Kannada script ಕನ್ನಡ ಲಿಪಿ
A Stanza from Kavirajamarga which praises the people for their literary skills written in the Kannada script[lower-alpha 1]
Script type	Abugida
Time period	5th CE
Direction	left-to-right
Languages	Kannada Sanskrit Tulu Kodava Badaga Beary Sanketi Konkani Marathi
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Brahmi script Bhattiprolu script Kadamba alphabet Telugu-Kannada alphabet[1] Kannada script
Child systems	Goykanadi[2]
Sister systems	Telugu
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Knda (345), ​Kannada
Unicode
Unicode alias	Kannada
Unicode range	U+0C80–U+0CFF

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The Kannada script (IAST: Kannaḍa lipi; obsolete: Kanarese or Canarese script in English) is an abugida of the Brahmic family,^[3] used to write Kannada, one of the Dravidian languages of South India especially in the state of Karnataka. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. Kannada script is also widely used for writing Sanskrit texts in Karnataka. Several minor languages, such as Tulu, Konkani, Kodava, Sanketi and Beary, also use alphabets based on the Kannada script.^[4] The Kannada and Telugu scripts share very high mutual intellegibility with each other,^[5] and are often considered to be regional variants of single script. Other scripts similar to Kannada script are Sinhala script^[6] (which included some elements from the Kadamba script^[7]), and Old Peguan script (used in Burma).^[8]

The Kannada script (ಅಕ್ಷರಮಾಲೆ akṣaramāle or ವರ್ಣಮಾಲೆ varṇamāle) is a phonemic abugida of forty-nine letters. The character set is almost identical to that of other Brahmic scripts. Consonantal letters imply an inherent vowel. Letters representing consonants are combined to form digraphs (ಒತ್ತಕ್ಷರ ottakṣara) when there is no intervening vowel. Otherwise, each letter corresponds to a syllable.

The letters are classified into three categories: ಸ್ವರ svara (vowels), ವ್ಯಂಜನ vyañjana (consonants), and ಯೋಗವಾಹಕ yōgavāhaka (semiconsonants).

The Kannada words for a letter of the script are ಅಕ್ಷರ akshara, ಅಕ್ಕರ akkara, and ವರ್ಣ varṇa. Each letter has its own form (ಆಕಾರ ākāra) and sound (ಶಬ್ದ śabda), providing the visible and audible representations, respectively. Kannada is written from left to right.^[9]

History

The Brahmi script evolved into the Kadamba script by the 5th century, which in turn developed into the Kannada-Telugu script (or 'Old Kannada script') in the 7th century.^[10] The Kannada and Telugu scripts then separated by around 1300 C.E.^[11]

Over the centuries some changes have been made to the Kannada script. These changes consist of:

1. Modification of existing glyphs: In the early Kannada script, no orthographic distinction was made between the short mid [e, o] ಎ, ಒ and long mid [eː, oː] ಏ, ಓ. However, distinct signs were employed to denote the special consonants viz. the trill [r] ಱ the retroflex lateral [ɭ] ಳ and the retroflex rhotic [ɻ] ೞ, by the 5th century.
2. Introduction of new characters: Kannada script includes characters like [ɕ] ಶ, [ʂ] ಷ,[ru] ಋ, [ruː] ೠ, [lu] ಌ, [luː] ೡ, [ai] ಐ, [au] ಔ, [am] ಅಂ, [ah] ಅಃ, and mahāprāṇa characters like [kʰ] ಖ, [ɡʱ] ಘ, [tʃʰ] ಛ, [dʒʱ] ಝ, [t̪ʰ] ಥ, [d̪ʱ] ಧ, [ʈʰ] ಠ, [ɖʱ] ಢ, [pʰ] ಫ, [bʱ] ಭ. The introduction was done so that Sanskrit (and loanwords into the Kannada language from the donor language Sanskrit) could be written using the Kannada script. These changes have facilitated the use of the Kannada script for writing many of the literary Indic languages, including Sanskrit.

Vowel letters

There are thirteen (sixteen if the obsolete vowels are included) vowel letters (ಸ್ವರ svara).

Brahmi script, Kanheri Caves

When a vowel follows a consonant, it is written with a diacritic rather than as a separate letter.

