Ethnicity Badaga | ||
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Native speakers 140,000 (2001 census)400,000 (1998) Language family DravidianSouthernTamil–KannadaKannada–BadagaBadaga Writing system Tamil scriptKannada alphabet | ||
Badaga (Kannada: ಬಡಗ) is a southern Dravidian language spoken by approximately 135,000 people in the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu. It is known for its retroflex vowels. It has similarities with neighbouring Kannada language, and has now been identified as an independent language by a French linguistic scholar, Christiane Pilot-Raichoor. The word Badaga, meaning "northerner", refers to the Badaga language as well as the Badaga indigenous people who speak it.
Contents
Sounds
Badaga has five vowels qualities, /i e a o u/, each of which may be long or short and until the 1930s were contrastively half and fully retroflexed, for a total of 30 vowel phonemes. Current speakers only distinguish retroflection for a few vowels.
Note on transcription: rhoticity ⟨◌˞⟩ indicates half-retroflexion; doubled ⟨◌˞˞⟩ it indicates full retroflexion.
Badaga script
Several attempts were made at constructing an orthography based on English and Kannada. The earliest printed book using Kannada script was "Anga Kartagibba Yesu Kristana Olleya Suddiya Pustaka" by Basel Mission Press of Mangaluru in 1890.
List of Books in Kannada Script:
- Anga Kartagibba Yesu Kristana Olleya Suddiya Pustaka
- Jonah
- Mana Kannadi
- Marka Bareda Loka ratchagana kade
- Zion
Dictionary
The Badaga language is well studied, mainly by missionaries, and several Badaga-English Dictionaries have been produced since the latter part of the nineteenth century.