This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

Kannada
kannaḍa
A bilingual signboard in Kannada and English
Spoken in	Karnataka, Kasaragod, Kerala, Maharashtra, significant communities in USA, Australia, Singapore,[1] UK, Mauritius,[2] United Arab Emirates.[3]
Region	Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Ethnicity	Kannadiga
Native speakers	38 million  (2001 census)[4] 9 million as a second language[5]
Language family	Dravidian Southern Tamil–Kannada Kannada–Badaga Kannada
Official status
Official language in	(Karnataka)
Regulated by	Various academies and the Government of Karnataka[6]
Language codes
ISO 639-1	kn
ISO 639-2	kan
ISO 639-3	kan
Distribution of native Kannada speakers in India[7]
This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Kannada /ˈkʌnədɑː/, or Kanarese /kænəˈriːz/,^[8] is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas (Kannadigaru) and number roughly 38 million,^[4] is one of the 40 most spoken languages in the world. It is one of the scheduled languages of India and the official and administrative language of the state of Karnataka.^[9]

The Kannada language is written using the Kannada script, which evolved from the 5th century Kadamba script. Kannada is attested epigraphically from about one and a half millennia, and literary Old Kannada flourished in the 6th century Ganga dynasty^[10] and during 9th century Rashtrakuta Dynasty.^[11] With an unbroken literary history of over a thousand years,^[12] the excellence of Kannada literature continues into the present day. Works of Kannada literature have received eight Jnanpith awards^[13] and fifty-six Sahitya Akademi awards.

Based on the recommendations of the Committee of Linguistic Experts, appointed by the Ministry of Culture, the Government of India officially recognised Kannada as a classical language.^[14][15][16] In July 2011, a centre for the study of classical Kannada was established under the aegis of Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) at Mysore to facilitate research related to the language.^[17]

History[link]

Kannada is a southern Dravidian Language and the history of Kannada is conventionally divided in four periods: Purva Halegannada from the 5th century (as per early epigraphic records), the Halegannada (Old Kannada, 9th to 14th century), the Nadugannada (Middle Kannada, 14th to 18th century), and Hosagannada (Modern Kannada, 1800 to present).^[18] Kannada is influenced to an appreciable extent by Sanskrit. According to the Dravidian scholars Bhadriraju Krishnamurti and Kamil Zvelebil, Kannada and Tamil split into independent languages from the proto Tamil-Kannada sub-group around 5th - 6th. century B.C. or earlier,^[19][20] Influences of other languages such as Prakrit and Pali can also be found in Kannada language. The scholar Iravatham Mahadevan proved that Kannada was already a language of rich oral tradition earlier than 3rd century B.C., and based on the native Kannada words found in Prakrit and Tamil inscriptions of that period, Kannada must have been spoken by a widespread and stable populations.^[19][21] The scholar K.V. Narayana claims that many tribal languages which are now designated as Kannada dialects could be nearer to the earlier form of the language with lesser influence from other languages.^[19]

Influence of Sanskrit and Prakrit[link]

The sources of influence on Kannada grammar appear to be three-fold; Panini's grammar, non-Paninian schools of Sanskrit grammar, particularly Katantra and Sakatayana schools, and Prakrit grammar.^[22] Literary Prakrit seemed to have prevailed in Karnataka since ancient times. The vernacular Prakrit speaking people, may have come in contact with the Kannada speaking ones, thus influencing their language, even before Kannada was used for administrative or liturgical purpose. Kannada phoenetics, morphology, vocabulory, grammar and syntax shows significant Sanskrit and Prakrit influence.^[22][22]

Some examples of naturalised (tatbhava) words of Prakrit origin in Kannada are baṇṇa derived from vaṇṇa, arasu (king), and from Sanskrit, varṇa (color), hunnime (new moon) from puṇṇivā, paurṇimā (full moon), and rāya from rāja (king).^[23] Kannada has numerous borrowed (tatsama) words such as dina, kopa, surya, mukha, nimiṣa, anna.^[24]

Early epigraphy[link]

The Halmidi inscription at Halmidi village in old-Kannada dated "450 AD". (Kadamba Dynasty)

Old-Kannada inscription dated 578 AD (Badami Chalukya dynasty) at Badami cave temple no.3

Old-Kannada inscription at the base of Gomateshwara monolith in Shravanabelagola (981 AD. Western Ganga Dynasty) note the fingertips of the subject, plants, and scrolls surrounding the inscription

Kannada Hoysala inscription of 1220 AD at Ishwara temple Hassan district that shows three deities flanked by adorned animals, a nursing cow to the left and an elephant to the right

