bhASheya bagge — About Language

ಭಾಷೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ನೀವೇನು ಬಲ್ಲಿರಿ? (What Do You Know About Language?)

Title (Kannada): ಭಾಷೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ನೀವೇನು ಬಲ್ಲಿರಿ? Title (Eke): bAsheya bagge nIvenu balliri? Title (English): What Do You Know About Language? Author: D.N. Shankara Bhat (ಡಿ. ಎನ್. ಶಂಕರ ಭಟ್) Year: 1970 (1st ed.); 1998 (2nd rev.); 2002 (3rd expanded); 2010 (4th edition — this OCR) Publisher: Bhasha Prakashan, Heggodu, Sagara Pages: 208 Language: Kannada Topic: Popular introduction to linguistics — what language is, how it works, Kannada’s place among world languages

Book Overview

Baasheya Bagge (“About Language”) is D.N. Shankara Bhat’s popular introduction to linguistics for Kannada-speaking general audiences. First published around 1970 and now in its fourth edition (2010, 208 pages), it is one of his earliest and most reprinted works, covering language universals, the nature of human language, the Dravidian family, and Kannada’s place among the world’s languages.

The book is structured as 37 popular essays (popular-science in the style of a journal column) across five parts. Each essay explores a specific question about language that an educated Kannada reader might ask: Is one language harder than another? How do children learn their mother tongue? Does grammar help in learning a language? Should India have a single script? What are the world’s major language families? The writing is accessible and anecdote-rich, drawing on concrete examples from Kannada, Sanskrit, English, Chinese, Turkish, and tribal Indian languages.

The book’s central argument is that ordinary people hold many misconceptions about language — misconceptions that cause social harm (linguistic discrimination, poor education policy, chauvinism) and intellectual errors (equating language with script, treating Sanskrit as the “mother” of Kannada, assuming some languages are inherently “primitive”). Bhat corrects these systematically with linguistic evidence, always circling back to the practical implications for Kannada speakers.

Table of Contents

Part One — ಭಾಷೆಯ ಸ್ವರೂಪ (The Nature of Language)

Part Two — ವ್ಯಾಕರಣ ಮತ್ತು ಕಲಿಕೆ (Grammar and Learning)

Part Three — ಮಾತು ಮತ್ತು ಬರಹ (Speech and Writing)

Part Four — ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಯ ಸ್ವರೂಪ (The Nature of the Kannada Language)

Part Five — ಜಗತ್ತಿನ ಭಾಷೆಗಳು (Languages of the World)

Part One — The Nature of Language

ಕನ್ನಡ → Eke →

1.1 No language is superior or inferior

We apply many value-laden adjectives to languages — “easy”, “hard”, “melodious”, “harsh”, “primitive”, “developed” — but linguistics research shows none of these qualities are inherent properties of languages themselves. They are subjective reactions of listeners shaped by their upbringing. No language is objectively difficult or easy; difficulty is always relative to what the learner already knows. A Chinese speaker finds Chinese much easier than Kannada. Sanskrit has a notoriously complex grammar, but that complexity is in the grammatical description, not in the language as spoken by its native users. Attempts by linguists to rank languages by objective complexity have all failed. When one aspect (word structure) is simple, another (sentence structure) tends to be complex; overall, languages balance out. There is no linguistic hierarchy.

1.2 The birth and death of languages

Languages are born, change over time, and die — but not in the way organisms do. A language “dies” when all its speakers shift to another language; it is “born” when a speech variety diverges from its parent enough to be mutually unintelligible. Bhat explains why the origin of human language itself remains deeply mysterious — unlike the origin of specific languages like Kannada (which can be traced through comparative Dravidian linguistics), the origin of language as a human faculty cannot be definitively dated or located. The essay discusses language extinction, the death of tribal languages in India, and what linguistic diversity means for human culture.

1.3 Old and new in languages — language change

All living languages change constantly — pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar shift generation by generation. Bhat illustrates this with examples from Kannada dialects: the coastal (Havyaka) dialect of Kannada has preserved certain Old Kannada features (like the plural suffix -andiru) that standard Kannada has lost, while developing new features unique to that region. The essay shows that change is not “corruption” but a natural, inevitable, rule-governed process. “Pure” language is a myth; there has never been a time when language was fixed and unchanging.

1.4 Linguistic freedom

Languages are not rule-bound in the way formal logic is — they are systems where freedom and convention coexist. Speakers create new sentences never heard before; children extrapolate rules they have never been taught. This creative dimension of language (what Bhat calls “linguistic freedom”) is distinct from the specific rules of any given language. The essay explores how languages can differ structurally — in grammatical gender, in the number of tenses recognised, in counting systems — without any of these differences implying that one system is more “free” or “rational” than another.

