A COMPARATIVE PHONOLOGY OF
MYSORE DISTRICT KANNADA DIALECTS

L. Manjulakshi, Ph.D.

1. Introduction

Kannada language is one of the major south Dravidian languages. Kannada is spoken by the majority of people in the state of Karnataka, and by minority groups in the neighboring states like Tamilnadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra.

Since Kannada is spoken by a large number of people in vast areas, it has several dialects, namely,

1. Northern Kannada
2. Southern Kannada, and
3. Central Kannada.

Mysore district Kannada is among the Southern Kannada dialects, with several peculiarities. These peculiarities are due mainly to the geographical and linguistic variations.

Mysore district is one of the districts in the state of Karnataka. There are eleven taluks in this district. They are:

1. Mysore (Mys-Kannada, Mys-Ka)
2. Nanjangud (Na-Kannada, Na-Ka)
3. T. Narasipura (Tirumakudalu Narasipura)
4. Yalandur (Ya-Kannada, Ya-Ka)
5. Kollegal (Kol-Kannada, Kol-Ka)
6. Chamarajanagar (Cha-Kannada, Cha-Ka)
7. Gundlupet (Gun-Kannada, Gun-Ka)
8. Krishnarajanagar
9. Hunsur (Hun-Kannada, Hun-Ka)
10. Periyapatna (Per-Kannada, Per-Ka)
11. Heggadadevana Kote

Out of the eleven taluks the dialects spoken at T. Narasipura, Heggadadevana Kote and Krishnarajanagar are not considered for the present study and thus this study analyzes only the data from the other eight taluks of Mysore district.

The main intention of this paper is to dicuss the specific phonemic patterns of Mysore district Kanada dialects. A detailed sketch of the inventory of phonemic distribution, description of the phonemes, and the syllabic patterns found in Kannada used in the eight taluks of Mysore district are used here to make a comparative analysis of the phonological description and complexities.

2. Phonemic Inventory

The phonemes of Mysore district Kannada dialects have been identified into two categories.

(1) Vowel phonemes

(2) Consonant phonemes

The phonemic inventory represents the vowel and consonant phonemes of Mysore district Kannada dialects. The vowels and consonant phonemes are tabulated in the chart below:

Vowel Phonemes Chart

	Front	Central	Back
High	ii:		uu:
Higher-mid	ee:		oo:
		¶
Lower-mid	ee:		ÉÉ:
Low		aa:

Length |:|    Nasalization |~|

Consonant Phonemes Chart

	Bilabial	Labio dentral	Dental and Alveolar	Retro flex	Palatal	Velar	Glokal
Plosive VL	P		t	T	c	k
Vd	b		d	D	j	g
Nasal		M	n	N
Lateral			l	L
Trill			r
Fricative			s				(h)
Semi-vowel		V			y

3. Description of Phonemes

3.1 Vowel Phonemes

There are fifteen vowel phonemes in these dialects. These include eight short and seven long vowels. They are always voiced and syllabic. The phonemic contrasts show a three-fold distinction of the position of the tongue, namely, (front, central and back), a four-fold distinction of height of the tongue (high, higher-mid, low, lower-mid), and two-fold distinction of length (short-long). The front and central vowels are unrounded and the back vowels are rounded. All the short vowels except |.. | have their corresponding long vowels.

The dialects of Kol-ka, ya-ka, cha-ka and gun-ka have a lower-mid front unrounded vowel |..| and in mys-ka, hun-ka and per-ka a lower-mid back rounded vowel | |. These two additional phoneme are added to other phonemes and the phoneme |..| exists only in Mys-Ka dialect. Nasalization occurs freely as a supra-segmental phoneme in Mysore district Kannada dialects.

The short vowel occurs in all the three position in a word. But there are cases in which the vowel ‘o’ does not occur in the initial position in Na-Ka, Kol-Ka, Ya-Ka, Cha-Ka and Gun-Ka dialects.

3.2 Consonant Phonemes

There are twenty consonant phonemes in Mysore district Kannada dialects. This involve the following features.

(i)      Seven-fold classification of the place of articulation, viz., bilabial, labio-dental, dental or alveolar, retroflex, palatal, velar and glottal.

