Ok, if you cannot read
it, then you
read this article. So at the end of it, you will realize, YES to learn
Kannada is so.... easy. :) If you know Kannada then also continue
reading. You will be amazed by knowing interesting aspects about your
own language. Look at Kannada from my perspective. Let’s
start
first with scripts. At the end, we will see few aspects of spoken
Kannada and a popular Kannada movie 'Mungaru Male'.
Kannada script has so
many curves.
Tamil is more of vertical and horizontal straight lines like symbol
‘L’. Kannada is totally different. So people say
they are
JALEBIs. JALEBI is a sweet with a spiral shape, a shape of round round
round round and full stop in the middle.
1.1
Omega
However, if you just
carefully
observe these JALEBIs, you will find one symbol is repeated again and
again in almost all characters. Do you know what is that? Yes, correct
it is ‘w’ (English lower case w) or Greek lower
case Omega ω
.
Yes, Omega. This small Omega means angular velocity in
physics. Add something to it, either at right hand side, left
hand
side, above it or below it, and you will find almost all Kannada
characters. For example, just add English digit 7,2 or 9 at
left
hand side. It is
‘BA’. ‘BA’ for
Bangalore. Sorry I mean Benglooru. You will find this symbol
everywhere in our
Benglooru. Now just add a Greek upper case Delta below it. Δ
Delta
is
triangle. Even a vertical line will do, instead of triangle. Yes, now
it is ‘BHA’ from
‘BA’. Put something at right
hand side, you will get
‘CHA’. Add
vertical Omega to right hand side. Total two Omegas. It is DA. . Add Delta (vertical line) below
it. So it become 'DHHA'. Now
remove the horizontal one, only one vertical omega. It is ‘TA’
(‘THA’). In north India,
‘TA’ is common for ‘TA’ (as in
Kavita ) and ‘TA’
(as in Rita ). In South,
people write
‘THA’ for the former one. Even instead of
‘Gujarati’ , they write it as
‘Gujarathi’ .
‘Vinod’ is ‘Vinodh’ here.
‘Divya’
is here ‘Dhivya’!! :)
Anyway, coming back to
Omega. After
adding, something in all directions, now let’s hang it. Like
we
hang clothes after washing them. You just hang it from middle. It is
‘PA’. Add Delta (or
vertical line) below it. Now it is
‘PHA’ or ‘FA’. Hang the Omega from both
side. It is
‘DA’ (‘DHA’). Again add Delta. Where ? At
bottom yaar. :) It is
‘dHA’ (‘dHHA’). Now, Let’s hang Omega
from right hand side. It is
‘VA’. Add Delta? Nothing. :) Hang it
from left hand side. Again nothing :) Ok
so hanging business is over too. Now cover it from right hand side. It
is ‘E’ .
Now cover with Omega. Just observe them, it seems
like
the Omega
looking at itself in the mirror located on top of it. They both Omegas
are singing the famous Gazal of Jagjit Singh.
"AAYANAA MUJA SE MERI PAHELI SI SURAT MAAGE
MERE APANE HONE KI NISAANI MAAGE."
It means even the mirror can not recognized me, It asking me
for
my old face and a proof that I am myself only. Understood? No. Yes
Gazals are sometimes difficult to understand.
Coming back to this Kannada character. It is ‘AI’. So yes,
thus few characters have two Omegas,e.g AI and DA. Still,
Kannadiga like Omega so much they are not satisfied with just two
Omegas. So ‘TA’ and ‘NA’ have total three
Omega. Two verticals and one horizontal. For
‘TA’ the
horizontal Omega is at bottom. The vertical omea
is looking
itself in the mirror and "AAYANA MUJA SE MERI....." :) Rotate this symbol, 180 degree
and it
becomes ‘NA’.
1.2
‘U’ symbol ( )
How about
‘MA’ ?
‘MA’ for me, Manish. Obviously, it
contains…. Yes
Omega (hung on right side). It is actually,
‘VU’. A symbol
for vowel ‘u’, is added to
‘VA’. So it is
‘VU’. But no. In Kannada script,
‘VU’ is
‘MA’. Then how to write ‘VU’?