1.5 Is language logical?

People often complain that language is illogical — why does English have “I went” (not “I goed”)? Why does double negation in some languages mean affirmation? Bhat shows that language follows its own internal logic, which may differ from formal logic. He gives examples from gender (Kannada distinguishes human/non-human in pronouns, not masculine/feminine), number (some languages have four number categories: singular, dual, trial, plural), and tense (not all languages have the same tense distinctions). The variations are not lapses of logic — they are alternative ways of organising human experience.

1.6 Tense

This essay uses the “present tense” as a case study in cross-linguistic grammatical diversity. In Kannada, what we call “present tense” is more complex than the English present: Kannada distinguishes the present moment (iru verb constructions), habitual present (iru + frequentative), and general truth. Some languages (like Manipuri) mark tense obligatorily in ways Kannada does not. Others (like Chinese) do not inflect verbs for tense at all. The essay demonstrates that what grammarians call “present tense” encodes different kinds of temporal meaning across languages.

1.7 Even counting varies

Number systems vary dramatically across the world’s languages. Most use a base-10 system, but some use base-4, base-12, or base-20 systems. Languages also differ in whether they require classifiers (measure words) with numerals — Kannada uses classifiers like -aru for humans and -u for animals/things. Some languages require the entire noun phrase to be numerically specified; others leave number implicit. This diversity shows that even something as apparently universal as counting is shaped by cultural and linguistic convention.

Part Two — Grammar and Learning

ಕನ್ನಡ → Eke →

2.1 The magic of first language acquisition

Children achieve full command of their mother tongue within two to three years of birth — a feat that no adult language learner can replicate easily. Bhat explains the “critical period” hypothesis: children appear to have a special language-learning capacity that is fully active until around age five or six, after which it diminishes. This is why school-age students struggle to learn second languages even after years of study, while children in multilingual households effortlessly acquire two or three languages simultaneously. The essay explains what is known — and what remains mysterious — about how children extract the grammar of their language from the speech they hear.

2.2 Teaching Kannada to Kannada children

Schools in Karnataka often teach Kannada to native Kannada-speaking children as if they were learning it for the first time — through formal grammar rules, lists of declensions, and prescriptive exercises. Bhat argues this approach is misguided: children already command the spoken language; what school should do is extend their literacy and register range, not “correct” their natural speech. The essay criticises the gap between the spoken language children bring to school and the written register they are expected to produce, arguing that bridging this gap requires better language pedagogy, not more grammar drilling.

2.3 Grammar — a stone lentil?

The essay title uses the Kannada idiom “ಕಲ್ಲಿನ ಕಡಲೆ” (stone lentil) — something that looks like food but cannot be eaten. Bhat argues that the Kannada grammar taught in schools is similarly useless for its stated purpose. Traditional school grammars describe language in terms of Sanskrit categories (ನಾಮಪದ/noun, ಕ್ರಿಯಾಪದ/verb, etc.) that do not accurately describe how Kannada works. They teach rules that Kannada speakers already follow naturally, and miss the rules that actually structure the language. The result is grammar instruction that does not help children write better, read more, or understand the language more deeply.

2.4 The first lesson in school grammars

Bhat analyses the first chapter of several standard Kannada school grammars and finds that they all begin by defining “language” in circular or misleading ways, then immediately proceed to the Sanskrit-derived parts-of-speech taxonomy. This first lesson sets the wrong frame: it implies Kannada’s structure mirrors Sanskrit’s, which it does not. Bhat proposes what a correct first lesson would look like — one grounded in what Kannada speakers actually do when they speak.

2.5 The ghost of Sanskrit in Kannada grammar

The dominant tradition of Kannada grammatical description, from medieval Kesiraja’s Shabdamani Darpana to 20th-century textbooks, applies Sanskrit grammatical categories. Bhat shows this is inappropriate because Kannada is a Dravidian language with fundamentally different structural properties: it does not have grammatical gender in the same way Sanskrit does, its verb system works differently, and its compound structure follows different rules. The “ghost of Sanskrit” haunts Kannada grammar, distorting the description of a language that has its own clear logic.

2.6 Do Sanskrit compounds exist in Kannada?

Sanskrit has a well-developed taxonomy of compound types: tatpurusha, dvandva, bahuvrihi, avyayibhava, karmadharaya. Traditional Kannada grammarians apply these same labels to Kannada compounds. Bhat examines whether these labels fit and finds they mostly do not. Kannada compounds follow different structural patterns — most are right-headed (the second element is the semantic head), which is not a universal feature of Sanskrit compounds. The essay argues for developing Kannada-native compound classifications.

