Kannada

Kannada (Kannada: [ˈkənːəɖa] ) is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a second or third language for 15 million speakers in Karnataka. It is the official and administrative language of Karnataka. It also has scheduled status in India and has been declared one of the Classical languages of India. Early Kannada literature was composed predominantly by Jaina court poets, and many texts from before the 12th century were religious narratives about the Jain Tīrthaṅkaras. Kannada was the court language of a number of dynasties and empires of South India, Central India and the Deccan Plateau, namely the Kadamba dynasty, Western Ganga dynasty, Nolamba dynasty, Chalukya dynasty, Rashtrakutas, Western Chalukya Empire, Seuna dynasty, Kingdom of Mysore, Nayakas of Keladi, Hoysala dynasty and the Vijayanagara Empire. Kannada is written using the Kannada script, which evolved from the 5th-century Kadamba script. Kannada is attested epigraphically for about one and a half millennia. Old Kannada Rashtrakuta literature flourished during the 8th-10th centuries CE. Kannada has an unbroken literary history of around 1500 years. In July 2011, a centre for the study of classical Kannada was established as part of the Central Institute of Indian Languages in Mysore to facilitate research related to the language.