Because, 'MA' has
stolen symbol for 'VU'. Simple. Tweak little bit. Instead of right
bottom corner, add ‘U’ symbol at bottom, middle to
‘VA’. Yes, now it is
‘VU’. And this symbol for
vowel ‘u’ is a real confusing. They add it to
‘YA’ , still
‘YA’ remains ‘YA’ only
not ‘YU’ !!! Here is
Kannada YA For ‘YU’ it is added twice. For
‘ZA’ or ‘JHA’ , by default, it is twice. So how
to write ‘ZHU’ ? Simple, a circle then keep on
adding
‘u’ till you are satisfied. If you have added more
‘U’ symbol then, Kannadiga will do auto-correction
while
reading it. Simple. Try to write
Zunzunwala in Kannada. What'e fun ! :) And yes, don't forget to add a
delta (vertical line) below ZA/JHA .
Unlike
Hindi, all Kannda
vowels are three. Hindi we have two. like short 'U' and long 'OO'.
Short 'I' and long 'EE'. Kannada has such vowels three. For third one
they add '9' symbol . This symbol is added by that
small kid of
movie "Taare Zami Par". So it is vertically flipped. Once my friend did
proof reading for my
Kannada poem. He added vertically flipped '9' at many places. You too, after
'I' or 'U',
if you feel and whenever you feel just add . Yes, now your Kannada
script looks more like written by some Kannada literate person. So just
Enjoy MAADI. And yes, Its width should be short. This same symbol you
widen. So it is 'la'.Now put circle below it. It is 'LA'.
1.3
Greek and Hindi
Not only Omega and
Delta, Kannada
script has few more Greek characters. Like ‘Pai’ π
= 22/7 =
3.142. It is
‘Ga’ in Kannada. Theta θis
‘Th’
(‘Thha’) .
Not only Greek, Kannda
script
borrowed few symbols from Hindi also. Hindi
‘YA’ First the top vertical line,
cap
is
removed. So now it is Gujarati 'YA'. Rotate it 90 degree, then it
become
Kannada ‘NA’. Whenever I came across this
symbol, first I
read it as rotated Hindi ‘YA’. Then I recall, Kannada
‘YA’ has circle (it is like a big tummy of a fat
man) and
it is actually ‘YU’. So
this cannot be ‘YA’. Oh! Yes, it is
‘NA’.
‘SA’ is simple. No confusion. Just rotate Hindi
‘Sa’ 90 degree. That’s it !! :) Hindi
SHA has one inclined
45 degree (it is -45 degree, let me be more specific :) ). So Kannada
SHA also has this inclined line. For Hindi we add it to symbol 'PA' .
For Kannada? Obiviously to Omega. Yes :) Look at it. . Hindi 'LA' is also directly copy pasted to
Kannada. However here it is not 'LA'. In Kannada it is 'HA'. Anyway, Kannada 'LA' we just saw it, right? Add delta (vertical line)
below it. No sir. BEDAA. Everywhere this Delta logic is not applicable
:)
1.4
Lucent Technologies
So now borrowing
business from
Greek and Hindi is also over. All kinds of operation on Omega is over.
Adding Delta is over. Still first character of alphabet, that is
‘KA’ is pending. Right?
‘KA’ is for Kannada.
And ‘KA’ is for….Yes, you all got it.
Just for shake
of Ekta Kapoor, all Kannadiga put sincere efforts to find suitable
symbol for ‘KA’. Once they visited Lucent Technologies.
Lucent is my ex-employer. May be Golf View Campus branch (GVC)
or Kormangala branch (ST1, ST2) or
Bannergatha branch (LBC). They just gazed at the red circle. Wow !!
This
circle is a nice symbol. Let’s hang it. A death punishment.
So
now it is ‘KA’. Gift it to Ekta Kappor. :) It is
also
English symbol I and O written vertically. In the universe, we find
everything in
pair. Isn’t it? Happy and Sad. Man and Woman. In our IT
industry,
Hardware and Software, Zero and One. So why death punishment to only
one
circle? (Lucent only? )
Let’s hang two such circles.(Alcatel
and
Lucent ) Now it is
‘HA’. 'HA' We have already visited as
Hindi 'LA'. Let’s put
on a horizontal cap (line) on circle. It is
‘RA’. Now put
a line in the middle of circle. It is Greek
Theta means Kannada
‘THA’ (‘THHA’). Already
covered. Let's extend this middle horizontal line on both side, add a
hook to right hand side. This hook will prevent this line to come out
from left hand side of the circle. :) This symbol is 'EE'
1.5
Practice MAADI
Now let’s
read something. As
you know, practices makes man perfect and women are born perfect. At
least they believe so :) . So let’s read.
