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."[2]
Phonology
Vowels
Kanikkaran has 5 vowels, /a, e, i, o, u/. It demonstrates contrastive vowel length.[2]
Consonants
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t̪ | ʈ | c | k | ||
| voiced | b | d̪ | ||||||
| Nasal | m | 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.[2]
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).[2]
References
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namede18 - ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Aspects of Life and Language of Kanikkar Tribal Community of Kerala –A Study. Language in India({Template:Date).
Template:Dravidian languages Template:Languages of Tamil Nadu Template:Languages spoken in Kerala