Introduction:
Kanarese/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. Kannada is an abugida of the Brahmic family used primarily to write the Kannada language, one of the Dravidian languages of South India especially in the state of Karnataka. Kannada script is widely used for writing Sanskrit texts in Karnataka. There are thirteen (fourteen if the obsolete vowel ೠ is included) vowel letters (ಸ್ವರ svara). Two categories of consonant letters (ವ್ಯಂಜನ vyan̄jana) are defined in Kannada: 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 whereas, the unstructured consonants are consonants that do not fall into any of the structured consonants.