Tulu language has an important place in the Dravidian family of languages. Though it is considered as a branch of South Dravidian, it exhibits considerable variations from Kannada and Malayalam, the languages spoken in the Tulu territory and in the adjacent regions. While maintaining close affinity to South Dravidian, it possesses some of the Central Dravidian features also. This language is spoken mainly in the South Canara region of Karnataka State and the Kasaragod region of Kerala. Both these regions are contiguous and is generally known as 'Tulunadu'.
From the socio-cultural and linguistic point of view, the contribution of Tulu speakers to Sanskrit, Kannada and Malayalam is quite significant. The western variety of Grantha script (Tulu-Malayalam Grantha) was quite popular in Tulunadu. The present day Malayalam script is a development of this (Tulu-Malayalam Grantha > Arya Ezhuthu > Malayalam). Another writing system 'Tigalari' evolved from the Grantha and Malayalam scripts was also in vogue in the Tulu region. The bondage of Tulu people to Kerala society was very strong in the ancient periods. 'Kalari' the famous martial art of Kerala was spread in Tulunadu also. The Tulus had a school of their own which is known as 'Tulunadan Kalari' and many of the youngsters from Kerala were used to get training in this martial art from 'Tulunadan Gurukkal. So also, it is opined that the traits of the Kerala's classic performing art 'Kathakali' can be seen in Yaksagana of Tulunadu also. In temples and in all other religious rituals of Kerala, the Tulu Brahmins are treated on par with Namboodiris (Kerala Brahmins). In Kerala temples, only the Namboodiris and Tulu Brahmins (Embrantiri/Potti etc.) are allowed to perform pujas while other Brahmins are not entitled for the same. The naga worship and the existance of kavu is another feature found in both the societies. One can see a lot of common characteristics between the Tulus and the the Malayalam speaking people such as matrilineal system of inheritance, preference for red rice, common types of many a dishes etc. In the evolution of Malayalam language, it is evident that the influence of Tulu language might have some significant role. Some of the present day Malayalam words can be traced as Tulu origins. In short, Tulu language and people have a long standing historical connection with Malayalam language and the people of Kerala. Prof. M. Rama, a native of Kasaragod who is proficient in Tulu, Malayalam and Kannada, is the apt person to analyze the Tulu dialect of Kasaragod region. His attention is the non-Brahmin dialect of Tulu which gives added weight to this work. Generally speaking, in India it is noticed that the lower stratum of the society preserves more archaic features than that of the people belonging to the upper stratum. Tulu too cannot be considered as an exception to this. May be due to this, Prof. M. Rama has gathered Tulu corpus for his study from the middle castes like Kumbara, Agasa, Moily, Billava etc., settled in the Kasaragod district of Kerala state.
This book provides sufficient information on the dialect area and also on the grammatical structure of the Tulu dialect spoken by the non-Brahmin communities of Kasaragod region. The sample text and vocabulary provided in this book will be of immense help to pursue further research on Dravidian syntax and also for comparative studies.
I express my sincere thanks to Greeshma C., Aswathy A. and Mr. Harikumar Basi for their sincere cooperation and help extended to me for the publication of this book. So also, I am indebted to Akshara Offset for printing this book.
This work on Tulu language will surely be an excellent contribution to the field of Dravidian Linguistics. This ISDL Publication, I hope, will be gladly received by the scholars as well as the younger researchers on Dravidian.
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