How to learn Kannada grammar?

Kannada is a Dravidian language that is spoken as a first language by 38 million people and as a second language by another 9 million people in southern India, in the state of Karnataka and neighboring states such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra, in South India. It is estimated that worldwide it is spoken by upwards of 44 million people, including those who speak it as a second language (Ethnologue).There are about 20 spoken dialects of Kannada (Ethnologue). There is a considerable difference between the spoken and written forms of the language with regard to its phonology, grammar, and lexicon. Spoken Kannada has many regional dialects, while the written form remains relatively uniform.

Kannada is one of the 22 official languages and 14 regional languages of India.

It has literature that dates from the ninth century. Dravidian languages like Telugu and Tamil share a lot of words, and similarities in the grammatical structure (colloquial speech) with Kannada.  The literacy rate in Kannada is estimated to be about 60%. The Kannada language is written using the Kannada script, which evolved from the 5th-century Kadamba script. At the dawn of the 20th century, B. M. Srikantaiah (‘B. M. Sri’), regarded as the “Father of modern Kannada literature”, called for a new era of writing original works in modern Kannada while moving away from archaic Kannada forms. The same Kannada script is also used for writing Tulu language. Kannada letters have rounded shapes due to the fact that in ancient times writing was done by carving on palm leaves with a sharp point. Using this technique, it was apparently easier to produce curved lines than straight ones.

Kadamba Dynasty of Banavasi in modern Uttara Kannada district and the Western Ganga Dynasty in southern Karnataka, were the first kingdoms to give administrative status to Kannada language as evidenced by the Halmidi inscription of 450, attributed to King Kakusthavarma of the Kadamba Dynasty.

It has highest number of Janapeeta literary awards compared to any Indian language. Kannada had a huge boost during the Vijayanagar period. Shri Vinoba Bhave called “Kannada” script the “Queen of World Scripts” – “Vishwa Lipigala Raani”

Kannada grammar is primarily based on Keshiraja’s Shabdamanidarpana (c. 1260 CE) which provides the fullest systematic exposition of Kannada language. The earlier grammatical works include portions of Kavirajamarga (a treatise on alańkāra) of 9th century written by a Jain king from Rashtrakuta empire King Amoghavarsha Nrupatunga also known as Amoghavarsha I (814 A.D.-878 A.D.), Kavyavalokana and Karnatakabhashabhushana both authored by Nagavarma II in first half of the 12th century.

The earliest inscriptions in Kannada date back to 450 AD. Kannada literature was fully developed by the 10th century, and works on medicine and science appeared in the 12th century. The same period marked the start of a grammar tradition.

Various grammatical aspects of Kannada include, tatsama–tadbhava, vibhakti pratyaya, kāla (tense-forms), linga (gender-forms), sandhi, samāsa, chandassu, alańkāra; and different poetic metres such as vritta, tripadi, kanda (also called, choupadi or chaturpadi), shatpadi, sāngatya and others.

The name given for a pure, true letter is akshara, akkara or varna. Each letter has its own form (ākāra) and sound (shabda); providing the visible andhare audible representations, respectively. Kannada is written from left to right. Kannada alphabet (aksharamale or varnamale) now consists of 49 letters.

Each sound has its own distinct letter, and therefore every word is pronounced exactly as it is spelt; so the ear is a sufficient guide. After the exact sounds of the letters have been once gained, every word can be pronounced with perfect accuracy. The accent falls on the first syllable. Diacritics, that appear above, below, before or after the consonant, indicate change to another vowel or suppression of the inherent vowel.

Kannada is a highly inflected language and like other Dravidian languages, it is agglutinative, which means that suffixes are added to stems to derive new words and to express various grammatical relationships. This can result in very long words such as Shivatatvaratnakara, the name of the world’s first encyclopedia.

While there are many avenues to learn Kannada grammar such as Kannada classes, online classes, websites and books. I still recommend learning grammar is best done with a teacher, face to face online or offline.

