Kannada

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.^[34]

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. He pointed out that Prakrit inscriptions of that period contained large numbers of Kannada personal and place names. ^[35]

The Ashoka rock edict (c. 250 BCE) found at Brahmagiri contains Kannada words such as words (isila, meaning to fire an arrow).^[36][37]

Old Kannada words are also found in inscriptions in Northern Tamil Nadu and Kerala^[38]: 144 First-century Sittanavasal Cave inscriptions contain words such as such as erumi-nadu (a location) and pocil (entrance)^: 453. Other examples include kaavithi (village officer's wife) from 1st century CE Tirumlai^: 459 and thaayiyaru (mothers) in the 4th century CE Nekanurpatti inscription.^: 523.

Extensive trade relations between the ancient Kannada lands (Kuntalas, Mahishakas, Punnatas, Mahabanas, Asmakas, etc.) and Greece, Egypt, the Hellenistic and Roman empires and others led to exchange of people, ideas, and literature. The Library of Alexandria contained Kannada palm-leaf book, indicating that Kannada language and literature must have flourished before the library was established in between c. 285-48 BCE. This document later played a vital role in establishing Kannada as one of the Classical Languages of India.^[39] Pliny the Elder, a Roman historian, wrote about pirates between Muziris and the Netravati River, and also mentions Barcelore (possibly modern Mangaluru, upon its mouth.^[40] The Greek geographer Ptolemy (writing c. 150 CE) mentions ten Kannada place names from Northern Karnataka, between Bhima River in the north and Banaouasei (Banavasi) in the south: Nagarouris (Nagur), Tabaso (Tavasi), Inde (Inde), Tiripangalida (Gadhinglaj), Hippokoura (Huvina Hipparagi), Soubouttou (Savadi), Sirimalaga (Malkhed), Kalligeris (Kalkeri), Modogoulla (Mudgal), and Petirgala (Pattadakal).

Pliny also mentions King Sire Polemaios (Vasishthiputra Pulumavi (c. 85–125 AD)), whose name is derived from Kannada: puli, lit. 'tiger', perhaps indicating a native Kannada origin for the Satavahanas^[41] and explaining the presence of Kannada language and culture in the southern Kuntala country during the period when Pulumavi ruled from Paithan in the north and his son or Pulumayi Kumara ruled from Huvina Hipparagi in present Karnataka in the south.^[42]

An early ancestor of Kannada (or a related language) 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.^[43]

Epigraphy

The earliest well-attested example of a full-length Kannada language stone inscription containing Brahmi characters with characteristics of old Kannada script can be found in the Halmidi inscription, usually dated c. 450 AD. Its exestence indicates that Kannada had become an administrative language by that time. The Halmidi inscription provides invaluable information about the history and culture of Karnataka.^{[44][45][46][47]}

A set of five copper plate inscriptions discovered in Mudiyanur, though in the Sanskrit language, is written in the Kadamba script. Some epigraphers have suggested that the plates are contemporary with the Halmidi inscription, but detailed study places them more than a century later, in 338 BE. ^{[48] [49][50]}

The 5th century poetic Tamatekallu inscription of Chitradurga and the Siragunda inscription from Chikkamagaluru Taluk of 500 AD are further examples.^[51][52][53] Recent reports indicate that the Old KannadaGunabhushitana 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.^[54] Shravanabelagola is a major Jain pilgrimage centre and an important epigraphic site, with numerous inscriptions useful for the study of Kannada language and literature.^[55][56]

Early Kannada inscriptions have been 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.^{[57][58][59][60]}

The earliest copper plates inscribed in Old Kannada script and language, date to the early 8th century CE, are associated with Alupa King Aluvarasa II include the double crested fish, his royal emblem.^[61]

The oldest well-preserved palm leaf manuscript in Old Kannada is a copy of the Dhavala, dating to around the 9th century. It is preserved in the Jain Bhandar, Mudbidri, Dakshina Kannada.^[62] The manuscript contains 1478 leaves written using ink.^[62]

Coins

Some early Kadamba Dynasty coins bearing the Kannada inscription Vira and Skandha were found in Satara collectorate.^[63] A gold coin bearing three inscriptions of Sri and an abbreviated inscription of king Bhagiratha's name called bhagi (c. 390–420 AD) in old Kannada exists.^[64] A Kadamba copper coin dated to the 5th century AD with the inscription Srimanaragi in Kannada script was discovered in Banavasi, Uttara Kannada district.^[65] Coins with Kannada legends have been discovered spanning the rule of the Western Ganga Dynasty, the Badami Chalukyas, the Alupas, the Western Chalukyas, the Rashtrakutas, the Hoysalas, the Vijayanagar Empire, the Kadamba Dynasty of Banavasi, the Keladi Nayakas and the Mysore kingdom, the Badami Chalukya coins being a recent discovery.^[66][67][68] The coins of the Kadambas of Goa are unique in that they have alternate inscription of the king's name in Kannada and Devanagari in triplicate,^[69] a few coins of the Kadambas of Hangal are also available.^[70]

