Kodava Takk

The Kodava or Coorg language (Kannada script: ಕೊಡವ ತಕ್ಕ್ Kodava takk, meaning 'speech of Kodavas', in the Kodava language) is a Dravidian language and the original language of the Kodagu district in southern Karnataka, India. The term Kodava has two related usages. Firstly, it is the name of the Kodava language and culture followed by a number of communities from Kodagu. Secondly, within the Kodava - speaking communities and region (Kodagu) it describes the dominant Kodava people. Hence, the Kodava language is not only the primary language of the Kodavas but also of a large number of other castes and tribes in Kodagu. The language has two dialects: Mendele (spoken in Northern and Central Kodagu, i.e. outside Kodagu's Kiggat naad) and Kiggat (spoken in Kiggat naad, in Southern Kodagu).

Linguistically, Kodava language shows some deviations from other Dravidian languages. For instance, most Dravidian languages have 5 short and 5 long vowels. Kodava has two more vowels, namely the close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/ and the mid central unrounded vowel /ɘ̞/, which can likewise be short and long (Balakrishnan 1976). These peculiarities and distinctness of the language had attracted the attention of scholars from the sixteenth century. However, they did not consider Kodava an independent language. It was considered as a dialect of Kannada, closer to Tulu (Ellis 1816), or closely related to Malayalam and Tamil (Moegling 1855). It was in the early 20th century that the philologists and linguists recognized it as an independent language. It is closely related to and influenced by Tamil, Tulu, Kannada, and Malayalam. A majority of the words are common between Kodava and Beary bashe, a dialect which is a mixture of Tulu and Malayalam spoken by the Beary and Belchada community.