(ii)     Six-fold classification of the manner of articulation viz., plosives, nasals, fricatives, laterals, trills and semi-vowels.

(iii)    Two-fold classification on the basis of the state of vocal cords viz., voiced and voiceless.

Most of the dialects of Kannada show an aspirated Vs unaspirated contrast among the literates.

For example :            dana - Cattle

d^hana - wealth

Three nasals are to be found viz., m, n and N whose distribution is as follows:

m - occurs initially and medially.

n - occurs initially and medially.

N - occurs only in the medial positions.

Trill and semi-vowel ‘V’ occurs both initially and medially but ‘y’ occurs in all positions.

Consonants normally do not occur in the final position of a word is particular characteristic of Kannada dialects. They are, however noticed in the final position of a few loan words in all the dialects.

Examples :                 Piij - ‘fee’   bu:T - ‘shoes’

Consonant N and L do not occur initially.

The aspirated consonants in the dialects of Kannada of Mysore district are found only among literates. But glottal fricatives ‘h’ is not a phoneme in these dialects. In the elite speech |h| is found. But in the speech of illiterates |h| is not clear. It may be considered as free variations. The retroflex nasal |N| and retroflex lateral |L| phoneme do not occur in the initial position of a word. But |T| and |D| retroflex occur very rarely in the initial position of a word.

Palatalization of phonemes are found in Cha-ka, Gun-Ka, Mys-Ka and Per-Ka dialects. These changes occur as exemplified below.

The velar voiceless stop consonant |k| in per-ka is palatalised to become palatal |c| before vowels i and e.

Example :       kenne > cenne ‘cheek’

kivi > civi ‘ear’

The alveolar fricative consonant |s| is Per-Ka and Mys-Ka is palatalised to become palatal |c| before vowels a and e.

Examples :     sakkare > cakkare ‘Sugar’

Sere > cere ‘Prison’

The dental stop consonant |d| in Gun-Ka and Ya-Ka is palatalised to become palatal |j| before ‘i’ vowel.

Examples :     diTa > jiTa ‘truth’

dina > jina ‘day’

Similarly another peculiar situation is found in the Gun-Ka. The retroflex nasal consonant |N| phoneme becomes dental nasal phonemes |n| before ‘a’ and ‘e’.

Examples :     guNa > guna ‘character’

eNNe > enne ‘oil’

All consonant phonemes occur initially and medially but not finally except of phoneme |y| occurs in all the positions of the word. In the speech of some educated people the aspirated consonant phonemes are found in all the dialects of Kannada in other’s speech. These phonemes are not found. ‘f’ and ‘z’ are found only in borrowed words.

3.3 Contrastive Pairs

Contrastive pairs are observed both in vowels and consonants. These are discussed in detail below.

3.3.1 Vowel Phonemes Contrast

Short Vowels

i, e, a, o and u are short vowels in Standard Kannada. Below are given some examples which are contrastive pairs, thereby showing that i, e, a, o and u are vowel phonemes.

|i| and |e|

|illi| ‘here’ |kiri| ‘younger one’ |bari| ‘to write’

|elli| ‘where’ |keri| ‘to scratch’ |bare| ‘band’

|e| and |a|

|eLe| ‘thread’ |bele| ‘rate’ |moLe| ‘nail’

|aLe| ‘to measure’ |bale| ‘net’ |moLa| ‘a measure’

|a| and |o|

|ale| ‘wave’ |tale| ‘head’

|ole| ‘oven’ |tole| ‘wooden beam’

|o| and |u|

|oLi| ‘to shine’ |uLi| ‘to stay’

|u| and |o|

|kuri| ‘sheep’ |kori| ‘to turn round by itself’

All these phonemes are present in all dialects of Mysore district Kannada.

