kannaDa vyAkaraNa yAke bEku?
Why Do We Need Kannada Grammar?
Title (Kannada): ಕನ್ನಡ ವ್ಯಾಕರಣ ಯಾಕೆ ಬೇಕು? Title (Eke): kannaD vyAkaraNa yAke bEku? Author: D. N. Shankara Bhat (ಡಿ. ಎನ್. ಶಂಕರ ಭಟ್) Year: 2009 (first edition) Publisher: Bhasha Prakashan (ಬಾಷಾಪ್ರಕಾಶನ), Heggodu, Sagara Pages: ~256 Language: Kannada (hosa baraha — simplified spelling: ಭ→ಬ, ಧ→ದ, etc.) Topic: Applied linguistics — the practical uses of Kannada grammar knowledge across literacy education, writing instruction, academic writing, creative writing, translation, language planning, and speech therapy
Book Overview
This book is the practical companion to the author’s earlier ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕೆ ಬೇಕು ಕನ್ನಡದ್ದೇ ವ್ಯಾಕರಣ (Book 28), which argued that Kannada needs a grammar written in its own terms. Where Book 28 made the theoretical argument, this book asks the next question: once we have a genuinely Kannada-native grammar, who actually uses it and how? The answer turns out to be: everyone who works with Kannada in writing. The book surveys literacy educators, writers, academic authors, translators, language planners, and speech therapists — demonstrating that each of these practitioners needs specific grammatical knowledge, and that the currently available Sanskrit-based school grammar fails to provide it.
A distinctive feature of the book is that it is written in hosa baraha (ಹೊಸ ಬರಹ), the simplified spelling system advocated by the author, in which Sanskrit loans are written as they are actually pronounced in Kannada (not as they appear in Sanskrit), aspirate distinctions are dropped (ಭ is written ಬ, ಧ is written ದ, etc.), and native Kannada vocabulary is preferred throughout. The preface candidly acknowledges this choice and the possible difficulty it may cause readers accustomed to the standard orthography, while arguing that reducing the Sanskrit stranglehold on Kannada writing is itself one of the goals the book pursues. The author also uses DNS Bhat’s own native Kannada terminology throughout: ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆ for grammar, ಸೊಲ್ಲು for sentence, ಉಲಿ for phoneme, ಬರಿಗೆ for letter/grapheme, ಎಣ್ಣುಕ for computer.
The book covers eleven chapters (called ಪಸುಗೆ rather than ಅಧ್ಯಾಯ, reflecting the author’s preference for native Kannada vocabulary). The scope is broader than the six-chapter task description specifies: beyond literacy education, writing, academic writing, creative writing, and ambiguity, the book also covers second-language learning of Kannada and English, translation (both literary and machine translation), language planning (script reform, new word coinage, standardisation), and speech disorder therapy. Together these chapters make the case that grammatical knowledge is not an abstract academic exercise but a practical tool needed across the full range of activities through which Kannada is professionally used.
Table of Contents
- Chapter 1 — Preview (ಮುನ್ನೋಟ)
- Chapter 2 — Learning to Read and Write (ಓದು-ಬರಹದ ಕಲಿಕೆ)
- Chapter 3 — Advanced Writing (ಬರೆಯುವುದರಲ್ಲಿ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಕಲಿಕೆ)
- Chapter 4 — Academic Writing (ಅರಿಮೆಯ ಬರಹಗಳು)
- Chapter 5 — Creative Writing and Grammar (ನಲ್ಬರಹಗಳು ಮತ್ತು ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆ)
- Chapter 6 — The Problems of Ambiguity (ಇಪ್ಪುರುಳಿನ ತೊಡಕುಗಳು)
- Chapter 7 — Learning a Second Language (ಎರಡನೇ ನುಡಿಯ ಕಲಿಕೆ)
- Chapter 8 — Translation (ನುಡಿಮಾರಿಕೆ)
- Chapter 9 — Language Planning (ನುಡಿಹಮ್ಮುಗೆ)
- Chapter 10 — Speech Disorders (ಮಾತಿನ ತೊಂದರೆಗಳು)
- Chapter 11 — Conclusion (ಮುಕ್ತಾಯ)
- Key Terms Glossary
Chapter 1 — Preview
(ಮುನ್ನೋಟ)
The opening chapter distinguishes two senses of the word “grammar” and argues that confusion between them is a major reason why people resist grammar education. The first sense is tacit grammatical knowledge (ಅರಿವಿಗೆ ಎಟಕದ ಕಟ್ಟಲೆಗಳು) — the rules that every fluent Kannada speaker already applies perfectly below the threshold of conscious awareness, acquired naturally in early childhood as part of language development. The second sense is explicit grammatical knowledge (ಅರಿವಿಗೆ ಎಟಕುವ ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆ) — the rules written in grammar books by linguists who have made those unconscious patterns explicit. Grammar in the second sense is what this book discusses.
