Kanikkaran, also known as Kani, is a Dravidian language spoken by about 19,000 Kanikkar tribals in southern India.^[1] They dwell in forests and hills of Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam districts of Kerala, and Kanyakumari and Tirunelveli districts of Tamil Nadu. It is called malambhāsha, or "hill-language."^[2]

Phonology

Vowels

Kanikkaran has 5 vowels, /a, e, i, o, u/. It demonstrates contrastive vowel length.^[2]

Consonants

They use the phoneme /l̩/ occasionally.

Kanikkaran has transformed words in Malayalam starting with /a/ into /e/. añcu (5) becomes eñcu, ari (rice) becomes ei, arivāḷu (sickle) becomes erivāḷu, aluku (split reed) becomes elakku. It also adds a suffix -in or -n after all noun stems, except for nouns ending with -n in accusative.^[2]

Grammar

The language cannot use personal terminations, similar to Old Malayalam. Example: pōvā (go or going or let's go) and vārā (will come, or "see you").^[2]