Old Kannada

The oldest known literary work in Kannada is the Kavirājamārga (ಕವಿರಾಜಮಾರ್ಗಾ, "The Way of Poet-Kings"), a work of literary criticism and poetics meant to establish a literary standard for Kannada. Nṛpatuṅga Amoghavarṣa I (850 CE) is generally the patron of the work, but the precise identity of the text's author has been the subject of scholarly debate. Muliya Timmappaya has suggested that the work was a collaboration between Amoghavarṣa I and one of his court poets, Śrīvijaya. ^[71] Building on the model of Daṇḍin's Kāvyādarśa (a Sanskrit treatise on poetics widely read across South Asia), the Kavirājamārga presents a systematic overview of meters, literary devices, and language for use in literary Kannada.^[72] The work refers to Kannada works by early writers such as King Durvinita of the 6th century and Ravikirti, the author of the Aihole record of 636 CE.^[73][74] The text praises earlier poets and briefly outlines paḻagannaḍa ("old Kannada"), an older form of the language which was regarded as no longer suitable for literature; this suggests the existence of an earlier tradition.^[75]

Pampa, regarded as "first poet" (ādikavi) of Kannada, was one of the "three gems" (ratnatraya) of Jaina literature and Kannada language, along with Ponna and Ranna; his major works include Vikramārjunavijaya and Ādipurāṇa.^[76] These three authors were widely revered throughout the premodern tradition, and were frequently named in the benedictory portions of poetic works that praise earlier and senior poets (kavipraśaṃse). There is also an early extant prose work, the Vaḍḍārādhane (ವಡ್ಡಾರಾಧನೆ) by Shivakotiacharya of 900 CE provides an elaborate description of the life of Jain Acharya Bhadrabahu at Shravanabelagola.^[77]

Early Kannada writers regularly mention three poets as of special eminence among their predecessors – Samanta-bhadra, Kavi Parameshthi and Pujyapada.^[verify] Since later Kannada poets so uniformly name these three as eminent poets, it is probable that they wrote in Kannada also^{[speculation?][verification needed]} Samantabhadra is placed in the 2nd century CE by Jain tradition. Pujyapada, a renowned grammarian and acharya lived around 510 CE to 600 CE. Kaviparameshthi probably lived in the 4th century CE.^[78]

The work also mentions earlier composition forms peculiar to Kannada, such as gadyakathā, cattāṇan and bedaṇḍe.^[79] Some of these styles included several stanzas that were meant to be sung with the accompaniment of musical instrument.^[80][81] The oldest known existing record of Kannada poetry in tripadi metre is the Kappe Arabhatta, a verse inscription of the eponymous Chalukya warrior, inscribed c. 700 CE.^[45][82] In the Old Kannada period (8th-12th century CE), the campū was the dominant literary form. Most of the Jaina works of this period are campūs, such as the Vikramārjunavijaya of Pampa (also known as the Pampabhārata), the Śāntipurāṇa of Ponna, and the Gadāyuddha (also known as the Sāhasabhīmavijaya) of Ranna.

The turn of the second millennium saw great innovations in poetic style, including the ragaḷe (a type of couplet popularised by Harihara), sāṅgatya (a style developed for musical performance) and ṣaṭpadi (a six-line form whose earliest use is by Rāghavāṅka).^[83] The vacana sāhitya tradition also emerged at this time, being distinctly unassociated with the forms and practices of courtly literature. This corpus features broadly Śaiva religious, mystical, and devotional themes, which later served as an important part of the Vīraśaiva tradition. Some of the important writers of vacana literature include Basavanna, Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi.^[84] Writing predominantly in the common form of Kannada, the vacana literature was a critical phase in the transition of the Kannada literature broadly to its Middle Kannada phase.

Middle Kannada

Between the 13th and 18th centuries CE, local devotional traditions of Hinduism had become prominent social presences in South India. This had a great influence on the literature of Middle Kannada (ನಡುಗನ್ನಡ, naḍugannaḍa), as a great deal of literature began to deal with devotional themes. Harihara, writing in the 13th century CE, began the Śaiva hagiographic tradition in Kannada, being followed by his nephew Rāghavaṅka and others.

The Haridāsas of the Mādhva Vaiṣṇava tradition, such as Kanakadāsa, Purandaradāsa, Naraharitīrtha, Vyāsatīrtha, Srīpādarāya, andVādirājatīrtha were prominent in this period.^[85] The haridasa sāhitya ("literature of the servants of Hari") played a major role in popularising bhakti literature, especially in the form of music. Purandara Dasa is widely considered the main predecessor of Carnatic music.^[86][87][88] Forms associated with music generally became more popular, particularly the sāṅgatya.