3. 3. 2 Long Vowels Contrast

i:, e:, a:, o: and u: are long vowels in standard Kannada and also in these dialects. Below are given some examples which are contrastive pairs, thereby showing that i:, e:, a:, o: and u: are vowel phonemes.

|i| and |i:|

|iDu| ‘to put’ |i:Du| ‘aiming’

|e| and |e:|

|eDi| ‘to peel’ |e:Di| ‘coward’

|u| and |i:|

|uLu| ‘to plough’ |u:Lu| ‘to bury’

|i:| and |a:|

|i:Du| ‘to shot’ |a:Du| ‘to play’

|e:| and |a:|

|e:Lu| ‘seven’ |a:Lu| ‘servant’

|a:| and |o:|

|a:Ta| ‘game’ |o:Ta| ‘running’

|o:| and |u:|

|o:Lu| ‘piece’ |u:Lu| ‘to bury’

|i:| and |e:|

|ki:Lu| ‘to pluck’ |ke:Lu| ‘to listen’

|a| and |a:|

|vare| ‘head-load’ |va:re| ‘curved’

|o| and |o:|

|toDu| ‘to wear’ |to:Du| ‘to dig’

|e:| and |a:|

|e:ru| ‘to clumb’ |ke:Lu| ‘to hear’

|a:ru| ‘six’ |ka:Lu| ‘grain’

|a:| and |o:|

|ba:Lu| ‘life’ |bo:Lu| ‘a bane bald’

|u:| and |o:|

|gu:De| ‘basket’ |go:De| ‘wall’

|i:| and |u:|

|i:ta| ‘this man’ |u:ta| ‘swelling’

All these phonemes are present in all dialects of Mysore District Kannada and the occurrence chart of short and long vowels present the contrasts.

Occurrence Chart of Vowel Contrastive Pairs

Vowel contrastive pair	Position of contrast			Vowel contrastive pair	Position of contrast
Short vowels	ini.	med.	final	Short & Long vowels	ini.	med.	final
|i| - |e|	+	+	+	|i| - |i:|	+	-	-
|e| - |a|	+	+	+	|e| - |e:|	+	-	-
|a| - |o|	+	+	-	|u| - |u:|	+	-	-
|o| - |u|	+	-	-	|I:| - |a:|	+	-	-
|u| - |o|	-	+	-	|e:| - |a:|	+	+	-
				|a:| - |o:|	+	-	-
				|o:| - |u:|	+	-	-
				|i:| - |e:|	-	+	-
				|a| - |a:|	-	+	-
`				|o| - |o:|	-	+	-
				|e:| - |a:|	+	-	-
				|a:| - |o:|	-	+	-
				|u:| - |o:|	-	+	-
				|i:| - |u:|	+	-	-

Consonant Contrast

P, t, T, c and k are voiceless stop consonant phonemes, whereas b, d, D, j and g are voiced stop consonant phonemes in Standard Kannada. The following examples show their occurrence in contrastive pairs confirming their phonemic status.

Germinated and non-germinated contrast

|p| and |b|

|paDi| ‘a measure of capacity’ |baDi| ‘to beat’

|kappu| ‘black’ |kabbu| ‘sugar cane’

|t| and |d|

|tanDa| ‘group’ |dattu| ‘to adopt’

|danDa| ‘fine’ |daddu| ‘a broken’

|T| and |D|

|ToLLu| ‘empty’ |buTTi| ‘basket’

|DoLLu| ‘hollowness’ |buDDi| ‘kerosine lamp’

|c| and |j|

|cala| ‘firmness of character’ |accu| ‘model’

|jala| ‘water’                              |ajju| ‘immerse’

|k| and |g|

|kere| ‘tank’ |akka| ‘elder sister’

|gere| ‘line’ |agga| ‘cheap’

Apart from these consonants p^h, t^h d^h, t^h, d^h, k^h, g^h, c^h, and j^h aspirated stops are present only in standard Kannada.

Occurrence Chart of Consonant Contrastive Pairs

Single consonant contrastive pair			Geminated consonant contrastive pair
Contrasts	Position of contrasts		Contrast	Position of contrast
	initial	medial		medial
|p| - |b|	+	-	|p| - |b|	+
|t| - |d|	+	-	|t| - |d|	+
|T| - |D|	+	-	|T| - |D|	+
|c| - |j|	+	-	|c| - |j|	+
|k| - |g|	+	-	|k| - |g|	+

4. Distribution of Phonemes

Distribution of phonemes will be discussed in two main heading namely,

4.1 Vowel phonemes

4.2 Consonant phonemes

4.1 Distribution of vowel phonemes :

The following chart clearly reveals the distribution of vowel phoneme in Standard Kannada. The dialectal variation is shown in chart No.2

