Blackwell Reference Online

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One of the major scripts of south India, Kannada is a descendant of the kadamba script and Old Kanarese script. The latter was used from about the thirteenth century ce for both Kannada and Telugu, but the introduction of printing in the early decades of the nineteenth century has accentuated some minor distinctions, giving rise to two systems. Yet the two remain very similar, the differences being limited to some variant letter forms such as the letter for ka which is in Kannada and Š in Telugu. The script is a syllabic alphabet consisting of independent V graphemes and C graphemes with inherent a ( table 4 ). In post-consonant position other Vs are expressed by diacritics added to the basic C graphs. C clusters are expressed by conjunct letters mainly formed by subscripts. The first C graph in a cluster which thus loses its inherent V is written on the ordinal line and the succeeding ones are subscribed in truncated form or transformed in some other way. The absence of the inherent V is also indicated by the V muting sign ( virāma ) placed above the C graph. The Kannada anusvāra or bidu , used instead of a nasal letter, has the characteristic form of a circle placed on the ordinal line between the C letters rather than a dot attached to the preceding letter. Kannada letters are characterized by rounded forms typical of all southern Indian scripts. Table 4 The Kannada ... log in or subscribe to read full text