Pre-old Kannada (or Purava HaleGannada) was the language of Banavasi in the early Common Era, the Satavahana and Kadamba periods and hence has a history of over 2000 years.^{[21][25][26][27]} The Ashoka rock edict found at Brahmagiri (dated to 230 BC) has been suggested to contain words in identifiable Kannada.^[28]

A possibly more definite reference to Kannada is found in the 'Charition mime' of the 1st or 2nd century CE. The farce, written by an unknown author was discovered in early 20th century at Oxyrynchus in Egypt.^[29][30] The play is concerned with a Greek lady named Charition who has been stranded on the coast of a country bordering the Indian Ocean. The king of this region, and his countrymen, sometimes use their own language, and the sentences they spoke include Koncha madhu patrakke haki (lit having poured a little wine into the cup separately) and paanam beretti katti madhuvam ber ettuvenu (lit having taken up the cup separately and having covered it, I shall take wine separately).^[31] The language employed in the papyrus indicates that the play is set in one of the numerous small ports on the western coast of India, between Karwar and Mangalore.^[31]

The written tradition of Kannada begins in the early centuries of common era. The earliest examples of a full-length Kannada language stone inscription (shilashaasana) containing Brahmi characters with characteristics attributed to those of proto-Kannada in Hale Kannada (lit Old Kannada) script can be found in the Halmidi inscription, usually dated c. 450 C.E., indicating that Kannada had become an administrative language at that time. The Halmidi inscription provides invaluable information about the history and culture of Karnataka.^{[32][33][34][35]} The 5th century Tamatekallu inscription of Chitradurga and the Chikkamagaluru inscription of 500 AD are further examples.^[36][37][38] Recent reports indicate that the 'Nishadi' Inscription, discovered on Chandragiri hill, Shravanabelagola, which is in Old Kannada, is older than Halmidi inscription by about fifty to hundred years and may belong to c.(350–400)CE.^[39] The noted archaeologist and art historian S. Settar is of the opinion that an inscription of the Western Ganga King Kongunivarma (c.350 - 370) is older than the Halmidi inscrption.^[40]

Over 30,000 inscriptions written in the Kannada language have been discovered so far.^[41] Prior to the Halmidi inscription, there is an abundance of inscriptions containing Kannada words, phrases and sentences, proving its antiquity. The 543 AD Badami cliff inscription of Pulakesi I is an example of a Sanskrit inscription in old Kannada script.^[42][43]

The earliest copper plates inscribed in Old Kannada script and language, dated to early 8th century AD belongs to the Alupa King Aluvarasa II from Belmannu, Dakshina Kannada district, and displays the double crested fish, his royal emblem.^[44] The oldest well-preserved palm leaf manuscript in Old Kannada is that of Dhavala. It dated to around the 9th century, preserved in the Jain Bhandar, Mudbidri, Dakshina Kannada district.^[45] The manuscript contains 1478 leaves written using ink.^[45]

Coins[link]

Some early Kadamba Dynasty coins bearing the Kannada inscription Vira and Skandha were found in Satara collectorate.^[46] A gold coin bearing three inscriptions of Sri and an abbreviated inscription of king Bhagiratha's name called bhagi (c. 390–420 C.E.) in old Kannada exists.^[47] A Kadamba copper coin dated to the 5th century C.E with the inscription Srimanaragi in Kannada script was discovered in Banavasi, Uttara Kannada district.^[48] Coins with Kannada legends have been discovered spanning the rule of the Western Ganga Dynasty, the Badami Chalukyas, the Alupas, the Western Chalukyas, the Rashtrakutas, the Hoysalas, the Vijayanagar Empire, the Kadamba Dynasty of Banavasi, the Keladi Nayakas and the Mysore Kingdom, the Badami Chalukya coins being a recent discovery.^[49][50][51] The coins of the Kadambas of Goa are unique in that they have alternate inscription of the king's name in Kannada and Devanagari in triplicate,^[52] a few coins of the Kadambas of Hangal are also available.^[53]

Literature[link]

Old Kannada[link]

