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[currylangs]

Kannada Lesson 3

Introduction to nouns

In Kannada, nouns (ಹೆಸರುಪದ/ನಾಮಪದ - hesarupada/nāmapada) are declined into one of seven cases:

nominative - ಕರ್ತವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ಪ್ರಥಮ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - kartāvibhakti/prathama vibhakti - 1st

accusative - ಕರ್ಮಬಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ದ್ವಿತಿಯ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - karmavibhakti/dvitiyavibhakti - 2nd

instrumental-ablative - ಕರಣವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ತೃತಿಯ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - karaṇavibhakti/tṛtīya vibhakti - 3rd

dative case - ಸಂಪ್ರದಾನವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ಚತುರ್ಥಿ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - saṃpradānavibhakti/caturthi vibhakti - 4th

genitive case - ಸಂಭಂದವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ಪಂಚಮಿ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - saṃbhandavibhakti/pancami vibhakti - 5th

locative case - ಅಧಿಕಾರಣವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ಸಷ್ಠಿವಿ ಭಕ್ತಿ - adhikaraṇavibhakti/ṣaṣṭhi vibhakti - 6th

vocative case - ಸಂಬೊಧನಾವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ಸಪ್ತಮಿವಿ ಭಕ್ತಿ - saṃbodhanāvibhakti/saptami vibhakti - 7th

Each case will be explained individually as they come. A side note: Here, one can observe the tendency of Kannada to use simpler words not only in pronunciation but also in meaning; for most people, it is more pragmatic to label the cases by number and remember their function, rather than use the traditional name from Sanskrit, which requires some amount of extrapolation to interpret the meaning. Something to remember for case declension is something called declensional sandhi, which refers to the sound or spelling changes that occur in a word as a result of declension. In Kannada, there are four declensional classes, and each case has different endings for different nouns. Fortunately, there are relatively simple ways to figure out whether a noun is of a certain class. (Note: when a complete vowel character is being given by itself in instructions, it refers to the sound, not the letter itself. For example, if an instruction says to drop the final ಉ, it means to drop the final u sound from the stem. So dropping the ಉ from ಬರು would make it ಬರ್.) 

First class nouns include all masculine and feminine that end in ಅ (a). These nouns drop the final ಅ before adding markers and declensional endings. 

Second class nouns include all neuter nouns that end in ಅ. These nouns drop the final ಅ before adding markers and declensional endings.

Third class nouns include all nouns that end in ಇ (i), ಈ (ī), ಎ (e), ಏ (ē), or ಐ (ai). These nouns add a final ಯ್ (y) (known as a ಯತ್ವ - yatva) before adding markers and declensional endings. Merge the letter with the ending.

Fourth class nouns (by far the most common) include all nouns that end in ಉ (u), ಊ (ū), ಋ (ṛ), ೠ (ṝ), ಓ (ō), or ಔ (au). These nouns add a final ವ್ (v) (known as a ವತ್ವ - vatva) before adding markers and declensional endings. Merge the letter with the ending.

Most nouns in native Kannada end in ಉ, and many nouns that have had that ಉ normalized for euphony require the final ವ್ to be added. If the form in the dictionary or vocabulary list has ಉ at the end, then it has been normalized.

The most basic case to learn is the nominative case, which simply specifies that a noun is the subject of a phrase, and has no prepositional, object, or adverbial functions. Every noun listed in a dictionary is given in its base form which, unlike other languages with case systems, is not its nominative form. That said, colloquial Kannada tends to ignore the nominative cases in a lot of cases. See the table below for the endings for the nominative case (ಪ್ರಥಮ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - prathama vibhakti - first case):

Something to remember: Just because a word is someone’s name does not mean it is automatically 1st Class declension, even though many are. The declensional class of noun does not indicate anything about its qualities (such as a woman’s name being worth less if it ends in ಇ and as a result is 3rd Class declension).

For today’s practice: Identify what class of noun each of these nouns belongs to, and then decline it in the nominative case. ನವಿಲು - navilu - peacock ಪುಸ್ತಕ - pustaka - book ನೀರು - nīru - water ರಾಮ - Rāma - a boy’s name/the name of the hero of the Ramayana ಅನ್ನ - anna - cooked rice ನಂದಿನಿ - Nandini - a girl’s name ಸಮಯ - samaya - time ಹಿರಿಯ - hiriya - elderly person ಮರ - mara - tree ಬಾಚಣಿಗೆ - bacaṇige - comb ಮಾವಿನಕಾಯಿ - māvinakāyi - mango Don’t hesitate to shoot us an ask if you have a question! See you all at the next lesson! 

[theonsetofmetanoia]

HELLO EVERYONE

Hello everyone! This is my first time doing this so I’m a bit nervous and REALLY EXCITED!!!!

