Kodava Takk

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Kodava Takk or Kodava takka, (Kannada script:ಕೊಡವ ತಕ್‌) is the original language of the south Karnataka district of Kodagu. The language is often called Kodava or Coorg language in English. The number of speakers is estimated at up to about 500,000. It is the primary language of Kodavas, but a large portion of other communities and tribes in Kodagu also use Kodava Takk. It belongs to the Dravidian language family, and is related to and influenced by Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam. A majority of the words are common between Kodava Takk and Beary bashe, a dialect of Dakshina Kannada spoken by the Beary and Belchada community.

Linguistically, it shows some deviations from other Dravidian languages. For instance, most Dravidian languages have 5 short and 5 long vowels. Kodava Takk has two more vowels, namely, /ï/ high central unrounded vowel and /ë/ mid central unrounded vowel which are also distinguished as short and long. (Balakrishnan, 1976).

These peculiarities and distinctness of the language had attracted the attention of scholars from the sixteenth century. However, they did not consider Kodava as an independent language. It was always considered as a dialect of Kannada, closer to Tulu (Ellis 1816), or closely related to Malayalam and Tamil (Moegling 1855). It was in early 20th century that the philologists and linguists recognized it as an independent language.

Kodava Takk is also the mother tongue of some other communities such as Airi, Male-Kudiya, Meda, Kembatti, Kapal, Maringi, Heggade, Kavadi, Kolla, Thatta, Koleya, Koyava, Banna, Golla, Kanya, Ganiga, and Malay. Many of these communities have migrated into Kodagu from the Malabar region during the period of Haleri Dynasty. There is no research done so far to find out the variation in Kodava language in terms of these communities.

Kodava Takk has no significant written literature. When it is written, it is usually with Kannada script, sometimes with minor modifications.

[edit] Some phrases with translations

ninga ennane ullira?	How are you?
undit aacha?	Had your lunch/dinner?
saukyava	Hale and hearty?*
mamma moodi chayite ulliya?	Sister-in-law, how do you do?
gauji madiyand ullo!	Am having a gala time!
ningala kandit naak bari kushi aachi!	It was a pleasure meeting you!

[edit] See also

[edit] References

R A Cole, "An Elementary Grammar of the Coorg Language"
K S Rajyashree, Kodava speech community : An ethnolinguistic study
Ethnologue report for Kodava takk - note however that this reference uses the district name, Kodagu, rather than the language name, which it mentions later.