Learning the Kannada alphabet

Kannada is a language spoken by the people of Karnataka in the southwestern region of India and is a member of the Dravidian language family. It has its own written script. The language is also spoken by linguistic minorities in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Kerala, and Goa; and, in the USA, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. In 2011 there were about 56.4 million speakers of Kannada, including 43 million native speakers. Kannada is one of the oldest Indian languages, it is as old as 2000 years. It was officially appointed as a classical language of India in 2011. It is also known as Banglori, Canarese, Havyaka, or Kanarese. It takes 60 hours (about 2 and a half days) to speak 85% fluent Kannada, enough to Survive in Urban & Semi-urban Karnataka.

So, let us go further from the very basics of learning every language- “Learning the alphabet.” 

Before starting to learn any script, it is of utmost importance to learn a brief history of the script and the language. 

The Kannada script evolved from the 5th century Kadamba script. The development of the Kannada script can be divided into three stages: Old Kannada (Halegannada) from 450–1200 AD, Middle Kannada (Nadugannada) from 1200–1700, and Modern Kannada from 1700 to the present. 

The writing system in Kannada script is of two types, alpha syllabary, or abugida, in which all consonants have an inherent vowel. Other vowels are shown with diacritics, which can appear above, below, before or after the consonants. When they appear at the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as independent letters. If consonants appear together without intervening vowels, the second consonant is written as a special conjunct symbol, usually below the first. And the direction to write is from left to right. 

 

In Kannada script, the alphabets are divided into four main parts, vowel (14 including obsolete vowel ೠ), Yōgavāha(2-part-vowel, part consonant), Ardhavisarga(2), consonant letters- two types the structured consonants and the unstructured consonants. 

 

The structured consonants are classified according to where the tongue touches the palate of the mouth and are classified accordingly into five structured groups. I.e. Velars, Palatals, Retroflex, Dentals, and Labials. And, the unstructured consonants are consonants that do not fall into any of the above structures. 

In the process to learn the Kannada language you need to be excelled in the script and the alphabets. There are many rules to follow to learn the language, how to write if the vowel t follows a consonant, or what is a district form.  

At the beginning of the learning process, it is highly recommended for you to learn the basics from a proper educational source like,

  https://classes.multibhashi.com/courses/live-kannada-classes-online.  

 

After this, you can easily follow the rules and the pronunciation of the language. For fluency in speaking, it is highly recommended that you practice the language, make friends with a Kannada speaker, live in a Kannada speaking place, or take classes from a language institute.