Old Kannada

Old Kannada or Halegannada is the Kannada language which transformed from Purvada halegannada or Pre-old Kannada during the reign of the Kadambas of Banavasi.
The Modern Kannada language has evolved in four phases over the years. From the Purva Halegannada in the 5th century, to the Halegannada between the 9th and 11th century, the Nadugannada between the 12th and 17th century, it has evolved to the present day Hosagannada from 18th century to present. Hosagannada is the official language of the state of Karnataka and is one of the 22 official national languages of the Republic of India and is the native language of approximately 65% of Karnataka's population.

Etymology

In Modern Kannada, the term used for Old Kannada is haḷegannaḍa ಹಳೆಗನ್ನಡ. In this, haḷe, from Old Kannada paḻe ಪೞೆ, means “old,” and gannaḍa is the sandhi form of Kannaḍa, the name of the language, presumably deriving from a Sanskrit re-loan of a Dravidian word for “land of the black soil.” This is contrasts with osagannaḍa “Modern Kannada.”

Origin

A 5th century copper coin was discovered at Banavasi with an inscription in the Kannada script, one of the oldest such coins ever discovered.
In a report published by the Mysore Archaeological Department in 1936, Dr. M. H. Krishna, who discovered the inscription in 1936 dated the inscription to 450 CE. This inscription in old-Kannada was found in Halmidi village near Hassan district. Many other inscriptions having Kannada words had been found like the Brahmagiri edict of 230 BCE by Ashoka. But this is the first full scale inscription in Kannada. Kannada was used in the inscriptions from the earliest times and the Halmidi inscription is considered to be the earliest epigraph written in Kannada. This inscription is generally known as the Halmidi inscription and consists of sixteen lines carved on a sandstone pillar. It has been dated to 450 CE and demonstrates that Kannada was used as a language of administration at that time. Dr K.V.Ramesh has hypothesized that, compared to possibly contemporaneous Sanskrit inscriptions, "Halmidi inscription has letters which are unsettled and uncultivated, no doubt giving an impression, or rather an illusion, even to the trained eye, that it is, in date, later than the period to which it really belongs, namely the fifth century A.D." The original inscription is kept in the Office of the Director of Archaeology and Museums, Govt. of Karnataka, Mysore, and a fibreglass replica has been installed in Halmidi. A mantapa to house a fibreglass replica of the original inscription has been built at Halmidi village. The Government has begun to promote the village as a place of historical interest.
Evidence from edicts during the time of Ashoka the Great suggests that the Kannada script and its literature were influenced by Buddhist literature. The Halmidi inscription, the earliest attested full-length inscription in the Kannada language and script, is dated to 450 CE while the earliest available literary work, the Kavirajamarga, has been dated to 850 CE. References made in the Kavirajamarga, however, prove that Kannada literature flourished in the Chattana, Beddande and Melvadu metres during earlier centuries.
The 5th century Tamatekallu inscription of Chitradurga, and the Chikkamagaluru inscription of 500 CE are further examples.

Phonology

Old Kannada’s phonology is slightly expanded compared to Modern Kannada, with two extra letters being commonly used: ೞ ⟨ḻ⟩ and ಱ ⟨ṟ⟩, which merge with ಳ ⟨ḷ⟩ and ರ ⟨r⟩, respectively. The Kannada orthography is clearly adapted from that of Sanskrit, and native grammarians split sounds into native Kannada sounds and those shared with Sanskrit. Although the two aforementioned sounds are native, the Śabdamaṇidarpaṇaṁ states that these sounds are commonly used in morphed loans from Sanskrit, as in ಪುರ್ಪ puṟpa for पुष्प puṣpa- and ಗೞಿಗೆ gaḻige for घटिका gʰaṭikā-. The vowels, however, mostly remain the same.
Other sound changes include the debuccalization of ಪ ⟨p⟩ to ಹ ⟨h⟩, as well as the addition of an epenthetic vowel ⟨u⟩ following consonant-final words.

Grammar

Pronouns

Old Kannada has three classes of pronouns : personal, demonstrative, and interrogative. There were no relative pronouns – relative clauses were formed using relative participles. The first and second person, as well as reflexives, were made up of personal pronouns, whereas the third person was made up of demonstrative pronouns. Demonstrative pronouns were composed of two morphemes: a spatial deictic prefix and a person-number-gender termination, generally homophonous with the morph used in verbal agreement.
Pronouns had special oblique forms to be used in non-nominative cases.

