Kannada is the language of Sandalwood cinema, some of India’s oldest literature, and roughly 50 million people across the globe. The earliest existing example of written Kannada, the Halmidi Inscription, dates back around 2,500 years. (Living in or visiting Karnataka? You can see it for yourself in the striking Government Museum in Bengaluru.) The prolific quantity of Old Kannada literature has led to Kannada being officially labeled a Classical language of India. And as a Dravidian language, it has a lot in common with other major literary languages such as Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam (but a bit less in common with Hindi and Urdu).
Many newcomers to Bangalore don’t bother learning Kannada, the local language. Many people come to the city from North India and can get by easily by speaking Hindi. English is also spoken by many people here. This ease of communication is also due to the Kannadigas’ amazing flexibility: many speak several South Indian languages, Hindi, and English in addition to their native Kannada. As a result, many Indians from outside Karnataka living in Bangalore for a long time don’t speak Kannada at all. The US Foreign Services Institute (FSI) is many people’s port of call when deciding how difficult a language really is for English speakers. While the FSI’s website doesn’t explicitly mention Kannada, many people consider it to be in line with their Category III languages, meaning it would sit alongside Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, and Hindi. Well, the FSI reckons that if you were to intensively study a Category III language for 25 hours a week, you’d reach professional working proficiency after 44 weeks or roughly 10 months.