The chapter introduces the author’s native Kannada terminology: ಸೊಲ್ಲು (sentence, from an old Kannada word for speech), ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆ (knowledge/understanding of sentences = grammar). A detailed example illustrates the tacit rules behind case suffix selection: the dative suffix appears as -ge after e/i-final words (ಶಾಲೆಗೆ, ಹಳ್ಳಿಗೆ), as -ige after u-final words (ಕಾಡಿಗೆ, ಬಚ್ಚಲಿಗೆ), and as -nige after a-final human nouns (ಅಕ್ಕನಿಗೆ, ಅಣ್ಣನಿಗೆ) but as -kke after a-final non-human nouns (ಬೆಟ್ಟಕ್ಕೆ, ಕಾಳಗಕ್ಕೆ). Every Kannada speaker applies this rule automatically and without error, yet almost no speaker can articulate it. The section on speech and writing differences (1.2.1) identifies four structural differences — spoken sentences are fragmentary; written sentences must be complete; speech co-occurs with gesture and intonation; writing uses layout and punctuation — and traces each difference to its underlying cause. The chapter ends by previewing the book’s eleven chapters and explaining why grammar knowledge matters more for writing than for speaking.
Chapter 2 — Learning to Read and Write
(ಓದು-ಬರಹದ ಕಲಿಕೆ)
Chapter 2 examines the role of grammatical knowledge in teaching literacy to children. Children arrive at school already knowing their spoken language (their dialect of Kannada, ಆಡುಗನ್ನಡ) fluently; the task of the school is to teach them the standard written form (ಎಲ್ಲರ ಕನ್ನಡ) and the skills of reading and writing. The author makes a strong point that these are different tasks: learning to speak standard Kannada is relatively easy for children because speech-learning draws on innate language capacity; learning to read and write is not innate and must be explicitly taught, like swimming or cycling. The chapter argues that treating spoken dialect forms as “wrong Kannada” and standard written forms as “correct Kannada” is linguistically incorrect and socially harmful, particularly for children from lower-caste and working-class backgrounds whose home dialects are systematically stigmatised.
The technical section (2.3) on learning to read examines the cognitive processes involved in matching phonemes (ಉಲಿಗಳು) to graphemes (ಬರಿಗೆಗಳು), the problem of one-to-many and many-to-one phoneme-grapheme correspondences in Kannada script, and the specific challenges posed by conjunct consonant clusters. The section on learning to write (2.4) covers the difference between knowing what to say and knowing how to write it — the latter requiring explicit attention to sentence completeness, word-boundary spacing, and punctuation that does not arise in speech. Grammar knowledge helps teachers explain these differences concisely and helps students recognise what they need to learn. The chapter also addresses adult literacy (2.5), noting that adults learning to read and write bring a larger vocabulary and a more developed metalinguistic awareness that allows more explicit grammar instruction to be effective.
Chapter 3 — Advanced Writing
(ಬರೆಯುವುದರಲ್ಲಿ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಕಲಿಕೆ)
This chapter addresses the needs of writers who have already achieved basic literacy and wish to write well. The author distinguishes two types of writers (3.1.1): those who write to communicate ideas to their readers (functional writers) and those who also attend to the craft of writing itself. Both types need to understand the relationship between writer and reader (3.2), which differs fundamentally from the relationship between speaker and listener: the reader is absent when the writer writes, the reader cannot ask for clarification, and feedback reaches the writer only after the piece is complete. These conditions require the writer to anticipate the reader’s perspective and make the text as clear and well-organised as possible without the corrective feedback loop that spoken conversation provides.
The chapter provides specific guidance on sentence structure (3.2.1–3.2.5): how to choose appropriate clause-linking structures, how to use cohesive devices (ತೋರುಗ ಪದಗಳು — demonstratives and anaphoric pronouns that link sentences across a text), and how to use punctuation marks (ಹೊದ್ದಿಕೆಯ ಗುರುತುಗಳು). A substantial section on revision (3.4–3.5) argues that good writing requires multiple passes — drafting, reviewing (ಮರುನೋಟ), and careful editing (ತಿದ್ದಿ ಸರಿಪಡಿಸುವುದು). Specific guidance is given on comma use, semicolons (ಅರೆಕೊನೆ), colons (ಕೊಗೆತ), and the punctuation of sentence endings — all of which require the writer to identify syntactic boundaries in their own text, a task that requires explicit grammatical knowledge.