The oldest existing record of Kannada poetry in tripadi metre is the Kappe Arabhatta record of 700 AD.^[54] Kavirajamarga by King Nripatunga Amoghavarsha I (850 AD) is the earliest existing literary work in Kannada. It is a writing on literary criticism and poetics meant to standardize various written Kannada dialects used in literature in previous centuries. The book makes reference to Kannada works by early writers such as King Durvinita of the 6th century and Ravikirti, the author of the Aihole record of 636 AD.^[55][56] Since the earliest available Kannada work is one on grammar and a guide of sorts to unify existing variants of Kannada grammar and literary styles, it can be safely assumed that literature in Kannada must have started several centuries earlier.^[55][57] An early extant prose work, the Vaddaradhane by Shivakotiacharya of 900 AD provides an elaborate description of the life of Bhadrabahu of Shravanabelagola.^[58]

Kannada works from earlier centuries mentioned in the Kavirajamarga are not yet traced. Some ancient texts now considered extinct but referenced in later centuries are Prabhrita (650 AD) by Syamakundacharya, Chudamani (Crest Jewel—650 AD) by Srivaradhadeva, also known as Tumbuluracharya, which is a work of 96,000 verse-measures and a commentary on logic (Tatwartha-mahashastra).^[59][60][61] Other sources date Chudamani to the 6th century or earlier.^[62][63] The Karnateshwara Katha, a eulogy for King Pulakesi II, is said to have belonged to the 7th century; the Gajastaka, a work on elephant management by King Shivamara II, belonged to the 8th century,^[64] and the Chandraprabha-purana by Sri Vijaya, a court poet of King Amoghavarsha I, is ascribed to the early 9th century.^[65] Tamil Buddhist commentators of the 10th century AD (in the commentary on Nemrinatham, a Tamil grammatical work) make references that show that Kannada literature must have flourished as early as the 4th century AD.^[66]

The late classical period gave birth to several genres of Kannada literature, with new forms of composition coming into use, including Ragale (a form of blank verse) and meters like Sangatya and Shatpadi. The works of this period are based on Jain and Hindu principles. Two of the early writers of this period are Harihara and Raghavanka, trailblazers in their own right. Harihara established the Ragale form of composition while Raghavanka popularized the Shatpadi(six-lined stanza) meter.^[67] A famous Jaina writer of the same period is Janna, who expressed Jain religious teachings through his works.^[68]

The Vachana Sahitya tradition of the 12th century is purely native and unique in world literature, and the sum of contributions by all sections of society. Vachanas were pithy poems on that period's social, religious and economic conditions. More importantly, they held a mirror to the seed of social revolution, which caused a radical re-examination of the ideas of caste, creed and religion. Some of the important writers of Vachana literature include Basavanna, Allama Prabhu and Akka Mahadevi.^[69]

Middle Kannada[link]

During the period between the 15th and 18th centuries, Hinduism had a great influence on Middle Kannada (Nadugannada) language and literature. Kumara Vyasa, who wrote the Karnata Bharata Kathamanjari, was arguably the most influential Kannada writer of this period. His work, entirely composed in the native Bhamini Shatpadi (hexa-meter), is a sublime adaptation of the first ten books of the Mahabharata.^[70] During this period, the Sanskritic influence is present in most abstract, religious, scientific and rhetorical terms.^[71][72][73] During this period, several Hindi and Marathi words came into Kannada, chiefly relating to feudalism and militia.^[74]

Hindu saints of the Vaishnava sect such as Kanakadasa, Purandaradasa, Naraharitirtha, Vyasatirtha, Sripadaraya, Vadirajatirtha, Vijaya Dasa, Jagannatha Dasa, Prasanna Venkatadasa produced devotional poems in this period.^[75] Kanakadasa's Ramadhanya Charite is a rare work, concerning with the issue of class struggle.^[76] This period saw the advent of Haridasa Sahitya (lit Dasa literature) which made rich contributions to bhakti literature and sowed the seeds of Carnatic music. Purandara Dasa is widely considered the Father of Carnatic music.^[77][78][79]

Modern Kannada[link]

The Kannada works produced from the 19th century make a gradual transition and are classified as Hosagannada or Modern Kannada. Most notable among the modernists was the poet Nandalike Muddana whose writing may be described as the "Dawn of Modern Kannada", though generally, linguists treat Indira Bai or Saddharma Vijayavu by Gulvadi Venkata Raya as the first literary works in Modern Kannada. The first modern movable type printing of "Canarese" appears to be the Canarese Grammar of Carey printed at Serampore in 1817, and the "Bible in Canarese" of John Hands in 1820.^[80] The first novel printed was John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, along with other texts including Canarese Proverbs, The History of Little Henry and his Bearer by Mary Martha Sherwood, Christian Gottlob Barth's Bible Stories and "a Canarese hymn book."^[81]

Modern Kannada in the 20th century has been influenced by many movements, notably Navodaya, Navya, Navyottara, Dalita and Bandaya. Contemporary Kannada literature has been highly successful in reaching people of all classes in society. Works of Kannada literature have received eight Jnanpith awards,^[82] the highest number awarded to any Indian language,^[83] and fifty six Sahitya Academy awards.

