TULU LANGUAGE

            Tulu (tuLu) (ತುಳು) is an important member of the Dravidian family of languages. Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada are the major cognate languages of Tulu. This language is indigenous to the coastal Karnataka region and it is spoken in the districts of South Canara and Udupi districts of Karnataka and the Kasaragod district of Kerala. The Arabian Sea, the Western Ghats, Chandragiri River and Kalayanapura River are the demarcating boundaries of Tulu region. Historians have opined that TulunaaDu was much more widespread than this  in ancient times. However, Tulu speaking people have a presence in many other regions of Karnataka as also other states of India. Of late,  many Tulu speaking people have settled down in the Gulf countries also. Tulu has native speakers numbering about 3-5 million people. Tulu is not merely a language. It is a repertoire of a culture which is unique to a community. Tulu is spoken in a region which is essentially multilingual, the other languages in use being Kannada, Konkani, Marathi and byAri (mApiLLe). Tulu happens to be the link language among the natives of the land, even though Kannada is the medium of education and administration. Tulu does not have a script of its own at the current juncture. However, scholars have spoken about an ancient script known as Tulu-Malayalam script which was evolved during the medieval centuries. Some manuscripts such as Sri Bhagavato’ written in this script are found. Tulu has many geographical and social dialects. Geographically Tulu spoken towards the north of Mangalore is distinct from the variety spoken in the region that lies to the South of Mangalore. There are marked differences in the varieties of Tulu spoken by major communities such as Bunts, Mogaveeras, Billavas, Jains, dalits and Brahmins.

            The antiquity of this language goes back to the beginnings of the Christian era. Tulu got separated from the Central Dravidian proto language even before Kannada got its distinct identity. Consequently, some similarities are found between many Central Dravidian languages and Tulu in terms of grammar as well as vocabulary. The words found in a Greek farce discovered at a place called ‘Oxyrhyncus’ are now attributed to Tulu rather than Kannada.

            There are certain differences between Tulu and Kannada in morphology. They are enumerated by Ramachandra Rao B. as follows:

  1. The initial vowel in Kannada is dropped in some Tulu words.

Ex. eLadu (Kannada)                                  latt (Tulu)

                  aDagu (Kannada)                                  Deng (Tulu) 

                  eraDu (----,,------)                                      RaDD (Tulu)

     2.  Initial ‘a’ (ಅ) and ‘A’ (ಆ) in Kannada become e (ಎ) and E (ಏ) in Tulu                                                 Ex: pAl (K)                        pEr (T)                                                                                                                   

3.  The dental consonants in Kannada become palatal consonants in Tulu                                  Ex: ondu (K)               onji (T),  pandi (K)                panji (T)                                                                       

     4.  The initial ‘n’ in the second person singular is lost in Tulu. (nInu> I)

     5.   The middle ‘s’ in Kannada becomes ‘d’ in Tulu. (pesar>pudar)

            For a brief introduction to Tulu literature please go to the relevant entry.

Further Reading and Links:

1.    ‘A Grammar of the Tulu Language’ By J. Brigel, 1872, !982 (Asian Book Services)

2.    “The grammar of the Tulu Language’ Jules Bloch,

3.    ‘Studies in Tuluva history and culture, from the pre-historic times to the modern’ By P.Gururaja Bhat, 1975, published by the author.

4.    ‘A Comparative study of Tulu dialects’ By K.Padmanabha Kekunnaya, 1994, Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Research Centre, Udupi.

5.    ‘Coastal Karnataka: Studies in the folkloristic and linguistic traditions of Dakshina Kannada region of the western coast of India’ By U.Padmanabha Upadhyaya, 1996, Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Research Centre, Udupi.

6.    ‘tuLu BASe-kiru paricaya’ By B.Ramachandra Rao, 1976, I.B.H. Prakashana, Bangalore.

7.    ‘Descriptive Analysis of Tulu’ By D.N. Shankara Bhat, 1967, Deccan College Post-graduate and Research Institute, Poona.

8.     ‘tuLu niGanTu” (Tulu Lexicon) in 4 volumes, 1988, ‘Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Research Centre’, Udupi.

9.    ‘Tulu-English Dictionary’, By A.Manner, 1886, Mangalore

10. ‘Tulu-English Dictionary’ By M.Mariyappa Bhat and A.Shankaar Kedilaya, 1967, Madras.

11.  “A grammar of Tulu: A Dravidian language’ By Sooda Lakshminarayana Bhatt, 1971, 2005, Dravidian Linguistics Association. (Ph. D. dissertation submitted to the University of Wisconsin)

12. ‘tuLu vyAkaraNa’ (in Kannada) By S.U.Paniyadi, 1932, Udupi.

13. ‘varNanAtmaka tuLu vyAkaraNa’ (in Kannada) By Shetti S.T., 1986, Vivekananda College, Puttur.

 

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