Chapter 4 — Academic Writing
(ಅರಿಮೆಯ ಬರಹಗಳು)
Chapter 4 addresses the specific demands of academic and scientific writing in Kannada, arguing that this is where the absence of a genuine Kannada-native grammar causes the most damage. Academic writing requires precise terminology, exact definitions, and sentences that encode complex logical and causal relationships. The author shows that Kannada academic writing has two major problems: first, the over-reliance on Sanskrit loans for technical vocabulary (ಅರಿಮೆಯ ಪದಗಳು / ಪಾರಿಬಾಷಿಕ ಪದಗಳು), which makes texts inaccessible to ordinary educated readers and which often imports Sanskrit grammatical structure along with the borrowed vocabulary; and second, the construction of complex sentences (ಸಿಕ್ಕಲು ಸೊಲ್ಲುಗಳು — literally “tangled sentences”) that embed multiple subordinate clauses in ways that exceed the reader’s processing capacity.
The chapter examines the grammar metalanguage itself (4.3.2): to discuss grammar in Kannada, one needs Kannada words for grammatical concepts. The existing metalanguage is almost entirely Sanskrit-derived (ವ್ಯಾಕರಣ, ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ, ಕ್ರಿಯಾಪದ, ನಾಮಪದ, etc.), which creates a circularity: to teach Kannada grammar you need metalanguage, but the metalanguage itself is opaque to most Kannada speakers. The chapter advocates for the use of native Kannada grammatical terms throughout — ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆ, ಎಸಕಪದ, ಹೆಸರುಪದ, ಪರಿಚೆಪದ, ಒಟ್ಟು — and shows how these terms connect more directly to speakers’ intuitions about their own language. A section on passive constructions (ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆಯ ಮಾರ್ಪುರುಳು, 4.4) examines how the two types of passive in Kannada (agentive and non-agentive) differ in structure and use, and how their systematic use in academic texts creates both the density and the occasional obscurity that marks academic Kannada.
Chapter 5 — Creative Writing and Grammar
(ನಲ್ಬರಹಗಳು ಮತ್ತು ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆ)
This chapter examines the role of grammatical knowledge in literature (ನಲ್ಬರಹ — stories, poetry, drama, and related creative forms). The central argument is that creative writing uses grammar in a special way: whereas functional writing aims to communicate clearly within the conventions of standard grammar, creative writing sometimes deliberately violates standard conventions to achieve aesthetic effects — and the ability to violate conventions skillfully requires knowing what the conventions are. The chapter distinguishes between two types of grammatical usage in literature: foregrounded grammatical deviation (deliberately marked, unusual patterns that draw the reader’s attention to the form of the text) and backgrounded grammatical usage (ordinary grammatical patterns that the reader processes automatically without noticing).
The chapter gives special attention to drama dialogue (5.3). In drama, characters speak in different dialects (ಒಳನುಡಿಗಳು) and register varieties (ಆಡುನುಡಿ vs. formal speech), and the playwright must manage these differences consistently. A character who speaks in a rural dialect in Act 1 cannot suddenly shift to urban formal Kannada in Act 3 without marked effect. The section on sentence cohesion in plays (5.4.1) examines how sentences link to each other through anaphoric and demonstrative elements, and how playwrights can use deliberate disruptions of these linkage patterns to create dramatic effects. Understanding these patterns requires grammatical knowledge — specifically, knowledge of the discourse-level rules that extend beyond the sentence.
Chapter 6 — The Problems of Ambiguity
(ಇಪ್ಪುರುಳಿನ ತೊಡಕುಗಳು)
Chapter 6 examines ambiguity (ಇಪ್ಪುರುಳು — literally “double-meaning”) in Kannada writing, classifying the sources of ambiguity and discussing when ambiguity is a problem to be resolved and when it is a resource to be exploited. Three types of ambiguity are distinguished: lexical ambiguity (ಪದದ ಇಪ್ಪುರುಳು), where a single word has two or more distinct meanings; word-form ambiguity (ಪದರೂಪದ ಇಪ್ಪುರುಳು), where a single inflected form can be parsed in two different grammatical ways; and structural ambiguity (ಇಟ್ಟಳದ ಇಪ್ಪುರುಳು), where a sentence has two distinct syntactic structures that yield different interpretations. Examples of all three types are worked through in detail with Kannada sentences.