Chart 1

Chart for the distribution of short and long vowel phonemes

Phonemes	Position
Description of the phonemes	initial	medial	final
i short high front unrounded vowel	+	+	+
i: long high front unrounded vowel	+	+	-
e short higher mid front unrounded vowel	+	+	+
e: long higher-mid front unrounded	+	+	-
e lower-mid front unrounded short vowel	-	-	-
e: lower-mid front unrounded long vowel	-	-	-
a short low central unrounded vowel	+	+	+
a: long low central unrounded vowel	+	+	+
É lower-mid back unrounded short-vowels	-	-	-
É: long lower-mid back unrounded vowel	-	-	-
o short higher-mid back rounded vowel	+	+	-
o: long higher-mid back rounded vowel	+	+	-
u short high back rounded vowel	+	+	+
u: long high back rounded vowel	+	+	-
¶ mean-mid central unrounded vowel	-	-	-

Chart 2

All the short vowels except |..| |..| and |..| occur initially medially and finally the vowels |..| |..| and |..| do not occur finally. The phoneme |o| some times does not occur initially in certain dialects like Na-Ka, Kol-Ka, Ya-Ka, Cha-Ka and Gun-Ka whreras (va) is used instead of |o|.

Example : ondu > vandu ‘one’

In the dialects of Na-Ka, Kol-Ka, Ya-Ka, Cha-Ka and Gun-Ka ‘e’ which occurs in final position in Standard Kannada changes into ‘a’

Example: atte > atta ‘mother in law’

The long vowels except a: do not occur in final position except in emphatic vocative and also in mono-syllabic words.

Example: ba: ‘come’

Below are given some examples which also show the changes that take place in the above dialects.

4. 2 Distribution of Consonant Phonemes

In this part distribution of consonants will be dealt with no consonant phonemes occurs in the final position. All the consonant phonenes can occur in initial and medial position. Chart 3 shows the distribution of consonant phonemes in sta.ka chart 4 shows the distribution of Mysore district Kannada dialects.

Chart 3

Chart for the Distribution of Consonant Phonemes in Sta-Ka

Phonemes	Position
Description of the consonants phonemes	initial	medial	final
|p| bilabial voiceless stop consonant	+	+	-
|b| voiced unaspirated bilabial stop	+	+	-
|t| voiceless unaspirated dental stop	+	+	-
|d| voiced unaspirated dental stop	+	+	-
|T| voiceless unaspirated retroflex stop	+	+	-
|D| voiced unaspirated retroflex stop	+	+	-
|c| voiceless unaspirated palatal stop	+	+	-
|j| voiced unaspirated palatal stop	+	+	-
|k| voiceless unaspirated velar stop	+	+	-
|g| voiced unaspirated velar stop	+	+	-
|m| voiced bilabial nasal	+	+	-
|n| voiced dental nasal	+	+	-
|N| voiced retroflex nasal	-	+
|s| voiceless dental fricative	+	+	-
|l| voiced dental lateral	+	+	-
|L| voiced retroflex lateral	-	+	-
|r| voiced dental trill	+	+	-
|v| voiced bilabial semi-vowel	+	+	-
|y| voiced palatal semi-vowel	+	+	+
|H| voiceless glottal fricative	+	+	-

It can be observed from the distribution of consonant phonemes that the phoneme (N) does not occur in the initial position except in Cha-Ka Ko-Ka, Ya-Ka, and Gun-Ka dialects. Unlike all other phonemes (y) is the only phoneme that occurs in all the three position. It can also phoneme that occurs in all the other phonemes it can also be see that all the consonant phonemes occur medially except (h) which does not occur in any of the dialects of Mysore district. It occurs initially and medially only in Standard Kannada (h) in Standard Kannada becomes (a) in all the above dialects.

Example hattu > attu ‘ten’

In Kol-Ka, Ya-Ka, Cha-Ka and Gun-Ka dialects of Mysore district Kannada. The Standard Kannada consonant phoneme (n) become |N| in the word initially position. In Gun, Ya, and Cha-Ka dialects the phonemes (n) becomes (N) in medial position also.

Example:       na:vau > Na:mu ‘we’

mane > maNe

The alveolar fricative (S) in Standard Kannada is changed in to ‘e’ in Per-Ka and Mys-Ka dialects.

