Introduction:
Kannada is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in the southwestern region of India. The language is also spoken by linguistic minorities in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Kerala, and Goa; and also by Kannadigas abroad. The language had roughly 43 million native speakers by 2011. Kannada is also spoken as a second and third language by over 12.9 million non-native speakers in Karnataka, which adds up to 56.9 million speakers. It is one of the scheduled languages of India and the official and administrative language of the state of Karnataka. Kannada was the court language of some of the most powerful empires of South and Central India, such as the Chalukya dynasty, the Rashtrakuta dynasty, the Vijayanagara Empire, and the Hoysala Empire.
- 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.
- Kannada literature has been presented with 8 Jnanpith awards, the most for any Dravidian language and the second highest for any Indian language.
One can start learning Kannada in two way:
- By conversation
- By reading and writing
I think one who starts conversing in Kannada learns it faster and enjoys it because she will start applying it more.
Another method, i.e., learning by reading and writing Kannada, and takes its own time and will be a little lengthier compare to learning by conversation.
Before you start learning this language, I would like you to make a list of a few questions that you need to ask yourself and how much time you can devote on a daily basis to learn this language. What is your purpose in learning this language?. How much you are looking to invest in learning this course?. These questions may vary from person to person. For some, the reason for learning this language is to learn Kannada as it is in their curriculum, for some the reason will be that they are shifting to Bengaluru, etc and there are so many reasons for learning this langauge.