I am a new studyblr/langblr blog! I decided to create a blog to motivate myself to be more productive and organized (Bullet journaling). I was pretty unmotivated and really unproductive until I discovered this community. I procrastinate a lot because I seek perfection in everything I do. The only way I could get away with mistakes was to do things last minute and tell myself I would have done better if I had the time( Ie I put in shoddy effort for shoddy results) I have been trying to change this toxic attitude of mine for a while now and I think the studyblr community has helped loads. So after a few months of lurking around I’ve decided to formalize my posts and make a studyblr/langblr proper! Hope to make more friends through this:)) I would really love to talk to every one of you, please leave me a message or say hi! Or you could reblog this so I can say hi to you !

About me: 

Personality: ENTP (I know it may not be very accurate but I’ve gotten ENTP consistently and I identify with most of the character traits so) 

Studying: Pursuing a degree in Political Science and International Relations 

Languages: Hindi, Attic Greek, French, Tamil (Please share with me any tips on how to improve my language skills! Or if you need help) 

Interests: Photography! I initially created my Tumblr account to post up my photographs and be inspired by more talented photographers. So do check out my main blog if you’re interested:) 

Some blogs that inspire me daily: 

@eintsein @bandaidsdontfixbulletjournals @studyblr @jeveuxetudier @studywithinspo @studywithinspo @studious-stars @learninghindi @aspirantoflanguage @wonderful-language-sounds @frenchaise

[prototumblinguist]

Yellinda barata, nan matara-bhaashe? Nin gotta? Tumba jana gottalla. Nange anisatte tumba cashTa agatte, yavadu idu?

okay i think this is either Indic or Dravidian, leaning more to Dravidian because yellinda and idu just look Dravidian; like something my aunt would say. Bhaashe, regardless, means “language”, and I’m sure matara means something to do with “mother”

Nange means naked in Hindi tho lol

Kinda random guess: “Can you guess what is my mother tongue? Yes or no? It’s pretty hard. Despite it being so hard, can you figure it out?”

Okay but I would like to know in actually what it says haha

Leave a sentence in your native language in my ask box and I’ll try to translate it!

[languageadventurer]

coccinelf replied to your post “Semester Update”

Si je peux t'aider, gêne-toi pas!

merci mon amie :)

aspirantoflanguage reblogged your post and added:

너도 코라 봐요? 정말 좋아요!

네 정말 마음에 들어요! 

[currylangs]

Kannada Script Part 2 - Vowels and Diacritics

Diacritics

Diacritics are the changes in the form of letters to reflect a particular vowel. Each vowel sound has its own complete, independent form (when it is at the beginning of a word for example). See below.

In Kannada, the mark used to indicate a long vowel is known as ದೀರ್ಘ (dīrgha).

*This vowel is a purely hypothetical letter used to represent an obsolete vowel in Sanskrit texts.

**This symbol: ಂ, is known as the ಅನುಸ್ವಾರ (anusvāra), and the realization (the ultimate pronunciation and changes induced) is called ಅನುನಾಸಿಕ (anunāsika). It nasalizes vowels, and is distinct from ನ್ (terminated n), but is pronounced differently based on what kind of consonant it precedes. If it’s a velar, it is pronounced as [ŋ]; if it’s a palatal, it is pronounced as [ɲ]; if it’s a retroflex it is pronounced as a [ɳ]; if it’s a dental or a sonorant ([s], [ʃ], or [ʂ]), it is pronounced as [n]; and if it’s a labial, then it is pronounced as [m].

***This symbol: ಃ, is known as the ವಿಸರ್ಗ (visarga), and its presence is mostly a spelling convention. It means “sending forth”, and as such, it echoes the vowel it is placed after. So, ಅಃ is pronounced [əhə] and ಇಃ [ɪhɪ]. It appears almost exclusively in Sanskrit loanwords, like ದುಃಖ (duḥkha - grief/pain), where it may even be ignored when pronouncing the words.

To indicate a particular vowel other than the base vowel ಅ, the letters in Kannada change form slightly. The example letter ಕ and its forms are given beneath each complete vowel.

A full table of how each letter changes form can be found on the Kannada script Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kannada_alphabet#Akshara.

Conjunct Consonants and Consonant Diacritics

The consonant diacritic is known as ಒತ್ತಕ್ಷರ (ottakṣara), and typically, no more than two consonant diacritics can be stacked on top of each other, as in the word ವಸ್ತ್ರ (vastra). Below is a table of corresponding diacritics for each single consonant (excluding conjuncts). Note, that in most of them, typically the top line of each character is removed to make it a diacritic, and then placed to the bottom right of a given letter. Below is a table for the most common diacritics.

That’s all for this lesson! Just keep writing the letters over and over, and practice changing the vowel, and you’ll be reading Kannada in no time! 

Practice reading the following words and write out their IAST romanization:

ಗರೀಬು

ಮಾರಾಟ

ಹಾಲು

ಪಟ್ಟಿಗಳು

ಮೆಣಸಿನಕಾಯಿ

ಹಲಸಿನಹಣ್ಣು

ತಾಳ

ಪ್ರೌಢಶಾಲೆ

ಪಾಠ

ಘಂಟೆ

ಮತ್ತು

ರಾತ್ರಿ

ಚಾಪೆ

ಚಪ್ಪಲಿ

ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತಿ

ರೋಜ Ask me @aspirantoflanguage if you have any questions! See you at the next lesson!