Tulu ತುಳು
Spoken in:	India
Region:	Coastal Karnataka and parts of northern Kerala. (historically known as Tulu Nadu)
Total speakers:	1,949,000 (1997 survey)[1]
Language family:	}}}  Southern   Tulu}}}
Writing system:	Kannada script, Tigalari
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	dra
ISO 639-3:	tcy

Tulu (Kannada script: ತುಳು) is a Dravidian language of India with fewer than two million speakers, known as Tuluvas. Most Tuluvas live in the districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi in the west of the state of Karnataka. It's also spoken in the Kasaragod taluk of Kerala.The original written script of the language, similar to Malayalam script, is rarely used today. It is normally written in the Kannada script now.

Geographic distribution

There are indications in a few Malayalam works that the region stretching from the Chandragiri river, now part of the Kasaragod district of Kerala, to Gokarna, now part of Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka, was called Tulu Nadu. However, the present day Tulu linguistic boundary is confined to Dakshina Kannada and the Udupi district. Northern Kasaragod, Dakshina Kannada and the Udupi district (except Kundapur) are the major Tulu cultural regions.

Tuluvas have a saying: "Oorudu nanjaanda paarad badkodu". A loose translation would be: "If it's tough at home; run away and survive". Tuluvas are true to this character and have migrated to other places in great numbers. Mumbai and Thane in Maharastra state has a sizable population of Tuluvas. Tulu is widely spoken in the Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada districts of Karnataka state. Efforts are also being made to get Tulu included in the list of national languages of India^[2].

Script

19th century German missionaries used the Kannada script to transcribe Tulu works, but it soon fell out of use. Tulu is mostly written in the Kannada script since most people study Kannada in Schools.. Attempts are being made to revive the original script Tulu Script. Unicode is an organization which codes the Tulu in Unicode. Tulu Script is similar to Malayalam script

Important works

The 'Bhagavata' (a purana katha) was partially written in Tulu script by a Brahmin belonging to Udyavara, Udupi, Karnataka. 'Mandara Ramayana' is a modern epic written in Tulu by Mandara Keshav Bhat.

Some inscriptions in Tulu languages are found in and around the village of Barkur.

Tulu Films

Tulu has small film industry, with an average of about One Tulu film being released in a year. These movies are played in movie theatre all around South Canara and Udupi Districts. The first Tulu film was Yenna Thangadi (My Sister) released in 1971. The latest Tulu flick is Kadala Mage (Son of the sea) released 2006. Some of the famous films released are Bisati Babu, Adrushtavanthedi, Bangaar Patleru, Satya Volundu amongst others.

The language

The paucity of literary works has rendered the precise dating of the origin of this language very difficult. A claim that it predates Tamil is controversial, but Tulu has lot in common with Kannada^[3] and also has some relation with Malayalam and Tamil.

Spoken Tulu changes as we move from South to North. There is a common perception that there are only two Tulu dialects, namely Shivalli and Common. But a study of the language and pronunciation suggests there are four distinct dialects of this language: Shivalli, Jain, Common, and Tribal.

Shivalli dialect: Spoken by Tulu Brahmins (also known as Shivallis).

Jain dialect: Spoken by the Jains in the northern part of Tulu Nadu.

Common dialect: Spoken by the majority of people of Tulu Nadu; the dialect of commerce, entertainment and art.

Tribal dialect: Spoken by tribal people; closely resembles the Common dialect.

Tulu is not taught in schools. Schedule 8B of the Constitution of India does not recognize it as an official language.

References

See also

• Languages of India
• Madhava
• Kanakana kindi
• List of national languages of India
• List of Indian languages by total speakers
• Tuluva
• Kasaragod Tulu
• Kannadiga
• Vellalar - Tuluvas are a sub sect of the social group in Tamil Nadu state.
• Beary bashe

External links

• The Tulu Script
• Tulu Language: Its Script and Dialects