Theatre art[link]

A Yakshagana artist

Yakshagana, a theatre art form from Karnataka, which is also prevalent in north Kerala, is usually staged in Kannada. Yakshagana as an art form preserves the finest aspects of the Kannada language.^[84] Kannada films and plays usually cater to the modern masses and the Kannada used in them is influenced by modernity. This form of Kannada enjoys relative popularity. Experts have placed the origin of Yakshagana from the 11th century to the 16th century.^{[citation needed]} The earliest limit is fixed by a finding by Vidwan Bannanje Govindacharya who says a legend goes to show that Sage Narahari Thirtha (c, 1300) started a Dasavathara Ata performance and a troupe in Udupi and later this spread to other places and grew into what is Yakshagana today.^{[citation needed]}

Dialects[link]

There is also a considerable difference between the spoken and written forms of the language. Spoken Kannada tends to vary from region to region. The written form is more or less consistent throughout Karnataka. The Ethnologue reports "about 20 dialects" of Kannada. Among them are Kundagannada (spoken exclusively in Kundapura), Nadavar-Kannada (spoken by Nadavaru), Havigannada (spoken mainly by Havyaka Brahmins), Are Bhashe (spoken by Gowda community mainly in the Sullia region of Dakshina Kannada), Soliga, Gulbarga Kannada, Dharawad Kannada, Chitradurga Kannada, and others. All of these dialects are influenced by their regional and cultural background.

Ethnologue also classifies a group of "Kannada languages" comprising four members, besides Kannada proper including Badaga, Holiya and Urali.

Geographic distribution[link]

Kannada billboards in India.

Kannada is mainly spoken in Karnataka in India, and to a good extent in the neighbouring states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Goa, as well as in sizeable communities in the USA, Europe, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Middle Eastern countries, Canada, Malaysia, Australia, the UK, and Singapore.

Official status[link]

Kannada is one of the 22 official languages of India and is the sole administrative language of the State of Karnataka. It is also one of the four classical languages of India.

Writing system[link]

The Kannada language edition of Wikipedia.

The language uses forty-nine phonemic letters, divided into three groups: swaragalu (vowels – thirteen letters); vyanjanagalu (consonants – thirty-four letters); and yogavaahakagalu (neither vowel nor consonant – two letters: the anusvara ಂ and the visarga ಃ), . The character set is almost identical to that of other Indian languages. The script itself, derived from Brahmi script, is fairly complicated like most other languages of India owing to the occurrence of various combinations of "half-letters" (glyphs), or symbols that attach to various letters in a manner similar to diacritical marks in the Romance languages. The Kannada script is almost perfectly phonetic, but for the sound of a "half n" (which becomes a half m). The number of written symbols, however, is far more than the forty-nine characters in the alphabet, because different characters can be combined to form compound characters (vattakshara). Each written symbol in the Kannada script corresponds with one syllable, as opposed to one phoneme in languages like English. The Kannada script is syllabic.

Obsolete Kannada letters[link]

Kannada literary works employed the letters ಱ (transliterated 'ṟ' or 'rh') and ೞ (transliterated 'ḻ', 'lh' or 'zh'), whose manner of articulation most plausibly could be akin to those in present-day Malayalam and Tamil. The letters dropped out of use in the 12th and 18th centuries, respectively. Later Kannada works replaced 'rh' and 'lh' with ರ (ra) and ಳ (la) respectively.^[85]

Another letter (or unclassified vyanjana (consonant)) that has become extinct is 'nh' or 'inn'. (Likewise, this has its equivalent in Malayalam and Tamil.) The usage of this consonant was observed until the 1980s in Kannada works from the mostly coastal areas of Karnataka (especially the Dakshina Kannada district). Now hardly any mainstream works use this consonant. This letter has been replaced by ನ್ (consonant n).^{[citation needed]}

Kannada Script Evolution[link]

The Image below shows the evolution of Kannada script^[86] from prehistoric times to modern period. The Kannada script evolved in stages like:

ProtoKannada -> PreOldKannada -> OldKannada -> ModernKannada.

The ProtoKannada script has its root in ancient Brahmi and evolved around c.3rd century BCE. The PreOldKannada script evolved around c.4th century CE. OldKannada script can be traced to c.10th Century CE. while ModernKannada script came around c.17th Century CE.

