Kannada Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids

Kannada

ಕನ್ನಡ kannaḍa

Native to

India - Karnataka, Kasaragod, Kerala, Maharashtra, Andhra pradesh, Goa, Tamil Nadu and significant communities in Mauritius, United Arab Emirates, Thailand.

Ethnicity

Kannadiga

Native speakers

60 million (2011)
11.4 million as a second language

Language family

Dravidian

Southern
- Tamil–Kannada
  - Kannada–Badaga
    - Kannada

Writing system

Kannada alphabet (Brahmic)
Kannada Braille

Official status

Official language in

Karnataka

Regulated by

Various academies and the Government of Karnataka

Distribution of native Kannada speakers in India

Old Kannada script on a victory pillar, 8th century

Modern Kannada script

Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ) is a language, and it is a script used for writing the language. Most people in the southern Indian state of Karnataka speak Kannada, and there are speakers in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Kerala and Goa. There are some differences in the way Kannada is spoken in these places. There are about 44 million people who speak the language.

Kannada is a Dravidian language, which is a different language family from the Indo-European or Aryan languages of the north, such as Hindi but close to the other southern languages like Telugu. It has about 1500 years of written history. The first version is known as the Old Kannada script. By about 1500 it had morphed into the Kannada and Telugu scripts. Printing presses introduced by Christian missionaries at the beginning of the 19th century standardized the Kannada and Telugu scripts.

The Kannada script is a type of writing system called an alphasyllabary. All consonants have a built-in vowel. Other vowels are indicated with diacritics, which appear next to the consonants. When they appear at the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as separate letters. When consonants appear together without intervening vowels, the second consonant is written as a special joint symbol, usually below the first. The direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines.

It has highest number of Janapeeta literary awards compared to any Indian language. Kannada had a huge boost during the Vijayanagar period. Shri Vinoba Bhave called "Kannada" script the "Queen of World Scripts" – "Vishwa Lipigala Raani".

Images for kids

The Halmidi inscription at Halmidi village, in old-Kannada, is usually dated to AD 450 (Kadamba Dynasty)
Old-Kannada inscription dated AD 578 (Badami Chalukya dynasty), outside Badami cave no.3
Old-Kannada inscription of c. AD 726, discovered in Talakad, from the rule of King Shivamara I or Sripurusha (Western Ganga Dynasty)
Old-Kannada inscription of the 9th century (Rashtrakuta Dynasty) at Durga Devi temple in Hampi, Karnataka
The famous Atakur inscription (AD 949) from Mandya district, a classical Kannada composition in two parts; a fight between a hound and a wild boar, and the victory of the Rashtrakutas over the Chola dynasty in the famous battle of Takkolam
Old Kannada inscription dated AD 1057 of Western Chalukya King Someshvara I at Kalleshwara Temple, Hire Hadagali in Bellary district
Old-Kannada inscription ascribed to King Vikramaditya VI (Western Chalukya Empire), dated AD 1112, at the Mahadeva Temple in Itagi, Koppal district of Karnataka state
Old-Kannada inscription of AD 1220 (Hoysala Empire) at Ishwara temple of Arasikere town in the Hassan district
Kannada inscription dated 1509, of King Krishnadevaraya (Vijayanagara Empire), at the Virupaksha temple in Hampi describes his coronation
Kannada inscription dated 1654, at Yelandur with exquisite relief
Shankha Jain Basadi temple at Lakshmeshwar where the notable Adikavi Pampa wrote the Adipurana in Kannada language

Kannada facts for kids

Images for kids

See also