#1 Learn as many words as you can. To learn grammar easily, the basic element of any language is words. Get a dictionary (or download one) and learn as many of them as you can. Use each new word as often as you can so you will remember it. Don’t bother about making mistakes to start with! 

#2 Talk to people. Take any chance that comes to talk to people, even on the phone. You learn grammar as you listen to how other people use the words even if you do not know the rules. The more you hear the words used correctly, the more you learn.

#3 Watch and learn. The best way to learn grammar is to watch movies and television shows in the language you are interested in. Go back if you did not understand anything. Try to get copies with English subtitles to help you understand what people with heavy accents are saying.

#4 Ask for corrections. Most people refrain correcting you to avoid offending you. Ask people to correct to learn from your mistakes. When someone edits and proofreads something, check it against your original document to see where you went wrong. Take note of all corrections and practice!

#5 Know the parts of speech. Putting together all the words you know into parts of speech. You need to know this when learning grammar because the parts of speech will tell you how to use the word in a sentence. Listed below are the different parts of speech and their descriptions.

• Noun – is the name of a person, place, or thing. They can be proper nouns which are specific names such as Julie, Cambridge University, and iPhone, or common nouns or general terms such as girl, school, or smart phone.
• Pronoun – takes the place of a noun in a sentence. The types of pronouns are personal (he, she, it); possessive (mine, hers, his); reflexive (myself, herself, himself, itself); reciprocal (each other); relative (that, which, whom, whose); demonstrative (this, that); interrogative (who, what, when); and indefinite (anyone, anything, nothing, somebody).
• Adjective – describes a noun or pronoun, i.e. pretty girl, prestigious school, gray smart phone
• Article – a special adjective used to define a noun as definite (the) or indefinite (a/an)
• Verb – action word, i.e. jump, walk, speak, right, be
• Adverb – describes a verb, adjective, or another adverb, i.e. jump high, walk slowly, very pretty, highly prestigious school
• Conjunction – puts together two parts of a sentence, (and, or, but)
• Preposition – shows position or direction, used with a noun or pronoun, i.e., He went up the stairs. Other examples: Julie came from school.
• Interjection – words that show emotions, i.e., Wow!, Ouch!

When you make an effort to identify words as parts of speech all the time, you get a better idea of how the words come together in a sentence. It may seem like a lot of work, but if you do it often and long enough, it becomes automatic. You will not even think about it anymore.

#6 Look for patterns. You will notice patterns as you identify parts of speech in a sentence. Try identifying them without checking your grammar notes, and follow the patterns when you make your own sentences.

#7 Practice verb forms. Take care that verbs agree with their subjects in person, number, and gender! Conjugation or verb forms are one of the biggest challenges in learning grammar. Conjugating changes a verb in some way to tell you information about it. It can be time, person, number, aspect, voice, mood, or gender. You probably know about present and past tense. The future tense is no longer used in spoken Kannada. These are conjugations of time. There are two types of verbs when it comes to conjugation, regular (bake,baked)and irregular(take,took).

#8 Use an app. It may seem like cheating, but mobile apps can help you learn grammar easily on any level. They are convenient and easy to use. If you pick the right ones, they will take you through all the steps to learn grammar easily. Through mobile apps, you get functionalities that will allow you to master grammar through any method you want.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shinekannada.kannadagrammarvyakarana

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kannada.grammer

And many more!

Kannada uses postpositions that are added to the end of noun phrases, usually after a case marker, to indicate time, location, instrumentality, and so forth. Postpositions are similar in function and meaning to prepositions in other languages.

Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Numerals

This class of words includes common nouns, proper names, pronouns and adjectives. 

They are inflected for the following categories:

Two genders: Rational and Irrational; Rational nouns include men and deities; Irrational nouns include women, animals, objects, and everything else.

Two numbers: Singular and Plural; 

Singular is unmarked, while the Plural is marked by the suffix -gɭu, e.g., mane ‘house’ and manegɭu ‘houses’.

Seven cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental, and vocative.

