Is the Kannada language worth learning?
Kannada, less commonly known as Kanarese, 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 script, which originated from the 5th-century Kadamba script, is used to write Kannada. Kannada has been attested epigraphically for around a millennium, and literary Old Kannada flourished during the Ganga dynasty in the 6th century and the Rashtrakuta Dynasty in the 9th century. Kannada has a thousand-year literary legacy that is unbroken. Kannada literature has earned the most Jnanapith awards of any Dravidian language and the second most of any Indian language.
The Government of India declared Kannada as a classical language of India based on the recommendations of the Committee of Linguistic Experts appointed by the Ministry of Culture, and a centre for the study of classical Kannada was founded as part of the Central Institute of Indian Languages in Mysore in July 2011 to encourage research related to the language.
To be able to manoeuvre anywhere you plan to reside long-term, it’s a smart thing to learn the local language. Learning even a few rudimentary phrases will go a long way toward connecting you with the local community.
There is no such thing as a difficult or simple language. The availability of required related tools, such as students, books, online support, native speakers, and much more, determines whether studying is easy or difficult. The majority of teachers are simply Kannada speakers who pretend to be able to teach, despite their lack of expertise or knowledge of complicated Kannada grammar or how to teach languages!
Officials from the government make a lot of fuss over people who don’t speak Kannada and insist that they learn it. A newcomer, on the other hand, receives almost no assistance from the Karnataka government or the Department of Kannada and Culture in learning Kannada or receiving adequate preparation and support for aspiring teachers and learners.