Consonant letters

Two categories of consonant letters (ವ್ಯಂಜನ vyan̄jana) are defined in Kannada: the structured consonants and the unstructured consonants.

Obsolete Kannada letters

Historical form of representing ನ್ in Kannada script.

Kannada literary works employed the letters ಱ (transliterated 'ṟ' or 'rh') and ೞ (transliterated 'ḻ', 'lh' or 'zh'), whose manner of articulation most plausibly could be akin to those in present-day Malayalam and Tamil. The letters dropped out of use in the 12th and 18th centuries, respectively. Later Kannada works replaced 'rh' and 'lh' with ರ (ra) and ಳ (la) respectively.^[12]

It is still used to write the Badaga language and a vowel + virama + ḻ is used to transcribe its retroflex vowels.^[13]

Another letter (or unclassified vyanjana (consonant)) that has become extinct is 'nh' or 'inn'. Likewise, this has its equivalent in Telugu, where it is called Nakaara pollu. The usage of this consonant was observed until the 1980s in Kannada works from the mostly coastal areas of Karnataka (especially the Dakshina Kannada district). Now, hardly any mainstream works use this consonant. This letter has been replaced by ನ್ (consonant n).

Places of articulation

There are five classifications of passive articulations:

Kaṇṭhya: Velar

Tālavya: Palatal

Mūrdhanya: Retroflex

Dantya: Dental

Ōshtya: Labial

Apart from that, other places are combinations of the above five:

Dantōsthya: Labio-dental (E.g.: v)

Kantatālavya: E.g.: Diphthong e

Kantōsthya: labial-velar (E.g.: Diphthong o)

The attempt of articulation of consonants (Uccāraṇa Prayatna) is of two types,

Bāhya Prayatna: External effort

Spṛṣṭa: Plosive

Īshat Spṛṣṭa: Approximant

Īshat Saṃvṛta: Fricative

Abhyantara Prayatna: Internal effort

Alpaprāna: Unaspirated

Mahāprāna: Aspirated

Śvāsa: Unvoiced

Nāda: Voiced

Pronunciation of letters

*archaic

Writing order

Letter	Animation
a
ā
i
ī
u
ū
ṛ
e
ē
ai
o
ō
au
aṁ
aḥ
ka
kha
ga
gha
ṅa
ca
cha
ja
jha
ña
ṭa
ṭha
ḍa
ḍha
ṇa
ta
tha
da
dha
na
pa
pha
ba
bha
ma
ya
ra
la
va
śa
ṣa
sa
ha
ḷa

Akshara

Written Kannada is composed of akshara or kagunita, corresponding to syllables. The letters for consonants combine with diacritics for vowels. The consonant letter without any diacritic, such as ಕ ka, has the inherent vowel a ಅ. This is called ದೀರ್ಘ dīrgha. A consonant without a vowel is marked with a 'killer' stroke, such as ಕ್ k. This is known as ಹ್ರಸ್ವ hrasva.

The formations shown boldface above are seldom used in the normal course of the language.

Numerals

Clock in Mysore with Kannada numerals

The decimal numerals in the script are:

Transliteration

Several transliteration schemes/tools are used to type Kannada characters using a standard keyboard. These include Baraha^[14] (based on ITRANS), Pada Software^[15] and several internet tools like Google transliteration, Quillpad^[16] (predictive transliterator). Nudi, the Government of Karnataka's standard for Kannada Input, is a phonetic layout loosely based on transliteration.

In popular culture

Due to its resemblance to an eye and an eyebrow, the Kannada letter ಠ ṭha is used in the "look of disapproval" (displayed as "ಠ_ಠ"), a popular emoticon used to convey disapproval or contempt.^[17] Similarly, the akshara ರೃ rr̥a has been used in emoticons to represent a monocle, while ಥ tha has been used to represent a tearing eye.

Unicode

Kannada script was added to the Unicode Standard in October 1991 with the release of version 1.0.

The Unicode block for Kannada is U+0C80–U+0CFF:

See also

References

External links

• "The Unicode Book: Chapter 9" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 March 2013. Retrieved 23 March 2018. (634 KB) — South and Southeast Asian Scripts
• "The Unicode Standard 5.0" (PDF). — Kannada Code Chart (111 KB)
• Kannada alphabet — From Omniglot