm leaf manuscript in Old Kannada is that of Dhavala''. It dates to around the 9th century and is preserved in the Jain Bhandar, Mudbidri, Dakshina Kannada district. The manuscript contains 1478 leaves written using ink.