Translation Resources

Also known as Kanarese, Kannada is one of the oldest and well-known Dravidian languages. Kannada is mainly spoken in Karnataka and to a good extent in the neighboring states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and in Kerala. There are significant Kannada speaking populations in the United States and the United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent in Canada and Australia.

Facts

• Kannada is one of the 22 official languages of India and is the official language of the state of Karnataka, which is in southern India.
• Kannada is spoken in its various dialects by roughly 44 million people.
• Kannada ranks as the 10th most commonly spoken language.
• The first Kannada dictionary consisted of more than 70,000 words and was composed by the German priest Reverend Ferdinand Kittel.

	Some facts on Kannada Primarily spoken in: Karnataka, India Also spoken in: The US, The UK, Canada, and Australia Official language of: Karnataka Total number of speakers: 120 million Rank: 10

Brief History

The evolution of Kannada is similar to that of other Dravidian languages. According to archeological evidence, the written language is around 1500-1600 years old. During the course of its existence, Kannada came into contact with Urdu, Marathi, and English, because they were the languages of the rulers at different points in time. Kannada has undergone natural changes in its structure.

Writing system

Kannada is written in its own script. The language has 49 letters. These are divided into two groups: Swaragalu (15 letters) and Vyanjanagalu (34 letters), similar to the vowels and consonants of English. The script itself, derived from the Brahmi script, is fairly complicated like most other scripts of India. The script of Kannada is also used in other languages such as Tulu, Kodava Thakk, and Konkani.

Fonts

From the given link you can download fonts for free; for Kannada, Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Konkani, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam languages.

http://www.baraha.com/downloads.htm

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