Pre-old Kannada (or Purava HaleGannada) was the language of
Banavasi in the early Common Era, the Satavahana and Kadamba periods and hence
has a history of over 2000 years.The Ashoka rock edict found at Brahmagiri
(dated to 230 BC) has been suggested to contain words in identifiable Kannada.
The Kannada language is written using the Kannada script,
which evolved from the 5th-century Kadamba script. Kannada is attested
epigraphically for about one and a half millennia, and literary Old Kannada
flourished in the 6th-century Ganga dynasty and during the 9th-century
Rashtrakuta Dynasty.Kannada has an unbroken literary history of over a thousand
years.
Based on the recommendations of the Committee of Linguistic
Experts, appointed by the Ministry of Culture, the Government of India
officially recognised Kannada as a classical language.In July 2011, a centre
for the study of classical Kannada was established as part of the Central
Institute of Indian Languages at Mysore to facilitate research related to the
language.
History
Kannada is a Southern Dravidian language and according to
Dravidian scholar Sanford Steever, its history can be conventionally divided
into three periods; Old Kannada (halegannada) from 450–1200 A.D., Middle
Kannada (Nadugannada) from 1200–1700 A.D., and Modern Kannada from 1700 to the
present.Kannada is influenced to an appreciable extent by Sanskrit. According
to the Dravidian scholars Bhadriraju Krishnamurti and Kamil Zvelebil, Kannada
and Tamil split into independent languages from the Proto-Tamil–Kannada
subgroup around 8th–6th. century B.C.,Influences of other languages such as
Prakrit and Pali can also be found in Kannada language. The scholar Iravatham
Mahadevan proved that Kannada was already a language of rich oral tradition
earlier than 3rd century B.C., and based on the native Kannada words found in
Prakrit and Tamil inscriptions of that period, Kannada must have been spoken by
a widespread and stable population. The scholar K.V. Narayana claims that many
tribal languages which are now designated as Kannada dialects could be nearer
to the earlier form of the language with lesser influence from other languages.
Influence of Sanskrit
and Prakrit
The sources of influence on Kannada grammar appear to be
three-fold; Panini's grammar, non-Paninian schools of Sanskrit grammar,
particularly Katantra and Sakatayana schools, and Prakrit grammar.Literary
Prakrit seemed to have prevailed in Karnataka since ancient times. The
vernacular Prakrit speaking people, may have come in contact with the Kannada
speakers, thus influencing their language, even before Kannada was used for
administrative or liturgical purpose. Kannada phonetics, morphology,
vocabulary, grammar and syntax show significant Sanskrit and Prakrit influence.
Some examples of naturalised (tadbhava) words of Prakrit
origin in Kannada are baṇṇa
derived from vaṇṇa,
arasu (king), and from Sanskrit, varṇa
(color), hunnime (new moon) from puṇṇivā,
paurṇimā (full moon),
and rāya from rāja (king).Kannada has numerous borrowed (tatsama) words such as
dina, kopa, surya, mukha, nimiṣa,
anna.
Unknoun Facts about Kannada
Unknoun Facts about Kannada
