Kannada Language - History

History

Kannada is a southern Dravidian Language and according to Dravidian scholar Sanford Steever, its history can be conventionally divided in to three periods; Old Kannada (halegannada) from 450-1200 A.D., Middle Kannada (Nadugannada) from 1200-1700 A.D., and Modern Kannada from 1700 to the present. Kannada is influenced to an appreciable extent by Sanskrit. According to the Dravidian scholars Bhadriraju Krishnamurti and Kamil Zvelebil, Kannada and Tamil split into independent languages from the proto Tamil-Kannada sub-group around 5th - 6th. century B.C. or earlier, Influences of other languages such as Prakrit and Pali can also be found in Kannada language. The scholar Iravatham Mahadevan proved that Kannada was already a language of rich oral tradition earlier than 3rd century B.C., and based on the native Kannada words found in Prakrit and Tamil inscriptions of that period, Kannada must have been spoken by a widespread and stable populations. The scholar K.V. Narayana claims that many tribal languages which are now designated as Kannada dialects could be nearer to the earlier form of the language with lesser influence from other languages.

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