Badaga | |
---|---|
படக, ಬಡಗ, ബഡഗ | |
Native to | India |
Region | The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu |
Ethnicity | Badaga |
Native speakers | 134,000 (2011 census)[1] |
Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | bfq |
Glottolog | bada1257 |
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.
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]
IPA | Gloss |
---|---|
/noː/ | disease |
/po˞˞ː/ | scar |
/mo˞e˞/ | sprout |
/a˞e˞/ | tiger's den |
/ha˞ːsu/ | to spread out |
/ka˞˞ːʃu/ | to remove |
/i˞ːu˞˞/ | seven |
/hu˞˞ːj/ | tamarind |
/be˞ː/ | bangle |
/be˞˞ː/ | banana |
/huj/ | to strike |
/hu˞j/ | tamarind |
/u˞˞j/ | chisel |
Note on transcription: rhoticity ⟨◌˞⟩ indicates half-retroflexion; doubled ⟨◌˞˞⟩ it indicates full retroflexion.
Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ɳ | |||
Stop | voiceless | p | t | ʈ | c | k |
voiced | b | d | ɖ | ɟ | g | |
Fricative | v | s | ||||
Approximant | l | ɻ | j | |||
Trill | r |
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.
Badaga is well studied and several Badaga-English Dictionaries have been produced since the latter part of the nineteenth century.[6]
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.