Dictionary[link]

A German priest, the Reverend Ferdinand Kittel, composed the first Kannada–English dictionary, consisting of more than 70,000 words.^[87] Ferdinand Kittel also wrote a book on Kannada grammar called "A Grammar of the Kannada Language: Comprising the Three Dialects of the Language".^[88]

Kannada script in computing[link]

Transliteration

Several transliteration schemes/tools are used to type Kannada characters using a standard keyboard. These include Baraha^[89] (based on ITRANS) and Quillpad^[90] (predictive transliterator). Nudi, the government of Karnataka's standard for Kannada Input, is a phonetic layout loosely based on transliteration.

Unicode

Phonology[link]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Grammar[link]

The canonical word order of Kannada is SOV (subject–object–verb) as is the case with Dravidian languages. Kannada is a highly inflected language with three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter or common) and two numbers (singular and plural). It is inflected for gender, number and tense, among other things. The first authoritative known book on Kannada grammar is Shabdhamanidarpana by Keshiraaja. The first available Kannada book is a treatise on poetry: Kaviraja Maarga.

The most influential account of Kannada grammar is Keshiraja's Shabdamanidarpana (c. 1260 CE).^[91][92] The earlier grammatical works include portions of Kavirajamarga (a treatise on alańkāra) of the 9th century, and Kavyavalokana and Karnatakabhashabhushana (both authored by Nagavarma II in the first half of the 12th century).^[92]

Compound bases[link]

Compound bases, called samāsa in Kannada, are a set of two or more words compounded together.^[93] There are several types of compound bases, based on the rules followed for compounding.^{[clarification needed]} Examples: tangaaLi, hemmara, immadi.

Gender[link]

According to Keshiraja's Shabdamanidarpana, there are nine gender forms in Kannada. However, in modern Kannada literature only three gender forms are used in practice: masculine, feminine, and neutral.^[94]

Masculine

Words that denote male persons are considered to have masculine gender.

• Examples: Shiva, Bhima, Rama, arasa 'king'

Feminine

Words that denote female persons are considered to have feminine gender.

• Examples: Parvati, Lakshmi, Saraswati, amma 'mother'

Neutral

Nouns that do not belong to either of the above two classes are considered to have neutral gender.

• Examples: love, world, tree, bear, river

See also[link]

• Siribhoovalaya - a unique literary work
• Cinema of Karnataka
• Bangalore Kannada
• Gokak agitation
• Kannada American
• Kannada language Wikipedia
• Kannada literature
• Kannada Script Evolution
• Kannadiga
• Karnataka
• Karnataka History Timeline
• Karnataka literature – A list of famous Kannada scholars and their works.
• Languages of India
• List of Indian languages by total speakers
• Hermann Mögling
• Yakshagana
• D.V.Gundappa
• da ra bendre

Notes[link]

