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 40.6 million people, or about two thirds of the state's … See more

Old Kannada
The oldest known existing record of Kannada poetry in Tripadi metre is the Kappe Arabhatta record of 7th century AD. Kavirajamarga by … See more

The language uses forty-nine phonemic letters, divided into three groups: swaragalu (vowels – thirteen letters); vyanjanagalu (consonants – thirty-four letters); and yogavaahakagalu (neither vowel nor consonant – two letters: anusvara See more

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 … See more

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 … See more

There is also a considerable difference between the spoken and written forms of the language. Spoken Kannada tends to vary from region to region. The written form is more or less consistent throughout Karnataka. The Ethnologue reports "about 20 dialects" of … See more

Consonants
• Most consonants can be geminated.
• Aspirated consonants very rarely occur in native vocabulary … See more