‘Benglooru’. No need to read individual character.
You can
remember it as single word’s single bitmap image. Where?
Everywhere. At Railway station, airport, City-bus stop, etc. etc. So
you can never forget how to write ‘BA’. Just
Remember
‘Benglooru’. Add delta to 'BA' make it
‘BHA’.
Ok, now other most popular symbol is ‘Shree’. Shree
means
wealth. Lakshmi, Goddess of wealth. In my parents’ time, kids
were starting their study with this symbol. Hey, what is written behind
auto-rickshaw? Without reading, say ‘Tande Tai
Aashirwada’
(I mean ‘Thande Thai Ashirwadha’ ). 99 % of times,
you are
correct. It means blessings of parents. Even I found parent's blessing
on Taxi too (a car with yellow number plate). Other vehicles?
‘Shree _________ Prasanna’. Now you know symbol for
‘Shree’. It is first word. Middle word, just read
few
characters and other assume it. The candidate Gods/Goddess for middle
words are ‘Vinayaka’,
‘Manjunath’,
'Venkateshwar', 'Balaji' some xyz swami etc. Last one will be always
‘Prasanna’. OK now let’s read those
yellow colors,
low height address board. The number is already in English. So PARAVAH
GILLA. Don't worry. After that, it can be either ‘main
road’ or ‘cross road’. Why to read whole
word? Just
read first character. If it is ‘A’ then it is
‘Adda
Rasthe’ means ‘Cross road’. If
‘MA’ then
‘Mukhya Rasthe’ means ‘main
road’.
Have you noticed? For SAMYUKTA characters, Kannadigas write half
character as full and full character as half. Say for example, ...let
me think. HINDUSTAAN (HINDUSTHAAN). In Hindi, Gujarati SA is half so it
is S and TAA (THAA) is full. Here different. It is
HINDUSAATHN (HINDUSAATHN). AA will be added to S. So it is
SAA. At
the right bottom corner, small TA (THA) will be added.
1.6 Language
Discrimination
Before I forget, we
need to add vertically
flipped L (upper case English L) to all symbol. Like Hindi,
all have cap, here all have cap + one vertical feather
on top, left
corner. The last character of any English word is exceptional. It has
symbol 6 at top left corner, instead of vertical line. So just by
looking any word written in Kannada, you can easily say, weather it is
native Kannada or English. Now turn comes for Telugu people. They first
remove this vertical feather from the top. Then they approve all such
symbols. How? They just add one tick mark above to all of them, saying
yes, this is correct, yes this is also correct. So now, after adding
tick mark, all Kannada characters becomes Telugu characters. So
Congratulations. You started reading this article to learn Kannada
script. But, you learn to read Telugu also. One + One free.
Just
Enjoy MAADI.
So now you learnt so
much right?
What to read and how to read by identifying minimum characters,
consuming less CPU cycles. Wait. First, how you will identify, it is
written in Kannada? If it does not have curves. Then Tamil. Else, if it
has curves and tick mark above character then Telugu. You can read
Telugu as Kannada, just ignore this turban or feather. And over the
above all, if you can read it very fast, then it is not Kannada, Tamil
or Telugu. Either it is English or it is your mother tongue
language :) . Yes, nothing to laugh. It really happens with
me
:). Once , from the city bus window, I was struggling to decode all the
boarding of shops, written in Kannada. Suddenly, I could able to read
very fluently! Miracle ! Then I realize, it was written in
Gujarati. :)
Once I had one more funny experience with Urdu language. I saw a name
written in Urdu language at Airport road. I learnt Urdu with my own
interest in my school days. It has total three alphabets. Character at
the beginning of word has different symbol, same in the middle of word
is different and at the end of word it is full like capital/upper case
character. Still I can recall few characters. So coming back to Airport road. I tried to read that
Urdu
board. I read it from right to left. So first character was
ALIF.
Second, I could not decode. Third was NUN. So it is a four character
name, start with A and one middle character is NA. What it can be?
Confused. Then, after some time, I came across, same board. Oh! it was
English only. I thought it is ALIF (first), it was I, last character.
