Kannada

Kannada is a Dravidian language spoken primarily in Karnataka State in South India, and has a literature that dates from the ninth century. It has a population of 35,346,000 speakers, and is spoken not only in Karnataka, but to some extent in the neighboring states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra. The literacy rate in Kannada is estimated to be about 60%. Kannada is written with its own script which is similar to the script used also for Telugu. The script is also used for writing Tulu.

Instructor: Vijayalakshmi Swaminathan

Email: vijs@sas.upenn.edu