• Steever, S. B. (1998). "Kannada". In Steever, S. B. (ed.). The Dravidian Languages (Routledge Language Family Descriptions). London: Routledge. Pp. 436. pp. 129–157. ISBN 0-415-10023-2. 
• Kloss and McConnell, Heinz and Grant D. (1978). The Written languages of the world: a survey of the degree and modes of use-vol 2 part1. Université Laval. ISBN 2-7637-7186-6. 
• Narasimhacharya, R (1988) [1988]. History of Kannada Literature. New Delhi, Madras: Asian Educational Services. ISBN 81-206-0303-6. 
• Rice, E.P. (1982) [1921]. Kannada Literature. New Delhi: Asian Educational Services. ISBN 81-206-0063-0. 
• Rice, B.L. (2001) [1897]. Mysore Gazatteer Compiled for Government-vol 1. New Delhi, Madras: Asian Educational Services. ISBN 81-206-0977-8. 
• Kamath, Suryanath U. (2002) [2001]. A concise history of Karnataka: from pre-historic times to the present. Bangalore: Jupiter books. LCCN 8095179. OCLC 7796041. 
• Various (1988) [1988]. Encyclopaedia of Indian literature-vol 2. Sahitya Akademi. ISBN 81-260-1194-7. 
• Sastri, Nilakanta K.A. (2002) [1955]. A history of South India from prehistoric times to the fall of Vijayanagar. New Delhi: Indian Branch, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-560686-8. 
• Masica, Colin P. (1991) [1991]. The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29944-6. 
• Ramesh, K.V. (1984) [1984]. Chalukyas of Vatapi. New Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan. ISBN 3987-10333. 
• Thapar, Romila (2003) [2003]. The Penguin History of Early India. New Delhi: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-302989-4. 
• George M. Moraes (1931), The Kadamba Kula, A History of Ancient and Medieval Karnataka, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, Madras, 1990 ISBN 81-206-0595-0
• Kittel, F (1993) [1993]. A Grammar of the Kannada Language Comprising the Three Dialects of the Language (Ancient, Medieval and Modern). New Delhi, Madras: Asian Educational Services. ISBN 81-206-0056-8. 
• Bhat, Thirumaleshwara (1993) [1993]. Govinda Pai. Sahitya Akademi. ISBN 81-7201-540-2. 
• Varadpande, Manohar Laxman (1987) [1987]. History of Indian Theatre. Abhinav Publications. ISBN 81-7017-221-7. 
• "Kannada likely to get classical tag, K.N. Venkatasubba Rao". The Hindu (Chennai, India). 4 October 2006. http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/04/stories/2006100419510100.htm. Retrieved 25 November 2006. 
• "Halmidi village finally on the road to recognition, Muralidhara Khajane". The Hindu (Chennai, India). 3 November 2003. http://www.hindu.com/2003/11/03/stories/2003110304550500.htm. Retrieved 25 November 2006. 
• "Declare Kannada a classical language, Staff reporter". The Hindu (Chennai, India). 27 May 2005. http://www.hindu.com/2005/05/27/stories/2005052703230500.htm. Retrieved 25 November 2006. 
• "The place of Kannada and Tamil in Indias National Culture". http://www.intamm.com/journalism/ta-jour3.htm. Retrieved 25 November 2006. 
• "History of the Kannada Literature, Dr. Jyotsna Kamat". http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/kar/literature/history1.htm. Retrieved 25 November 2006. 
• "Badami: Chalukyans' magical transformation, Azmathulla Shariff". http://www.deccanherald.com/Archives/Jul262005/spectrum1422512005725.asp. Retrieved 12 May 2008. ^{[dead link]}
• "5th century copper coin discovered at Banavasi, Dr. Gopal". http://www.deccanherald.com/Archives/Feb72006/state171017200626.asp. Retrieved 12 May 2008. ^{[dead link]}
• "Records and revelations, Indira Parathasarathy". http://www.hinduonnet.com/lr/2003/08/03/stories/2003080300280400.htm. Retrieved 25 November 2006. 
• "Ancient inscriptions unearthed, N. Havalaiah". The Hindu (Chennai, India). 24 January 2004. http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/24/stories/2004012407180300.htm. Retrieved 25 November 2006. 
• "Indian inscriptions-South Indian inscriptions, Vol 20, 18, 17, 15, 11 and 9, Archaeological survey of India, What Is India Publishers (P) Ltd". http://inscriptions.whatisindia.com. Retrieved 16 November 2006. 
• "Kannada language boards being used in American Movie – Mission Impossible 4 in Vancouver, Canada.". http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Cruise+filming+Mission+Impossible+Vancouver/4080714/story.html. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kannada language

Kannada language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Find more about Kannada on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Learning resources from Wikiversity
	News stories from Wikinews
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks

• Kannada Greetings Website
• Kannada Question-Answer Website
• Kannada Question-Answer Website
• Kannada Learning Center
• Kannada phrasebook from Wikitravel
• Kannaḍa–English dictionary
• Kannada Literature
• Kannada Hasya Kavana Hanigavana

v t e Official languages of India Union-level Hindi English State-level Assamese Bengali Bodo Chhattisgarhi Dogri English Garo Gujarati Hindi Kannada Kashmiri Khasi Kokborok Konkani Maithili Malayalam Manipuri Marathi Mizo Nepali Oriya Punjabi Rajasthani Sanskrit Santali Sindhi Telugu Tamil Urdu

Ravi Shankar
Shankar performs in Delhi in March 2009
Background information
Birth name	Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury
Born	(1920-04-07) 7 April 1920 (age 92) Varanasi, United Provinces, Indian Empire
Genres	Hindustani classical music
Occupations	composer, musician
Instruments	sitar
Years active	1939–present
Associated acts	Uday Shankar, Allauddin Khan, Ali Akbar Khan, Lakshmi Shankar, Yehudi Menuhin, Chatur Lal, Alla Rakha, George Harrison, Anoushka Shankar, Beatles
Website	RaviShankar.org

Ravi Shankar (Bengali: রবি শংকর; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury on 7 April 1920), often referred to with the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the most known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.^[1]

Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956.