2.7 Teaching English to Kannada children

Karnataka’s school system dedicates enormous time to English instruction, yet most students emerge unable to use English effectively. Bhat diagnoses the problem: English is taught through Kannada grammar (which differs structurally from English), through memorisation of isolated vocabulary, and through reading rather than listening and speaking. He recommends that English language teaching be separated from English literature instruction, and that methods proven effective for second-language instruction (exposure to spoken English, communicative practice) be used instead of grammar-translation.

2.8 The help of grammar in language learning

Does knowing grammar help in learning a language? Bhat gives a nuanced answer: for mother-tongue development, explicit grammar is mostly unnecessary — children learn to speak correctly without it. For second-language learning, some grammar knowledge is useful (to organise what the learner is absorbing), but grammar should serve communication, not become an end in itself. The essay reviews research on grammar’s role in language learning and argues that Kannada schools currently teach far too much grammar relative to the benefit it provides.

2.9 How many pages can you read per hour?

Kannada has a very low reading rate among its literate speakers — most people who can technically read Kannada do not read books. Bhat analyses the reasons: the gap between spoken and written Kannada (writing is more Sanskrit-influenced and therefore less familiar), the complexity of the script (with dozens of conjuncts to recognise), the poverty of popular reading material, and the cultural prestige of oral over written modes. He argues that improving reading rates requires simplifying the script and producing more accessible written material in everyday Kannada.

2.10 Why don’t people read even when they can?

Even people who are literate in Kannada often read very little beyond necessity. Bhat explores the social and cultural reasons: reading is not a valued leisure activity in most Kannada households; public libraries are underfunded; cheap paperback books in simple Kannada are scarce; and television and radio provide alternatives that do not require literacy. The essay argues for a Kannada reading culture campaign alongside script reform and better school pedagogy.

Part Three — Speech and Writing

ಕನ್ನಡ → Eke →

3.1 A photograph of speech

Writing is a “photograph” of speech — a way of capturing and transmitting spoken language visually. The essay introduces the spectrogram (a scientific instrument that creates a visual record of sound waves) as an illustration of what speech actually is physically. Bhat then traces the independent invention of writing in at least three ancient civilisations — Egypt, China, and the Maya — and explains the two main types of writing systems: logographic (one symbol per word, like Chinese characters) and phonographic (one symbol per sound unit, like the alphabet or the Kannada syllabary).

3.2 Should India have a single script?

A frequently proposed “national integration” measure is to adopt a single script for all Indian languages. Bhat examines this proposal and rejects it. The main arguments he addresses: (a) a single script would make inter-regional communication easier — Bhat notes this confuses script with language; knowing the same script does not enable speakers of different languages to understand each other. (b) a common script would be culturally unifying — Bhat counters that scripts are deeply tied to literary and cultural identity. He concludes that script unification would destroy literary heritages without providing the practical benefits claimed.

3.3 The survival of the ri character (ಋ)

The Sanskrit vowel ṛ (ಋ) has no corresponding sound in spoken Kannada — Kannada speakers pronounce it as “ri” (ರಿ). Yet the character is retained in Kannada writing for Sanskrit loanwords. Bhat asks whether this is necessary. He argues it is not: Sanskrit loanwords are pronounced with Kannada sounds, so they should be written with Kannada letters. The ಋ character serves only to signal a word’s Sanskrit origin — a function that can be served by a dictionary note, not a special character that learners must memorise.

3.4 Turkey’s script revolution

In 1928, Turkey replaced the Arabic script (used for Ottoman Turkish) with a Latin-based alphabet, achieving widespread literacy within a generation. Bhat uses this historical example to argue that script reform is feasible and beneficial. The Turkish case shows that (a) a complete script change can be accomplished in a short period with political will; (b) literary heritage need not be lost (it can be transliterated); and (c) the simplification of the writing system produces dramatic literacy gains. He draws parallels to the case for Kannada script reform.

3.5 A “new script” for Kannada

Building on the previous essays, this is the central essay of Part Three. Bhat proposes what he calls “hosa baraha” (new writing) for Kannada: elimination of the ten aspirated consonant letters (ಖ, ಘ, ಛ, ಝ, ಠ, ಢ, ಥ, ಧ, ಫ, ಭ), the retroflex sibilant (ಷ), and certain other characters that serve no phonological function in Kannada but are retained for Sanskrit loanwords. He argues that native Kannada words do not use these sounds distinctively; the characters exist only to preserve the Sanskrit spelling of borrowed words. Simplifying the script to 31–34 letters (from the current 49+) would reduce the learning burden and increase literacy.