English is from left to right. So first is last and last is first. And
the second (or third ?) character, that I thought NUN, it was U. It was
written SUFI. :)
How nice it would be, if we have XML tags. All text should be enclosed
with XML tag, to indicate its language. Like
<English>This is
English</English>. <Hindi></Hindi>. And off course these XML tags must be in English :)
2
Spoken Kannada
Anyway, so do you
agree, Kannada
script is simple? So you can read it. Yes. But what does it mean, that
you are reading? Good question. Let me share with you, my experience.
2.1
Basic rule
Before that, first
rule, spoken
Kannada is very slow or say lazy language. People fully pronounce each
character. NIDHANAVAGI means slowly, peacefully. The last character
ends with ‘Aa’, unless it is English. Like say,
‘Namaskar’ is in Hindi too. But in Kannada it is
‘Namaskara’. There is one recent musical Kannada
movie hit
is ‘Milan’ They write it as
‘Milan’ in Kannada.
But read it as ‘Milana’ . Here people feel, if they do
not end word with ‘aa’, then it is
incomplete. Then
what to do if already word ends with ‘aa’? Does it
become
‘aaaaaaaa……..’ ? No it is
reverse way. It
becomes ‘a’ only!! Say for example, my current
employer
name is ‘Airvana’
It is written in Kannada as
‘Airvan’ , read as
‘Airvana’ . :)
2.2 Lessons
from my mistakes
I tried to talk in
Kannada. Once I
told to driver that I was absent on first day. ‘Mungaru dine
nanu
Bandidilla’ (Mungaru dhine nany bandhidhilla). There is
popular movie ‘Mungaru Male’
It means ‘The First Rain’ and Male means rain. So
obviously, ‘Munagru’ means First. But no!! Mungaru
is a
type of rain. So by listening to my statement the driver was so
confused. What does I mean by saying ‘rain day, I did not
come’ !!! So in short, Mungaru word only comes with Male.
One more such confusion happened. At the end of the
day, evening time my colleague was living for the day to home, so told
me ‘Bye’. I replied, in Kannada, with full
enthusiasm. It
is my Kannada. I told, ‘ok bye and Hogi Bartini’
(Hogi Barthini). My friend
got confused. She corrected me that yes she is going and she will come
back. While, I was not going or coming back, I was still in the office
only. ‘Hogi Bartini’ means ‘I am going
and I will be
back’. I should tell her ‘Hogi Banni’
means ‘Go
and come back’.
2.3
My creation
All the time, I do not
confuse
people with my Kannada. Once I made a correct and innovative statement.
Happy Birthday is simple. ‘HuTTu Habbada Shubhashay
gaLu’.
How to wish ‘Belated Happy Birthday’? Simple,
‘HuTTu
Habbada Aadmele Nidhanvagi Shubhashay Galu’. I wrote a nice
SuPrabhatam in Kannada.
Nidhaanavagi Ellaakade Traffic Jam Suruvagide., Uthishta Traffic Police, Bangaluroo Ge Mangalam Kuru...
Sree Ellaru Banglaorians Ge Thava SUPRABHATAM."
It means
"At the morning, in the Bangalore , there is less traffic. All
junctions have Green signal. So all Bangalorians wake up and drive
towards office. Slowly, traffic jams start. Wake up traffic police and
do welfare for Bangalore city. To all Bangalorians, Good Morning.!"
:)
This SuPrabhatam was broadcasted on Bangalore Radio City 91.9 FM at 'Bangalore Talkies' programme. Listen MAADI the edited conversation with R. J. Vasanthi. Presented the same at Hidi Kavi Samlen by 'Shabd Sahityik Sanstha' Wath MAADI
And yes, here is one more. "Din Huva Begin" - My poem translated in Kannada. Also read the orginal Gujarati version.
2.4
Simple tricks
So
yes, with
practices, you can
speak better Kannada. You can attend weekend class at Hosmat Hospital.
Contact Mr. Raghavan 9448878569 or Mr Natarajan 9845680958. You can
organize Kannada class at your organization. Kannada Kali will
provide all kind of help.
Still, if you feel difficult, then let me
share few simple tricks. Learn Kannada in five minutes :) . It is very
very
simple. Just Listen. Whatever they says, you reply,
‘Hauda(Haudha)…?’. They may reply back
‘Haudu(Haudhu)’
and continue. If some serious topic, you become serious and say
‘HAUDA…?’ If other party laughs, you
also laugh and
say ‘Hauda…? :)) ’
‘Hauda’ means
‘Aisa Kya?’ in Hindi, ‘Is it
so?’ in English
and ‘Eppadiyo’ in Tamil.( Eppadiyo is famous word.