In 1956, he began to tour Europe and America playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison of The Beatles. Shankar engaged Western music by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1986 to 1992 he served as a nominated member of the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999, and received three Grammy Awards. He continues to perform in the 2000s, often with his daughter Anoushka.

Early life[link]

Shankar was born 7 April 1920 in Varanasi to a Bengali Brahmin family as the youngest of seven brothers.^[2][3][4] Shankar's Bengali birth name was Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury.^[2] His father, Shyam Shankar, an administrator for the Maharaja of Jhalawar, used the Sanskrit spelling of the family name and removed its last part.^[2][5] Shyam was married to Shankar's mother Hemangini Devi, but later worked as a lawyer in London.^[2] There he married a second time while Devi raised Shankar in Varanasi, and did not meet his son until he was eight years old.^[2] Shankar shortened the Sanskrit version of his first name, Ravindra, to Ravi, for "sun".^[2]

At the age of ten, after spending his first decade in Varanasi, Shankar went to Paris with the dance group of his brother, choreographer Uday Shankar.^[6][7] By the age of 13 he had become a member of the group, accompanied its members on tour and learned to dance and play various Indian instruments.^[3][4] Uday's dance group toured Europe and America in the early to mid-1930s and Shankar learned French, discovered Western classical music, jazz, and cinema, and became acquainted with Western customs.^[8] Shankar heard the lead musician for the Maihar court, Allauddin Khan, in December 1934 at a music conference in Kolkata and Uday convinced the Maharaja of Maihar in 1935 to allow Khan to become his group's soloist for a tour of Europe.^[8] Shankar was sporadically trained by Khan on tour, and Khan offered Shankar training to become a serious musician under the condition that he abandon touring and come to Maihar.^[8]

Career[link]

Training and work in India[link]

Shankar's parents had died by the time he returned from the European tour, and touring the West had become difficult due to political conflicts that would lead to World War II.^[9] Shankar gave up his dancing career in 1938 to go to Maihar and study Indian classical music as Khan's pupil, living with his family in the traditional gurukul system.^[6] Khan was a rigorous teacher and Shankar had training on sitar and surbahar, learned ragas and the musical styles dhrupad, dhamar, and khyal, and was taught the techniques of the instruments rudra veena, rubab, and sursingar.^[6][10] He often studied with Khan's children Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurna Devi.^[9] Shankar began to perform publicly on sitar in December 1939 and his debut performance was a jugalbandi (duet) with Ali Akbar Khan, who played the string instrument sarod.^[11]

Shankar completed his training in 1944.^[3] Following his training, he moved to Mumbai and joined the Indian People's Theatre Association, for whom he composed music for ballets in 1945 and 1946.^[3][12] Shankar recomposed the music for the popular song "Sare Jahan Se Achcha" at the age of 25.^[13][14] He began to record music for HMV India and worked as a music director for All India Radio (AIR), New Delhi, from February 1949 to January 1956.^[3] Shankar founded the Indian National Orchestra at AIR and composed for it; his compositions experimented with a combination of Western instruments and classical Indian instrumentation.^[15] Beginning in the mid-1950s he composed the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, which became internationally acclaimed.^[4][16]

International career 1956–1969[link]

Tabla player Alla Rakha, who was a frequent accompanist of Shankar, in 1988

V. K. Narayana Menon, director of AIR Delhi, introduced the Western violinist Yehudi Menuhin to Shankar during Menuhin's first visit to India in 1952.^[17] Shankar had performed as part of a cultural delegation in the Soviet Union in 1954 and Menuhin invited Shankar in 1955 to perform in New York City for a demonstration of Indian classical music, sponsored by the Ford Foundation.^[18][19] Shankar declined to attend due to problems in his marriage, but recommended Ali Akbar Khan to play instead.^[19] Khan reluctantly accepted and performed with tabla (percussion) player Chatur Lal in the Museum of Modern Art, and he later became the first Indian classical musician to perform on American television and record a full raga performance, for Angel Records.^[20]

Shankar heard about the positive response Khan received and resigned from AIR in 1956 to tour the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States.^[21] He played for smaller audiences and educated them about Indian music, incorporating ragas from the South Indian Carnatic music in his performances, and recorded his first LP album Three Ragas in London, released in 1956.^[21] In 1958, Shankar participated in the celebrations of the tenth anniversary of the United Nations and UNESCO music festival in Paris.^[12] From 1961, he toured Europe, the United States, and Australia, and became the first Indian to compose music for non-Indian films.^[12] Chatur Lal accompanied Shankar on tabla until 1962, when Alla Rakha assumed the role.^[21] Shankar founded the Kinnara School of Music in Mumbai in 1962.^[22]