3.6 Language and writing

A summary essay distinguishing speech (ಮಾತು) from writing (ಬರಹ). Speech is primary: all humans speak; writing is a later, cultural invention. Speech changes continuously; writing tends to be conservative. The prestige of writing over speech in educated culture leads to “keel-arimai” (inferiority complex) toward spoken dialects and non-standard varieties. Bhat argues that recognising the primacy of speech should change how we think about Kannada literacy, education, and standardisation.

Part Four — The Nature of the Kannada Language

ಕನ್ನಡ → Eke →

4.1 The three faces of Kannada

Kannada exists in at least three distinct forms: (a) the spoken colloquial dialect(s) of everyday life, which differ by region, caste, and generation; (b) the written formal standard (grantha Kannada), which is conservative and Sanskrit-influenced; and (c) the many regional and social dialects (Havyaka, Kodava, Gulla, Tulu-influenced coastal Kannada, Badaga, etc.). Bhat argues that all three “faces” are equally valid as linguistic systems. The prestige gap between written formal Kannada and spoken colloquial Kannada is a social product, not a linguistic fact.

4.2 The dialects of Kannada

A detailed survey of Kannada’s major dialect groups. Bhat describes the primary divisions: the coastal dialects (Havyaka, Tulu-influenced varieties), the central plateau dialects, the northern dialects (with more Urdu/Hindi influence), and the southern dialects (with more Tamil influence). He notes the features by which dialects differ: lexicon, pronunciation, and certain grammatical features (like plural marking). The essay emphasises that dialect differences reflect the history of Kannada’s spread and the social groups who carried it — not linguistic “degeneration.”

4.3 The grammatical tradition of Kannada

A historical survey of Kannada grammar writing, from the oldest surviving grammar (Shabdamani Darpana by Kesiraja, ~1260 CE) through British-era grammars to the 20th century. Bhat shows that the entire tradition has been conducted within a Sanskrit grammatical framework. Medieval Kannada grammarians wrote their grammars in Sanskrit or Kannada-Sanskrit hybrid and explicitly modelled them on Paninian grammar. This has produced centuries of systematic misrepresentation of Kannada structure.

4.4 A century of Kannada grammar research

Surveys the development of Kannada linguistic scholarship since the late 19th century, including the work of British scholars (Kittel, Rice), European Dravidianists (Caldwell, Zvelebil), and Indian scholars (B.D. Sathyanarayana, T.V. Venkatachala Shastry, and Bhat himself). Bhat evaluates what each strand of scholarship got right and wrong, arguing that the most accurate descriptions of Kannada have come from scholars who used structural linguistics methods rather than Sanskrit-derived categories.

4.5 When the great Sanskrit scholars erred

A pointed essay showing how distinguished Kannada scholars — including those who produced authoritative reference works — made systematic errors in describing Kannada grammar because they applied Sanskrit categories. Bhat cites specific examples from well-known Kannada grammar textbooks where the description is demonstrably wrong (e.g., wrong analysis of verbal compounds, misclassification of case suffixes). The purpose is not to criticise individuals but to show the institutional damage caused by the Sanskrit-framework tradition.

4.6 Creating technical vocabulary

How should Kannada develop vocabulary for science, technology, and modern life? Bhat argues against two common approaches: (1) wholesale adoption of Sanskrit-derived neologisms (e.g., dUradarshana for television), which produce words that are formal and inaccessible; and (2) wholesale adoption of English terms, which excludes non-English speakers. He advocates for a third approach: coin new words from Kannada’s own productive native roots and affixes (heserike for “naming/nomenclature”, nudi-arime for “linguistics”, etc.). The essay includes his own proposed vocabulary.

Part Five — Languages of the World

ಕನ್ನಡ → Eke →

5.1 Languages of India

India is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, with over 700 languages. Bhat surveys the four major language families of India: Dravidian (Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and dozens of smaller languages), Indo-Aryan (Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, etc.), Tibeto-Burman (Manipuri, Bodo, and many tribal languages of the northeast), and Austro-Asiatic (Santhali, Mundari, Khasi). He discusses the notion of a “linguistic area” (India as a whole, with certain shared features across families: retroflexion, SOV word order, borrowed vocabulary). He argues against the myth that Hindi is India’s “national language” — it is the mother tongue of only about 40% of the population.

