A Dravidian language and the official tongue of Karnataka — spoken by about 44 million people and one of India's six classical languages, with a literary history stretching back 1,500 years.
Where it’s spoken
Kannada is the official language of the Indian state of Karnataka, where it is spoken by about 65% of the population. It is also widely used in border regions of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. Bengaluru, the world’s third-largest IT hub, has expanded Kannada’s professional vocabulary in recent decades.
What it sounds like
Kannada has a five-place stop system (labial, dental, retroflex, palatal, velar) with aspirated and unaspirated contrasts. It distinguishes short and long vowels. Like other Dravidian languages, it is highly agglutinative — verbs take long suffix chains marking tense, person, number, and mood.
How it’s written
The Kannada script is a Brahmic abugida closely related to the Telugu script — the two share a common ancestor in the Old Kannada-Telugu script. Its letterforms are rounded and curling, with headstrokes above many characters. The script reads left to right.
History
Kannada inscriptions date to the 5th century CE; the earliest extant literary work is Kavirajamarga (9th century). It is one of India’s six classical languages, alongside Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Malayalam, and Odia. The medieval Vachana literary movement produced some of Indian literature’s most striking devotional poetry.
Find more languages by letter
Kannada starts with K and ends with A. Browse other languages along the same letter.
Languages that contain a letter from "Kannada":