Example:      Sere > cere Prision.

sakkare > cakkarre ‘sugar’

initial glottal fricative ‘h’ of the Standard Kannada is elided irregularly in all Mysore district Kannada dialects (among illiterates’ h’ is absent).

example:       sta.ka         mys.dis.ka

hakki    ‘bird’  ‘akki’

huli      ‘tiger’ ‘uli’

The consonant phonemes (T) and (D) occur very rarely in the word initial position.

Example:       T - Tagru ‘ram’

D - Dabba ‘a tin’

Except |s| and |r| all other consonants show gemination in all dialects. These germinated consonant occur only after short vowel in the intervocalic position.

Example : bassu - ‘bus’

Consonants

Examples showing the occurrence of consonant phonemes in all dialects of Mysore district Kannada are given below:

Phonemes	Initial		Medial		Final
p	pore	‘layer’	kapi	‘monkey’	-
t	tale	‘head’	gati	‘condition	-
T	Tagru	‘ram’	paTa	‘kite’	-
c	caNa	‘a moment’	ba:cu	‘comb	-
	-	-	ba:ci	‘a kind of chissel’	-
k	kara	‘stain’	maka	‘face’	-
b	badi	‘a raised back in field	aNbe	‘mushroom’	-
d	dana	‘cattle’	pada	‘song’	-
D	Dabri	‘cylindrical sauce pan	puDi	‘powder’	-
j	jaDe	‘plaited hair’	ga:ju	‘glass	-
g	gari	‘quill’	dage	‘heat’	-
m	mande	‘herd’	tama:se	‘fun’	-
n	nara	‘vein’	vana	‘forest’	-
N	-	-	paNa	‘wager’	-
s	sara	‘garland’	masi	‘soot’	-
r	ruci	‘taste’	guri	‘aim’	-
l	lanca	‘bribe’	uli	‘tiger’	-
L	-	-	suLi	‘whirling’	-
v	vara	‘boon’	gavi	‘cave’	-
y	yuga	‘saga’	ayya	‘grand father’	may ‘body’
			aydu	‘five’

5. Syllabic Patterns

A word in Mysore district Kannada dialects consists of one or more syllables ranging upto a maximum of four syllables. The most common syllabic patterns are di-syllabic and tri-syllabic, mono-syllabic and tetra-syllabic vowels are also used. A word with five syllables is very rare in all these dialects. Almost all the words end in a short vowel. An exception is the mono-syllabic word which ends either in a long vowel |a:| or in a consonant. The variations found in the dialects are reflected in the charts directly indicated by the asterisk (*) notation. The tri- and tetra-syllabic patterns found in Standard Kannada become di-syllabic and tri-syllabic in all dialects.

Example: arisiNa > arsNa > ‘turmeric’

6. Conclusion

This paper presented the overall phonological structures of Mysore district Kannada dialects. The variations that exist across dialects and the variations between Standard Kannada and Mysore district Kannada dialects were discussed in detail. This type of analysis provides further scope for studies in dialectology and lexical phonology.

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REFERENCES

Bhat, D.N.S. Sound Change, Bhasha Prakashana, Poona.

Bright, William. D. 1970. Phonological rules in literary and colloquial Kannada. Journal of the American Oriental Society. 90-1 pp. 140-4.

Caldwell, Robert.A. 1979. A Reference Grammar of Spoken Kannada.Universitys of Madras, Chennai.

Hiremath.R.C. 1961. The Structure of Kannada. Karnataka University Dharwad.

Pike, Kenneth Lee, 1948, Phonemics : A Technique for Reducing Language to Writing. Ann Arbor, Michi, University of Michigan Press.

Schiffman, Harold. 1979. A Reference Grammar of Spoken Kannada. United States of America.

Upadhyaya U.P. 1972. Kannada Phonetic Reader. Central Institute of Indian Languages. Mysore Reader Series No. 1.

Manjulakshmi. L. 1996 Mysore District Kannada Dialects : A Comparative Study, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Mysore.

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COLOPHON :

A detailed analysis of the comparative phonology of Mysore district Kannada dialect is found in my Ph.D Dissertation submitted to the Mysore University in 1996

I am grateful to Dr. P.Umarani, for her comments and suggestions which helped improve the paper.

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