Kannada script

The Kannada script (IAST: Kannaḍa lipi; obsolete: Kanarese or Canarese script in English) is an abugida of the Brahmic family,^[4] used to write Kannada, one of the Dravidian languages of South India especially in the state of Karnataka. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. Kannada script is also widely used for writing Sanskrit texts in Karnataka. Several minor languages, such as Tulu, Konkani, Kodava, Beary and Sanketi also use alphabets based on the Kannada script.^[5] The Kannada and Telugu scripts share very high mutual intellegibility with each other,^[6] and are often considered to be regional variants of single script. Other scripts similar to Kannada script are Sinhala script^[7] (which included some elements from the Kadamba script^[8]), and Old Peguan script (used in Burma).^[9]

Quick Facts Kannada script ಕನ್ನಡ ಲಿಪಿ, Script type ...

Kannada script ಕನ್ನಡ ಲಿಪಿ
A stanza from Kavirajamarga which praises the people for their literary skills, written in the Kannada script[note 1]
Script type	Abugida
Time period	4th[1] century CE – present
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	Kannada Sanskrit Tulu Kodava Badaga Beary Sanketi Konkani Marathi
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Brahmi script Kadamba alphabet Kannada-Telugu alphabet[2] Kannada script
Child systems	Goykanadi[3]
Sister systems	Telugu
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Knda (345), ​Kannada
Unicode
Unicode alias	Kannada
Unicode range	U+0C80–U+0CFF
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

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This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

The Kannada script (ಅಕ್ಷರಮಾಲೆ akṣaramāle or ವರ್ಣಮಾಲೆ varṇamāle) is a phonemic abugida of forty-nine letters. The character set is almost identical to that of other Brahmic scripts or often known as Brahmi Lipi.^[10] Consonantal letters imply an inherent vowel. Letters representing consonants are combined to form digraphs (ಒತ್ತಕ್ಷರ ottakṣara) when there is no intervening vowel. Otherwise, each letter corresponds to a syllable.

The letters are classified into three categories: ಸ್ವರ svara (vowels), ವ್ಯಂಜನ vyañjana (consonants), and ಯೋಗವಾಹಕ yōgavāhaka (semiconsonants).

The Kannada words for a letter of the script are ಅಕ್ಷರ akshara, ಅಕ್ಕರ akkara, and ವರ್ಣ varṇa. Each letter has its own form (ಆಕಾರ ākāra) and sound (ಶಬ್ದ śabda), providing the visible and audible representations, respectively. Kannada is written from left to right.^[11]

Kannada script or the early Kadamba script evolved from the Ashokan Brahmi script,^[12][13][14] which later evolved into Kannada-Telugu script, during the period of Chalukyas and later Chalukyas of Vengi.^[15][16][17] The Kannada and Telugu scripts then separated by around 1300 C.E.^[18][19]

The 11th-century Persian scholar and polymath Al-Biruni calls the Kannada script as Karnata alphabets used in Karnatadesa^[20]

Over the centuries some changes have been made to the Kannada script. These changes consist of:

1. Modification of existing glyphs: In the early Kannada script, no orthographic distinction was made between the short mid [e, o] ಎ, ಒ and long mid [eː, oː] ಏ, ಓ. However, distinct signs were employed to denote the special consonants viz. the trill [r] ಱ the retroflex lateral [ɭ] ಳ and the retroflex rhotic [ɻ] ೞ, by the 5th century.^{[dubious – discuss][the transcriptions contradict themselves]}

There are thirteen vowel letters (ಸ್ವರ svara) in modern Kannada. The Kannada script is an abugida, where when a vowel follows a consonant, it is written with a diacritic rather than as a separate letter. There are also three obsolete vowels, corresponding to vowels in Sanskrit.

Written Kannada is composed of akshara or kagunita, corresponding to syllables. The letters for consonants combine with diacritics for vowels. The consonant letter without any diacritic, such as ಕ ka, has the inherent vowel a ಅ. A consonant without a vowel is marked with a 'killer' stroke, such as ಕ್ k. This silencing diacritic and process is known as ಹಲಂತ halanta, whereas the resulting letter is called an ಅರ್ಧಾಕ್ಷರ ardhākshara (lit. 'half letter').^[21]

Kannada has a phonemic vowel length distinction, so like many other Brahmic scripts, the writing system has two sets of diacritics, one for short vowels and one for long vowels. Short vowels are referred to as ಹ್ರಸ್ವ hrasva, while long vowels are referred to as ದೀರ್ಘ dīrgha.^[21]

Two categories of consonant letters (ವ್ಯಂಜನ vyan̄jana) are defined in Kannada: the structured consonants and the unstructured consonants.

Obsolete Kannada letters

Kannada literary works employed the letters ಱ (transliterated 'ṟ' or 'rh') and ೞ (transliterated 'ḻ', 'lh' or 'zh'), whose manner of articulation most plausibly could be akin to those in present-day Malayalam and Tamil. The letters dropped out of use in the 12th and 18th centuries, respectively. Later Kannada works replaced 'rh' and 'lh' with ರ (ra) and ಳ (la) respectively.^[22]

It is still used to write the Badaga language and a vowel + virama + ḻ is used to transcribe its retroflex vowels.^[23]

Another letter (or unclassified vyanjana (consonant)) that has become extinct is 'nh' or 'inn'. Likewise, this has its equivalent in Telugu, where it is called Nakaara pollu. The usage of this consonant was observed until the 1980s in Kannada works from the mostly coastal areas of Karnataka (especially the Dakshina Kannada district). Now, hardly any mainstream works use this consonant. This letter has been replaced by ನ್ (consonant n).^{[citation needed]}

The decimal numerals in the script are:

Several transliteration schemes/tools are used to type Kannada characters using a standard keyboard. These include Baraha^[24] (based on ITRANS), Pada Software^[25] and several internet tools like Google transliteration, Quillpad^[26] (predictive transliterator). Nudi, the Government of Karnataka's standard for Kannada Input, is a phonetic layout loosely based on transliteration.

Due to its resemblance to an eye and an eyebrow, the Kannada letter ಠ ṭha is used in the "look of disapproval" (displayed as "ಠ_ಠ"), a popular emoticon used to convey disapproval or contempt.^[27] Similarly, the akshara ರೃ rr̥a has been used in emoticons to represent a monocle, while ಥ tha has been used to represent a tearing eye.

Kannada script was added to the Unicode Standard in October 1991 with the release of version 1.0.

The Unicode block for Kannada is U+0C80–U+0CFF: