Editing Kannada script (section)

{{Short description|Abugida writing system of the Brahmic family}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}}
{{Use Indian English|date=June 2017}}
{{Infobox Writing system
| name        = Kannada script
| altname     = {{lang|kn|ಕನ್ನಡ ಲಿಪಿ}}
| type        = [[Abugida]]
| time        = 4th<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/shivamogga-engraving-shows-kannada-was-in-use-7-decades-earlier-than-known/articleshow/60269034.cms|title = Shivamogga engraving shows Kannada was in use 7 decades earlier than known|date = 29 Aug 2017}}</ref> century CE – present
| languages   = [[Kannada]]<br/>[[Sanskrit]]<br/>[[Tulu language|Tulu]]<br/>[[Kodava language|Kodava]]<br/>[[Badaga language|Badaga]]<br/>[[Beary language|Beary]]<br/>[[Sankethi dialect|Sanketi]]<br/>[[Konkani language|Konkani]]<br/>[[Marathi language|Marathi]]
| fam1        = [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|Egyptian]]
| fam2        = [[Proto-Sinaitic]]
| fam3        = [[Phoenician script|Phoenician]]
| fam4        = [[Aramaic script|Aramaic]]
| fam5        = [[Brahmi script]]
| fam6        = [[Kadamba alphabet]]
| fam7        = [[Kannada-Telugu alphabet]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://karnatakaitihasaacademy.org/evolution-of-kannada-script/|title = Kannada Language|date = 12 March 2017}}</ref>
| sisters     = [[Telugu script|Telugu]]
| children    = [[Goykanadi]]<ref name="goy">{{cite book|last=Ghantkar|first=Gajanana|title=History of Goa through Gõykanadi script |year=1993|pages=Page x|language=en, kok, mr, kn}}</ref>
| unicode     = [https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0C80.pdf U+0C80&ndash;U+0CFF]
| iso15924    = Knda
| sample      = Stanza from Kavirajamarga.svg
| caption     = A [[stanza]] from ''[[Kavirajamarga]]'' which praises the people for their literary skills, written in the Kannada script{{refn|romanised: ''padanaṟidu nuḍiyaluṁ nuḍiduda''<br>''naṟiyalumārparā nāḍavargaḷ''<br>''cadurar nijadiṁ kuritōdadeyuṁ''<br>''kāvyaprayōga pariṇatamatigaḷ''|group=note}}
}}
{{Contains special characters|Indic}}
{{brahmic}}
The '''Kannada script''' ([[IAST]]: ''Kannaḍa lipi''; obsolete: '''Kanarese''' or '''Canarese''' script in English) is an [[abugida]] of the [[Brahmic scripts|Brahmic family]],<ref>{{cite book |title = Handbook of scripts and alphabets |url = https://archive.org/details/routledgehandboo00camp |url-access = limited |first = George L. |last = Campbell |publisher = [[Routledge]], [[New York (state)|New York]] |date = 1997-11-06 |edition = 1st |pages = [https://archive.org/details/routledgehandboo00camp/page/n47 84]–5 |isbn = 978-0-415-13715-7 |oclc = 34473667}}</ref> used to write [[Kannada]], one of the [[Dravidian languages]] of [[South India]] especially in the state of [[Karnataka]]. It is one of the [[official scripts of the Indian Republic]]. Kannada script is also widely used for writing [[Sanskrit]] texts in Karnataka. Several minor languages, such as [[Tulu language|Tulu]], [[Konkani language|Konkani]], [[Kodava language|Kodava]], [[Beary language|Beary]] and [[Sankethi dialect|Sanketi]] also use alphabets based on the Kannada script.<ref name="konkani1">{{cite book|title=The Indo-Aryan Languages|last1=Cardona|first1=George|last2=Jain|first2=Dhanesh|publisher=Routledge|year=2007|isbn=978-0-415-77294-5|pages=804, 805}}<!--ISBN 0-415-77294-X--></ref> The Kannada and [[Telugu script]]s share very high mutual intellegibility with each other,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hebbi |first=Chandravva |last2=Mamatha |first2=H. R. |last3=Sahana |first3=Y. S. |last4=Dhage |first4=Sagar |last5=Somayaji |first5=Shriram |date=2020 |editor-last=Singh |editor-first=Pradeep Kumar |editor2-last=Panigrahi |editor2-first=Bijaya Ketan |editor3-last=Suryadevara |editor3-first=Nagender Kumar |editor4-last=Sharma |editor4-first=Sudhir Kumar |editor5-last=Singh |editor5-first=Amit Prakash |title=A Convolution Neural Networks Based Character and Word Recognition System for Similar Script Languages Kannada and Telugu |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-30577-2_26 |journal=Proceedings of ICETIT 2019 |series=Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering |language=en |location=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |pages=306–317 |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-30577-2_26 |isbn=978-3-030-30577-2|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and are often considered to be regional variants of single script. Other scripts similar to Kannada script are [[Sinhala script]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.atla.com/tsig/Foreign_Lang_presentation/files2/9_22SinhalaRomanization.pdf|title=Romanization, Sinhala (Sinhalese) Script|publisher=KAMALAKAR|access-date=2009-05-07|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100918013724/http://atla.com/tsig/Foreign_Lang_presentation/files2/9_22SinhalaRomanization.pdf|archive-date=18 September 2010}}</ref> (which included some elements from the [[Kadamba script]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ancientscripts.com/sinhala.html|title=Ancient scripts, hala|access-date=2009-05-07}}</ref>), and Old [[Peguan language|Peguan]] script
(used in [[Burma]]).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bhaavana.net/telusa/jan96/0155.html|title=Telugu & Sinhalese script similarities|access-date=2009-05-07|archive-date=2 December 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081202163236/http://www.bhaavana.net/telusa/jan96/0155.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The Kannada script ({{lang|kn|ಅಕ್ಷರಮಾಲೆ}} ''akṣaramāle'' or {{lang|kn|ವರ್ಣಮಾಲೆ}} ''varṇamāle'') is a [[phonemic]] abugida of forty-nine letters. The character set is almost identical to that of other [[Brahmic scripts]] or often known as Brahmi Lipi.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-04-21 |title=Kannada Language - 56.9 Million Speakers {{!}} Amazing Facts |url=https://zinglanguages.com/kannada-language/ |access-date=2024-09-12 |language=en-US}}</ref> Consonantal letters imply an [[inherent vowel]].  Letters representing consonants are combined to form digraphs ''(''{{lang|kn|ಒತ್ತಕ್ಷರ}} ''ottakṣara)'' when there is no intervening vowel. Otherwise, each letter corresponds to a [[syllable]].

The letters are classified into three categories: {{lang|kn|ಸ್ವರ}} ''svara'' ([[vowel]]s), {{lang|kn|ವ್ಯಂಜನ}} ''vyañjana'' ([[consonant]]s), and {{lang|kn|ಯೋಗವಾಹಕ}}  ''yōgavāhaka'' ([[semiconsonant]]s).

The Kannada words for a letter of the script are {{lang|kn|ಅಕ್ಷರ}} ''akshara'', {{lang|kn|ಅಕ್ಕರ}} ''akkara'', and {{lang|kn|ವರ್ಣ}} ''varṇa''. Each letter has its own form ({{lang|kn|ಆಕಾರ}} ''ākāra'') and sound ({{lang|kn|ಶಬ್ದ}} ''śabda''), providing the visible and audible representations, respectively. Kannada is written from left to right.<ref name="F. Kittel, A Grammar of the Kannada Language, p 5">''A Grammar of the Kannada Language.'' F. Kittel (1993), p. 5</ref>