	Nominative	Oblique
I	ām, ān-	en-
we	nāvu, nāv-	nam-
we	ām, ām-	em-
you	nīṁ, nīn-	nin-
you	nīm, nīm-	nim-
self	tām, tān-	tan-
self	tām, tām-	tam-

As mentioned earlier, demonstrative pronouns could be formed by adding deictic prefixes to person-number-gender terminations. However, interrogative prefixes could also be used in place of the deictic prefixes. Aside from those interrogative pronouns built from the template, there were also interrogative pronouns that were underivable from Old Kannada prefixes.
Whereas most other South Dravidian languages attest the change in the masculine suffix wherein Proto-Dravidian *-anṯᵊ > *-an, Old Kannada retains the earlier form in some plurals, such as avandir “they” in lieu of avar “id.”

Declension

Old Kannada nouns can be inflected in seven cases: the nominative, the accusative, the instrumental, the dative, the ablative, the genitive, and the locative.

Case	mara	adu	beṭṭa
Nominative	maraṁ	adu	beṭṭaṁ
Accusative	maranaṁ	adaṟaṁ	beṭṭamaṁ
Instrumental	maradiṁ maradindaṁ maradinde marade	adaṟiṁ adaṟindaṁ adaṟinde adaṟe	beṭṭadiṁ beṭṭadindaṁ beṭṭadinde beṭṭade
Dative	marakke marake	adaṟke	beṭṭakke beṭṭake
Ablative	maradattaṇiṁ maradattaṇindaṁ maradattaṇinde	adaṟattaṇiṁ adaṟattaṇindaṁ adaṟattaṇinde	beṭṭadattaṇiṁ beṭṭadattaṇindaṁ beṭṭadattaṇinde
Genitive	marana marada	adaṟa	beṭṭada
Locative	maraduḷ maradoḷ maradoḷu maradoḷage maradal maradalu maradalli	adaṟuḷ adaṟoḷ adaṟoḷu adaṟoḷage adaṟal adaṟalu adaṟalli	beṭṭaduḷ beṭṭadoḷ beṭṭadoḷu beṭṭadoḷage beṭṭadal beṭṭadalu beṭṭadalli

Verbs

Tense

Kittel classifies past stems into thirteen types and future stems into four types for all eras of the Kannada language. While this may be overclassified to some extent, it is the most comprehensive extant system for Old Kannada. Note that some verbs have multiple used tense stems. Some classes only appear in certain stages, which is why there are gaps in the table below:

Class	Base	Gloss	Stem	Toda	Tamil
I	en	“say”	en-d-	ïn-	eṉ-ṟ-
II	bemar	“perspire”	bemar-t-		viyar-tt-
III	naḍe	“walk”	naḍa-d-	naṛ-θ-	naṭa-nt-
IV	midi	“pound”	mit-t-		miti-tt-
VI	eḻ	“stand up”	er-d-	öḍ-θ-	eḻu-nt-
VII	tiṟu	“pay”	tet-t-	tel-
VIII	bā	“come”	ba-nd-	po-d-	va-nt-
IX	sā	“die”	sa-tt-	so-t-	ca-tt-
X	kāṇ	“see”	kaṇ-ḍ-	kōṇ	kaṇ-ṭ-
XII^†	pāḍu	“sing”	pāḍ-i-	pōṛ-y-	pāṭ-i-

^†Class XI is erroneously listed as a past stem, although it is likely something else.

Class	Base	Gloss	Stem	Tamil
I	āḷ	“rule”	āḷ-v-	āḷ-v-
II	tin	“eat”	tin-b-	tiṉ-p-
III	irisu	“cause to sit”	iri-p-	iruvu-v-
IV	agu	“come into existence”	a-h-	ā-v-

Terminations

Verb Formation

Causative verbs were formed using ಚು, ಸು, ಇಚು, ಇಸು, ಪು,. The first two and last were originally used only in the past tenses, the middle two in the non-past, and the penultimate one in the future. This reflects the Dravidian linguistic trait of causativity combined with time aspect. This trait was eventually lost.

Appellative Verbs

Appellative verbs also existed, which were nouns used as verbs by suffixing personal terminations, e.g. ಅರಸನ್ + ಎನ್ = ಅರಸನೆನ್

Derivation

Nouns were formed from verbal roots using suffixes and these nouns were usually neuter gender and abstract in meaning, e.g. suffixes ಕೆ, ಗೆ, ವು, ವಿ, ಪು, ಪಿ, ಮೆ, ಅಲ್; Root ಕಲ್ + ಪಿ = ಕಲ್ಪಿ
Also, negative nouns could be formed from negative verb-bases e.g. ಅಱಿಯ + ಮೆ = ಅಱಿಯಮೆ
Regarding adjectives, Kannada had and still has a few native words that can be classed as true adjectives. Apart from these, mentioned in 'Numbers and natural adjectives', Kannada used and uses the genitive of nouns and verbal derivatives as adjectives. e.g. ಚಿಕ್ಕದ ಕೂಸು – Small baby. It may be said that there are not real 'adjectives' in Kannada, as these can be called moreover, nouns of quality.