Kanikkaran language

Kanikkaran 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."[3]

Kanikkaran
கணிக்காரன்/കണ്ണിക്കാരൻ
Native toIndia
RegionTamil Nadu, Kanyakumari
EthnicityKanikkaran
Native speakers
19,000 (2007)[1]
Dravidian
Tamil script, Malayalam script
Language codes
ISO 639-3kev
Glottologkani1275[2]

Phonology

Vowels

Kanikkaran has 5 vowels, /a, e, i, o, u/. It demonstrates contrastive vowel length.[3]

Consonants
Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar
Stop voiceless p t̪ ʈ c k
voiced b d̪
Nasal n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ
Approximant ʋ l ɭ j
Trill r
Flap ɾ

They use the phoneme /l̩/ occasionally.

Kanikkaran has transformed words in Malayalam starting with /a/ into /e/. aɳcu (5) becomes eɳcu, ari (rice) becomes ei, arivāɭu (sickle) becomes erivāɭu, 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.[3]

Grammar
singular plural
1st ɲān ɲāɳkaɭu
2nd īl nīɳkaɭu
3rd avanu/avaɭu avaru

The language cannot use personal terminations, similar to Old Malayalam. Example: pōvā (will not go) and vārā (will not come).[3]

gollark: Try picking from 𝕒𝕓𝕔𝕕𝕖𝕗𝕘𝕙𝕚𝕛𝕜𝕝𝕞𝕟𝕠𝕡𝕢𝕣𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕧𝕨𝕩𝕪𝕫 and 🄰🄱🄲🄳🄴🄵🄶🄷🄸🄹🄺🄻🄼🄽🄾🄿🅀🅁🅂🅃🅄🅅🅆🅇🅈🅉?
gollark: So we'll need to use random unicode characters?
gollark: Isn't Γ already in use in maths?
gollark: iOS bad.
gollark: it isANDROID

References
  1. Kanikkaran at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Kanikkaran". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Shyam, S.K. (12 December 2017). "Aspects of Life and Language of Kanikkar Tribal Community of Kerala –A Study". Language in India.


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