Kumara Vyasa, who wrote the Karṇāṭa Bhārata Kathāman̄jari (ಕರ್ಣಾಟ ಭಾರತ ಕಥಾಮಂಜರಿ), was widely celebrated for his decision to write in the Kannada of his time rather than imitating the language of earlier masters. His work, entirely composed in bhāmini ṣaṭpadi, is an adaptation of the first ten books of the Mahabharata.^[89] During this period, several Hindi and Marathi words came into Kannada, chiefly relating to feudalism and militia.^{[90][clarification needed]}

Modern Kannada

By the 19th century, Modern Kannada had emerged as its own literary idiom, shaped by the influences of colonial education and native literary practice. Kannada writers such as Vinayaka took to Western literary forms, including the novel and non-native metrical forms. The Navōdaya (modernist) poet Da Rā Bēndre wrote in 1940 that "individuality is the characteristic of the age", arguing for Kannada literature to speak about individuals rather than traditions or communities.^[91] Among Kannada's many renowned writers, Kuvempu is widely regarded as one of the greatest Kannada writers of his generation.^[92] Mamta Sagar writes that Kuvempu, along with other writers of "Kannada romanticism", were strongly influenced by the rise of English language education in colonial Mysore.^[93]

Even as this modernist movement developed, a number of poets and scholars in the court of Mysore continued to write new works in classical style.^[94] One such writer was Siddhānti Śivaśaṅkara Śāstri, who belonged to a lineage of palace scholars going back to Kuṇigaḷa Rāmaśāstri.^[95] Women also began to publish more widely, exemplified by Nanjangud Tirumalamba, who wrote a number of plays and novels, and established her own publishing house, Sati Hitaiṣini.^[96]

In the 1970s, the "Boosa" movement saw strong criticism of earlier Kannada writers (including Kuvempu) for ignoring the enduring reality of caste discrimination and other social issues.^[97] Contemporary Kannada literature has generally been characterised by an interest in social criticism. In the 20th century CE, there have been several distinct movements in Kannada literature, including the modernist Navodaya and Navya, the radical Dalita and the progressive Bandaya.

Works of Kannada literature have received eight Jnanpith Awards,^[98] the highest number awarded to any Indian language.^[99] Banu Mushtaq's Heart Lamp won the first International Booker Prize in 2025.^[100]

Dictionaries

The oldest known Kannada-Kannada, dictionary, Ranna Kanda was composed by the poet Ranna in 996 AD. Other pre-modern Kannada dictionaries include Abhidanavastukosa, a dictionary of Sanskrit words for Kannada users, composed in 1054 by Nagavarma and 'Abhinavaabhidaana', by Abhinava Mangaraja (1398).^[101] Missionary Ferdinand Kittel published a Kannada–English dictionary of more than 70,000 words.^[102] and A Grammar of the Kannada language in English (1903).

G. Venkatasubbiah edited the first modern Kannada–Kannada dictionary, the 9,000-page, 8-volume Kannaḍa nighaṇṭu, published by Sahitya Parishat. He also wrote a Kannada–English dictionary and a dictionary of difficult words.^[103][104]

Consonants

• Most consonants can be geminated.
• [ŋ, ɲ] are allophones before other palatal and velar consonants respectively.
• Aspirated consonants very rarely occur in native vocabulary only in a few numerals like the number 9 and 80, which can be written with a /bʱ/, as in ombhattu, embhattu. However, it is usually written with a /b/, as in ombattu, embattu; they formed from the Proto Dravidian laryngeal *H, like in Telugu. Most of the aspirated words are loanwords and the aspiration of consonants depends entirely on the speaker and many do not do it in non-formal situations.
• The alveolar trill /r/ may be pronounced as an alveolar tap [ɾ].
• The voiceless retroflex sibilant /ʂ/ is commonly pronounced as a /ʃ/ except in consonant clusters with retroflex consonants.
• There are also the consonants /f, z/ which occur in recent English and Perso-Arabic loans but they may be replaced by the consonants /pʰ, dʒ/ respectively by speakers.^[120]
• Some northern Kannada dialects have developed a /ts, dz, tʃ, dʒ/ distinction like in Marathi, Telugu and Southern Odia.^[120]

Additionally, Kannada included the following phonemes, which dropped out of common usage in the 12th and 18th century respectively:

• /r/ ಱ (ṟ), the alveolar trill.
• /ɻ/ ೞ (ḻ), the retroflex central approximant.