5.2 Languages of Asia

A survey of Asia’s major language families: Sino-Tibetan (Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese), Japonic (Japanese), Koreanic, Altaic (Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu), Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew), Iranian (Persian, Pashto), and the isolates (Japanese, Korean). Bhat notes that Asia contains the world’s most widely spoken languages (Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Arabic) as well as some of the most structurally unusual (Japanese, with its elaborate politeness system and topic-comment structure).

5.3 Languages of Europe

The Indo-European family dominates Europe, with its major branches: Germanic (English, German, Dutch, Swedish), Romance (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian), Slavic (Russian, Polish, Czech), and others (Greek, Albanian, Armenian). Bhat notes the non-Indo-European exceptions: Basque (an isolate), Finnish and Estonian (Uralic). The essay discusses the role of Greek and Latin as classical languages of Europe (paralleling Sanskrit’s role in South Asia) and the spread of English as a global lingua franca.

5.4 Languages of Africa

Africa is the world’s most linguistically diverse continent, with over 2,000 languages. Bhat surveys the four major African families: Niger-Congo (the largest, including Swahili, Zulu, Yoruba), Nilo-Saharan, Afro-Asiatic (Arabic, Amharic, Hausa), and Khoisan (with its distinctive click consonants). The essay discusses the colonial history that elevated European languages to official status across Africa, the challenges this creates for education and literacy, and the ongoing vitality of African language communities.

5.5 Languages of the Americas

The indigenous languages of the Americas represent dozens of independent language families — a result of 15,000+ years of independent development after the initial peopling of the Americas. Bhat discusses major groupings (Algonquian, Athabaskan, Oto-Manguean, Quechuan, Tupian) and notes the dramatic language death caused by European colonisation. Spanish, Portuguese, and English now dominate politically, but many indigenous languages — Quechua (8 million speakers), Guaraní (5 million), Nahuatl (1.5 million) — remain vigorously spoken.

5.6 Languages of Australia

Australian Aboriginal languages (several hundred) constitute a distinct language family (Pama-Nyungan dominates the continent; several unrelated families exist in the north). Bhat notes that many Australian languages are now endangered or extinct as a result of colonisation. He describes interesting structural features of Australian languages: many have elaborate kinship terminology and evidentiality markers (grammatically obligatory marking of how the speaker knows what they are saying).

5.7 Languages of Oceania

The Austronesian family, which includes the languages of Polynesia (Hawaiian, Māori, Samoan), Melanesia, and Micronesia, extends from Madagascar (off Africa) to Hawaii (in the Pacific) — the largest geographic spread of any language family. Bhat discusses what this tells us about the ancient Austronesian seafarers who carried these languages across the Pacific. He also notes Papua New Guinea, which has the world’s greatest language density: over 800 languages in a single country.

5.8 Conclusion

The book closes by returning to its opening theme: ordinary people know less about language than they think, and the misconceptions they hold have real consequences. Understanding language scientifically — knowing that no language is superior, that all languages change, that writing is secondary to speech, that grammatical diversity is a human richness — should change how Kannada speakers think about their own language, about linguistic minorities in Karnataka, and about Kannada’s place in the world. The book does not end with a polemical call to action but with a gentle invitation: the next time you encounter a language claim that feels obvious, pause and check whether the linguists agree.

Key Terms Glossary

Kannada English Eke Romanisation
ಭಾಷೆ Language bAse
ನುಡಿ Spoken language / dialect nuDi
ಬರಹ Writing baraha
ಲಿಪಿ Script / writing system lipi
ವ್ಯಾಕರಣ Grammar vyAkaraNa
ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆ Grammar (Bhat’s term) sollarime
ಉಪಭಾಷೆ Dialect upabAse
ಪ್ರಭೇದ Variety / sub-variety prabEda
ಮಾತೃಭಾಷೆ Mother tongue mAtru-bAse
ಕೀಳರಿಮೆ Inferiority complex kILarime
ಮೇಲರಿಮೆ Superiority complex mElarime
ತಾಯ್ನುಡಿ Mother tongue (informal) tAy-nuDi
ಎರವಲು ಪದ Loanword eravalu pada
ತದ್ಭವ Nativised Sanskrit loanword tadbava
ತತ್ಸಮ Un-nativised Sanskrit loanword tatsama
ಹೊಸ ಬರಹ New script (Bhat’s reform) hosa baraha
ಮಹಾಪ್ರಾಣ Aspirated consonants mabAprANa
ದ್ರಾವಿಡ Dravidian drAviDa
ಭಾಷಾಸ್ವಾತಂತ್ರ್ಯ Linguistic freedom bASA-svAtantrya

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