Shankar befriended Richard Bock, founder of World Pacific Records, on his first American tour and recorded most of his albums in the 1950s and 1960s for Bock's label.^[21] The Byrds recorded at the same studio and heard Shankar's music, which led them to incorporate some of its elements in theirs, introducing the genre to their friend George Harrison of The Beatles.^[23] Harrison became interested in Indian classical music, bought a sitar and used it to record the song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".^[24] This led to Indian music being used by other musicians and created the raga rock trend.^[24]

Harrison met Shankar in London in 1966 and visited India for six weeks to study sitar under Shankar in Srinagar.^[14][25][26] During the visit, a documentary film about Shankar named Raga was shot by Howard Worth, and released in 1971.^[27] Shankar's association with Harrison greatly increased Shankar's popularity and Ken Hunt of Allmusic would state that Shankar had become "the most famous Indian musician on the planet" by 1966.^[3][25] In 1967, he performed at the Monterey Pop Festival and won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for West Meets East, a collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin.^[25][28] The same year, the Beatles won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which included "Within You Without You" by Harrison, a song that was influenced by Indian classical music.^[26][28] Shankar opened a Western branch of the Kinnara School of Music in Los Angeles, California, in May 1967, and published an autobiography, My Music, My Life, in 1968.^[12][22] He performed at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, and found he disliked the venue.^[25] In the 1970s Shankar distanced himself from the hippie movement.^[29]

International career 1970–present[link]

George Harrison, U.S. President Gerald Ford, and Ravi Shankar in the Oval Office in December 1974

In October 1970 Shankar became chair of the department of Indian music of the California Institute of the Arts after previously teaching at the City College of New York, the University of California, Los Angeles, and being guest lecturer at other colleges and universities, including the Ali Akbar College of Music.^[12][30][31] In late 1970, the London Symphony Orchestra invited Shankar to compose a concerto with sitar; Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra was performed with André Previn as conductor and Shankar playing the sitar.^[4][32] Hans Neuhoff of Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart has criticized the usage of the orchestra in this concert as "amateurish".^[1] George Harrison organized the charity Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971, in which Shankar participated.^[25] Interest in Indian music had decreased in the early 1970s, but the concert album became one of the best-selling recordings featuring it and won Shankar a second Grammy Award.^[28][31]

During the 1970s, Shankar and Harrison worked together again, recording Shankar Family & Friends in 1973 and touring North America the following year to a mixed response after Shankar had toured Europe with the Harrison-sponsored Music Festival from India.^[33] The demanding schedule weakened Shankar, and he suffered a heart attack in Chicago in November 1974, causing him to miss a portion of the tour.^[34] In his absence, Shankar's sister-in-law, singer Lakshmi Shankar, conducted the touring orchestra.^[34] The touring band visited the White House on invitation of John Gardner Ford, son of U.S. President Gerald Ford.^[34] Shankar toured and taught for the remainder of the 1970s and the 1980s and released his second concerto, Raga Mala, conducted by Zubin Mehta, in 1981.^[35][36] Shankar was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score for his work on the 1982 movie Gandhi, but lost to John Williams' E.T.^[37] He served as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the Parliament of India, from 12 May 1986 to 11 May 1992, after being nominated by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.^[14][38] Shankar composed the dance drama Ghanashyam in 1989.^[22] His liberal views on musical cooperation led him to collaboration with contemporary composer Philip Glass, with whom he released an album, Passages, in 1990.^[6]

Shankar underwent an angioplasty in 1992 due to heart problems, after which George Harrison involved himself in several of Shankar's projects.^[39] Because of the positive response to Shankar's 1996 career compilation In Celebration, Shankar wrote a second autobiography, Raga Mala, with Harrison as editor.^[39] He performed in between 25 and 40 concerts every year during the late 1990s.^[6] Shankar taught his daughter Anoushka Shankar to play sitar and in 1997 became a Regent's Lecturer at University of California, San Diego.^[40] In the 2000s, he won a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album for Full Circle: Carnegie Hall 2000 and toured with Anoushka, who released a book about her father, Bapi: Love of My Life, in 2002.^[28][41] Anoushka performed a composition by Shankar for the 2002 Harrison memorial Concert for George and Shankar wrote a third concerto for sitar and orchestra for Anoushka and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.^[42][43] In June 2008, Shankar played what was billed as his last European concert,^[29] but his 2011 tour includes dates in the United Kingdom.^[44]