Old Kannada had an archaic phoneme /ɻ/ under retroflexes in early inscriptions that merged with /ɭ/ intervocalically or /r/ in clusters and it maintained the contrast between /r/ (< PD ∗ṯ) and /ɾ/ from (< PD ∗r). Both merged in Medieval Kannada.^[120]

In old Kannada at around 10th-14th century, most of the initial /p/ debuccalised into a /h/ e.g. OKn. paḍagu, balupu, keḍapu, Kn. haḍahu, baluhu, {keḍavu, keḍahu} "ship, strength, to pull down".^[121]

Historically, the Tamil-Malayalam languages and, independently, Telugu, phonemically palatalised /k/ before a front vowel; Kannada never developed such phonemic palatalisation (cf. Kn. /kiʋi/, Ta. /seʋi/, Te. /tʃeʋi/ "ear");^[122] however, phonetically, Kannada speakers frequently palatalise velar consonants before front vowels, for example, realising /kiʋi/ "ear" as [ciʋi] and /ɡiɭi/ "parrot" as [ɟiɭi].

Vowels

• /ɐ/ and /aː/ are phonetically central [ɐ, äː]. /ɐ/ may be as open as /aː/ ([ä]) or higher [ɐ].
• The vowels /i iː e eː/ may be preceded by /j/ and the vowels /u uː o oː/ may be preceded by /ʋ/ when they are in an initial position.
• The short vowels /a i u e o/, when in an initial or a medial position tend to be pronounced as [ɐ ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ]. In a final position, this phenomenon occurs less frequently.
• /æː/ occurs in English loans but can be switched with /aː/ or /ja:/.^[120]

At around the 8th century, Kannada raised the vowels e, o to i, u when before a short consonant and a high vowel, before written literature emerged in the language, e.g. Kn. kivi, Ta. cevi, Te. cevi "ear".^[123]

Colloquial speech

Sources:^{[124][125][126]}

• Initial i/e have a y- onset and w- for u/o.
• In many dialects, e/o gets lowered to [æ, ɔ] when followed by non high vowels. Some dialects have /a/ as [ə] when a high vowel comes after it and [a] elsewhere.
• Final -e's become i's, in the south its mostly with verbs but in the north it happens everywhere, eg. bere > bære > bæri. This along with the previous change can create some surface minimal pairs, eg. [bæ:ɖə] "don't" vs [be:ɖə] "ask!" (conj of /be:ɖu/).

Compound bases

Compound bases, called samāsa in Kannada, are a set of two or more words compounded together.^[129] There are several types of compound bases, based on the rules followed for compounding. The types of compound bases or samāsas: tatpurusha, karmadhāraya, dvigu, bahuvreehi, anshi, dvandva, kriya and gamaka samāsa.^{[clarification needed]} Examples: taṅgāḷi, hemmara, kannusanne.

Pronouns

In many ways the third-person pronouns are more like demonstratives than like the other pronouns. They are pluralised like nouns and the first- and second-person pronouns have different ways to distinguish number.^[130]

English

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Kannada

ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಮಾನವರು ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರರಾಗಿ ಹುಟ್ಟಿದ್ದಾರೆ ಹಾಗೂ ಘನತೆ ಮತ್ತು ಅಧಿಕಾರಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಸಮಾನರಾಗಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ತಿಳಿವು ಮತ್ತು ಅಂತಃಸಾಕ್ಷಿಯನ್ನು ಹೊಂದಿದವರಾದ್ದರಿಂದ, ಅವರು ಒಬ್ಬರಿಗೊಬ್ಬರು ಸಹೋದರ ಭಾವದಿಂದ ನಡೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕು.

Romanisation (ISO 15919)

Ellā mānavaru svatantrarāgiyē huṭṭiddāre hāgu ghanate mattu adhikāragaḷalli samānarāgiddāre. Tiḷivu mattu antaḥsākṣīyannu paḍedavarāddarinda avaru obbarigobbaru sahōdara bhāvadinda naḍedukoḷḷabēku.

IPA

/ellaː maːn̪ɐʋɐɾu sʋɐt̪ɐn̪t̪ɾɐɾaːɡijeː huʈʈid̪d̪aːɾe haːɡu gʱɐn̪ɐt̪e mɐt̪t̪u ɐd̪ʱikaːɾɐɡɐɭɐlli sɐmaːn̪ɐɾaːɡid̪d̪aːɾe ǁ t̪iɭiʋu mɐt̪t̪u ɐn̪t̪ɐkkɐɾɐɳɐɡɐɭɐn̪n̪u pɐɖed̪ɐʋɐraːd̪d̪ɐɾin̪d̪ɐ ɐʋɐɾu obbɐɾiɡobbɐɾu sɐhoːd̪ɐɾɐ bʱaːʋɐd̪in̪d̪ɐ n̪ɐɖed̪ukoɭɭɐbeːku ǁ/