It comes
in ‘Ek Duje Ke Liye’ movie songs also) How long,
you can
manage with just saying ‘Hauda…?’ They
may ask you
something. Again simple. Only one answer for all the questions.
‘Ondu Nimisha’. Whatever they ask, give same reply.
It is
correct. It means. ‘Just please wait for one
minute’. After
one minute they may repeat the quesiton. No problem, you also repeat
the same answer. "Ondu Nimisha". got it ? :) What'e fun!
So Happy learning
Kannada. It is
nice and rich language. Kannada literature has won maximum JyanpiThh
award so far. (We write Gyanpith). And all Kannadigas are so sweet, so
emotional and they love Kannada so much that if they know, you are
learning Kannada, they will support you. They become your nice friends.
And feel very happy, even if you put effort to make even one statement
in Kannada. Even once Sonu Nigam spoke that, local people VJ Rubi
Bhatiya feel very happy, when he speak anything in Kannada. He is a
playback singer for 'Mungaru Male'
So enjoy learning
Kannada.
3 Mungaru Male
Recently I watched a
popular hit
Kannada movie. "Mungaru Male". Enjoyed. It was copy of Hindi DDLJ.
Except
the end. Overall
the movie was too good. Love Stories
are simple to understand. No logic. Natural scene, waterfalls are too
good, that you can enjoy only on the wide screen of cinema. The whole
movie was with full fun by the Hero Ganesha (Pritam, Pritham).
Starting was so simple. Heor's mother was asking "AAMELE?" means next?
The hero was describing, how he met her, how he fall in gutter.
"AAMELE?". She took out him out of gutter. Wow!! Kannada movie is so
simple to understand. Just one word "AAMELE?" The whole movie was not
so simple. In
the whole movie, me and the father of heroine. ERADU ONDE.
We both had same situation. He was using the hearing aids.
The
hero always removes it and says whatever he wants to say. The poor
father cannot understand. I have limited Kannada vocabulary. So even I
can hear, I cannot understand fully. He can not hear. I can not
listen to. So
we both were inferring from the facial expressions, tone, gestures etc,
what others are talking. The
heroine's parents assigned responsibility for successful marriage
of
their daughter to hero Ganesha. And do you know, what? When the heroine slapped him
twice, he was wrenching in rain, the heroine had an umbrella for her.
Then she threw the umbrella and ran away. Instead of pick up it, the
hero sat in VAJRAASAN.What
was the need of doing such VAJRAASAN?
at the time? in rain? when
the
free umbrella was lying down just next to him? ( If I could enter in
the picture, I would have gone there, collected it and come back. :)
)Her parents asked only
for safe, successful marriage not asked for not take her umbrella, if
she
forget. But anyway, as I mentioned, love stories have no logic. Even to
know her name, he put his 100% and catches her handkerchief. Fight with
villain.
Finally on the handkerchief, her name was written "Nandini" (Nandhini).
In Bangalore, you just go to any street corner, you will find one milk
selling
outlet with this name: "Nandini". What was the need to catch that
handkerchief, run behind it for such a common and popular name?
Again the love stories have no logic. :)
The end fully disappointed me. The poor hero, twice took bath with
gutter water, bitted by villain, his mother slapped him, the heroine
slapped him. That too for twice. And after all these also, he could not
marry her! So sad. :( At
last, I was waiting, that he will get call on her mobile, he will
return and marry her. But no. The end. "Priti Madhura, Tyaag Amar"
("Prithi Madhhura, Thyaag Amara"). (by the way, there was no mobile
tower in that hilly area, where he was driving. No coverage. So if
someone call him back then also, "This mobile is not reachable!" ) It
was not DDLJ. And like almost
all Hindi love story, there was no last moment running towards airport
also. Like the movie 'Ashiqui' or 'Chalate Chalate' or many such movies.
My Kannada friend argued, how can you say the end is sad? Who knows in
the movie Ganesha was not hero, but he who married with her was hero!!
Lateral Thinking.
Disclaimer : All the
thoughts and
ideas presented in articles are author’s own. The sole
purpose of
writing this is just to have fun with learning. This is not written at
all to hurt feelings of anyone, or to promote racism or any kind of
discrimination based on language, caste, state or culture. Yet, if any
reader feels hurt, then I am sorry for it. Please let me know any
feedback, I will correct it.