Badaga is a southern Dravidian language spoken by the Badaga people of the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu. The language is closely related to the Kannada language with heavy influence from Tamil language.^[2] Of all the tribal languages spoken in Nilgiris (Badaga, Toda language, Kota language (India)), Badaga is the most spoken language.

Phonology

Badaga has five vowel qualities, /i e a o u/, where each of them may be long or short, and until the 1930s they were contrastively half and fully retroflexed, for a total of 30 vowel phonemes.^[a] Current speakers only distinguish retroflection of a few vowels.^[3]

Note on transcription: rhoticity ⟨◌˞⟩ indicates half-retroflexion; doubled ⟨◌˞˞⟩ it indicates full retroflexion.

Writing system

Several attempts have been made at constructing an orthography based on English, Kannada and Tamil. The earliest printed book using Kannada script was a Christian work, "Anga Kartagibba Yesu Kristana Olleya Suddiya Pustaka" by Basel Mission Press of Mangaluru in 1890.^[5]

Badaga can also be written in the Kannada script and Tamil script.

Dictionary

Badaga is well studied and several Badaga-English Dictionaries have been produced since the latter part of the nineteenth century.^[6]

Proverbs, etc.

A collection of proverbs and other traditional sayings of the Badaga has been collated and edited by Paul Hockings.^[7] It is the result of the work of many people, collecting material over many decades.