Special pronouns for indicating politeness

contrast between proximate and remote demonstrative pronouns

Personal pronouns are marked for person, case and number. Gender is marked only in the third person singular.

Adjectives share properties with nouns (as some linguists think that they do not constitute a separate word class.)

Numerals 1-5 are marked for gender.

Verbs

Kannada verbs have the following properties.

Verbs agree with their subjects in person, number, and gender.

Subject pronouns are often deleted because person, number, and gender information is carried by the verb.

Verbs structure consist of a verb stem + tense marker + person/number/gender marker, e.g., hoog ‘go’ + –tt– ‘present tense’ + –iini ‘;1st person singular’ =hoogtiini ‘I go.’

Person, number, and gender markers have different forms, depending on the tense.

Verbs occur in two forms: finite (imperative, present and past forms, modals, and verbal nouns) which are marked for person, number and gender, and non-finite (infinitives, participles, and verb stems). Finite forms can stand alone, but non-finite forms cannot.

Imperatives have various levels of politeness or deference towards the addressee, e.g., impolite, casual, polite, very polite, extremely polite. Optative imperative (Let him go!) and hortative imperative (Let’s go!) have special forms.

The future tense is no longer used in spoken Kannada.

There are several modal auxiliary verbs (may, must, could, should, etc.) that are attached to the infinitive.

Variety of aspect markers add nuances to the basic meaning of the verb, such as relative sequence of two or more actions, completeness, duration, speaker’s attitude towards the action expressed by the verb, etc.

Causative verbs are formed from intransitive stems by adding the suffix -(i)su, e.g., kali ‘learn’ + –(i)su = kalisu ‘teach.’

There is a special conditional form.

Word order

The standard word order in Kannada is Subject-Object-Verb. However, other orders are possible because Inflectional endings take care of keeping clear grammatical relations and roles in the sentence. There are special markers for topic (what the sentence is about, or old information) and focus (new information). Constituents with old information precede constituents with new information, or those that carry most emphasis. Omission of the subject is common since the verb agrees with the subject in person and number. Modifiers usually precede the words they modify.

The first treatise on Kannada grammar in English was written in 1864 by Rev. Thomas Hodson, a Wesleyan missionary, as An Elementary Grammar of thewordt, or Canarese Language.

One must remember that grammar is the toughest part of any language and it takes a long time to master grammar rules. However, if you want to learn spoken Kannada faster I would recommend you not to get stuck at the grammar rules which will come in due time with practicing speaking Kannada.

Bonus: More on resources and terminology!

Resources

http://ilanguages.org/kannada_grammar.php

http://learn101.org/kannada_grammar.php

http://mylanguages.org/learn_kannada.php

https://www.justlearn.com/kannada-grammar

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/kannada/

Terminology

word – pada (ಪದ) or śabda (ಶಬ್ದ)

alphabet – akṣaramāle (ಅಕ್ಷರಮಾಲ)

letter – akṣara (ಅಕ್ಷರ)

vowel – svara (ಸ್ವರ)

consonant – vyanjana (ವ್ಯಂಜನ)

noun – nāmapada (ನಾಮಪದ)

pronoun – sarvanāma (ಸರ್ವನಾಮ)

adjective – guṇavācaka (ಗುಣವಾಚಕ)

verb – kriyāpada (ಕ್ರಿಯಾಪದ)

participle – kṛdvāci (ಕೃದ್ವಾಚಿ)

gender – linga (ಲಿಂಗ)

case – vibhakti pratyaya (ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ )

number – vachana (ವಚನ)

person – puruṣa (ಪುರುಷ)

numeral – anki (ಅಂಕಿ)

verb root – dhātu (ಧಾತು)

tense – kāla (ಕಾಲ)

voice – prayōga (ಪ್ರಯೋಗ)

sentence – sālu (ಸಾಲು) or vākya (ವಾಕ್ಯ)

form – rūpa (ರೂಪ)

sandhi – sandhi (ಸಂಧಿ)

equal- sama ಸಮ