Tulu language
Tulu is one of the Dravidian languages of India with under 2,000,000 speakers. Most of its speakers are in the district of South Kanara in the west of the state of Karnataka. The original written script of the language, similar to Malayalam script, is rarely used today. It is normally written in the Kannada script.
There is a controversy wether Tulu script originated from Malayalam script or vice versa. However inscriptions available both of Tulu and Malayalam says Tulu is much older language than Malayalam. In fact, Tulu is much older than Kannada itself. However, 19th century German missionaries used the Kannada script to transcribe Tulu works, and it soon fell out of use due to the fact that Tulu was a lingual minority in the princely state of Mysore. Tulu is generally spoken as the local language by the Mangaloreans. Daily use of the language has propelled its popularity to higher than that of Kannada, the state language. The local population relates closely to any tulu speaker and this fact has its own far reaching consequences and it is now a recognized language in the southern districts of Karnataka.
'Bhagavata' (a purana katha) has been half-written in Tulu script by a Brahmin belonging to Udyavara, Udupi, Karnataka. 'Mandara Ramayana' has also been written in Tulu.
Geographic distribution
There were references in few Malayalam works that the region stretching from
Chandragiri river, now part of Kasaragod district of Kerala, to Gokarna, now part of Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, was called Tulu Nadu. However, the present day Tulu linguistic boundary is confined to Udupi Taluk of Udupi district. Northern Kasaragod, Dakshina Kannada and Udupi district(except Kundapur) are the major Tulu cultural regions.
Tuluvas have a saying, "Oorudu nanjaanda paarad badkodu". A loose translation would be, "If it's tough at home; run away and survive". Tuluvas are true to this character and have migrated to other places in great numbers. Mumbai has a sizeable population of Tuluvas.
The language
Lack of literary works in this language has rendered the precise dating of the origin of
this language very difficult. A claim that it predates Tamil is still controversial.
More research should be done on the findings of Tulu words in Roman plays.
The spoken Tulu changes as we move from South to North. There is a common perception that there are only two kinds of Tulu dialects, namely Brahmin and Common. But in fact if the language, pronounciation are propery studied then there are four distinct dialects of this language. They are Brahmin dialect,Jain dialect,Common dialect and Harijan/Tribal dialect.
Brahmin Dialect - spoken by Shivalli and Sthanika Brahmins - is the language used in writing the few classical literature discovered thus far. They also borrowed Sanskrit words and pronunciation of words. Even the local Dravidian words were enunciated with retroflex words (unusual in Dravidian languages, where non-retroflex sounds are used).
Jain Dialect - spoken by the Jains in the northern part of Tulu nadu. This includes surroundings of Karkala. They have a distinct dialect where the initial t and s have been replaced by letter h. As an example the word tare (head) is pronounced as hare. Saadi (path) is haadi. Now-a-days this dialect has very less diffeence from common dialect.
Common Dialect - is spoken by the majority of people (non-Brahmins) of Tulu Nadu, and is the dialect of commerce, entertainment and art. It is the language of the Paaddana. It is subdivided into more than five groups as spoken by Bunts, Billavas, Mogaveeras, Gowdas and Kumabaras etc. Due to the similarity in these dialects, they are grouped under the common heading of Common Dialect or Common Tulu. The borrowed Sanskrit words in this dialect are invariably altered to a non-retroflex sound unlike in the Brahmin dialect where the words are pronounced just as in Sanskrit. This is also sometimes known as Shudra Tulu, which is considered to be derogatory.
Harijan and Tribal Dialect - is spoken by the Mera, Mansa, Harijan and Tribal classes. They closely resemble the Common dialect though in the South they still have maintained their distinction. The sound c replaces the sounds t, s, and c of other dialects. Hence tare is care and saadi is caadi. Onasu (meal) is pronounced onacu. Non-retroflex words are pronounced with retroflex in this dialect. New words like baanaaru (Brahmin), jeerklu/jeerlu (children), dekke/meere/korage (husband) and dikkalu/meerti/korappolu (wife) are also found in this dialect.
Most Tulu speakers do not rely on just this language and can usually speak a second language since outside of some regions in Karnataka and Kerela , its usage is severly limited.
See also
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