The chapter then distinguishes contexts where ambiguity is problematic from contexts where it is productive. In legal writing (ಕಾನೂನುಗಳನ್ನು ಬರೆಯುವುದು, 6.3.1) and in academic writing (6.3.2), ambiguity is a serious defect because legal and academic texts need to be interpreted in one way only — unintended readings create legal disputes or scientific misunderstandings. In computer natural language processing (ಎಣ್ಣುಕಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಇಪ್ಪುರುಳು, 6.3.3), structural ambiguity is a major computational challenge because machines must select one parse tree from among the possible analyses of each sentence. In creative writing, on the other hand (6.4), deliberate ambiguity is a valuable resource: it allows the writer to communicate two things simultaneously, to create irony, or to leave the reader with productive interpretive uncertainty. The chapter shows how grammatical knowledge is necessary for both avoiding unintended ambiguity and deploying intended ambiguity skillfully.
Chapter 7 — Learning a Second Language
(ಎರಡನೇ ನುಡಿಯ ಕಲಿಕೆ)
This chapter examines the role of grammar in second-language learning, with particular attention to two situations common in Karnataka: learning English as a second language, and learning Kannada as a second language (by speakers of other Indian languages). The chapter distinguishes child second-language acquisition from adult second-language learning: children learning a second language in an immersive environment acquire it through the same tacit mechanisms they used to learn their first language, while adults learning a second language in a classroom setting depend more heavily on explicit grammatical knowledge. The chapter argues that this is why grammar instruction is more appropriate and more effective for adult learners than for young children.
On English learning (7.2), the chapter argues against the widespread practice of excluding the mother tongue from the classroom, showing that knowledge of Kannada grammar (particularly Kannada sentence structure and Kannada case-marking patterns) can help Kannada speakers understand specific areas of difficulty in English (subject-predicate structure, the English passive, article usage, etc.) by making explicit the differences between the two grammatical systems. The chapter also notes the potential for negative transfer — errors in English that result from Kannada grammatical habits — and argues that awareness of these transfer patterns, which requires explicit grammatical knowledge of both languages, is the best way to address them. A shorter section (7.3) addresses Kannada second-language learning for non-native speakers, noting that the absence of a well-structured, accessible Kannada grammar for second-language learners is a significant gap in the field.
Chapter 8 — Translation
(ನುಡಿಮಾರಿಕೆ)
Chapter 8 examines translation (ನುಡಿಮಾರಿಕೆ — literally “language-changing”), covering both human literary translation and machine translation. The chapter begins by distinguishing two types of translation problem: problems arising from incomplete understanding of the source text (ಮೂಲ ಬರಹದ ತಿಳಿವು), and problems arising from the grammatical differences between the source and target languages. On the first type, the chapter discusses how dialect vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and culturally specific references in the source text require the translator to know not just the standard form of the source language but also its register variation and cultural context. On the second type, the chapter examines how the structural differences between Kannada and English — particularly differences in word order, the Kannada verb-final pattern, the Kannada case-suffix system, and the expression of tense and aspect — create systematic translation challenges.
The section on machine translation (8.5) is particularly rich. The author explains the three major approaches to computer translation (transfer-based, interlingual, and statistical), noting that all three ultimately require some representation of the grammar of both source and target languages. Statistical machine translation can work without explicit grammatical knowledge if enough bilingual data is available, but produces better results for grammatically similar language pairs (English–French) than for typologically different pairs (English–Kannada). The chapter concludes that machine translation of Kannada at a useful quality level requires a well-formalised computational grammar of Kannada — making the grammar project directly relevant to one of the major practical challenges of contemporary information technology.
Chapter 9 — Language Planning
(ನುಡಿಹಮ್ಮುಗೆ)
This chapter covers language planning (ನುಡಿಹಮ್ಮುಗೆ) — the deliberate modification of a language by institutions or communities to meet new communicative needs. The chapter identifies four planning activities where grammatical knowledge is essential: script reform (ಬರಿಗೆ ಹಮ್ಮುಗೆ), terminology development (ಪದನೆರಕೆಯ ಹಮ್ಮುಗೆ), grammatical standardisation (ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆಯ ಹಮ್ಮುಗೆ), and status planning (ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆಯ ಹಮ್ಮುಗೆ — promoting the use of Kannada in new domains).
On script reform, the chapter discusses the hosa baraha system used in this very book, explaining the linguistic argument for writing Sanskrit loans as they are actually pronounced in Kannada rather than as they are spelled in Sanskrit. The author is candid that planners who have made well-intentioned script changes without adequate phonological knowledge have sometimes introduced inconsistencies worse than those they corrected. On terminology development — coining new Kannada words for scientific and technical concepts — the chapter argues that without morphological knowledge (knowledge of Kannada’s productive word-formation rules), new coin attempts either produce unpronounceable Sanskrit-calque words or borrow whole English words when Kannada equivalents could have been formed productively. The chapter is in effect a demonstration of DNS Bhat’s own practice: throughout the book, the author coins new Kannada words using native roots and native suffixes, providing living examples of the word-formation methodology he advocates.
Chapter 10 — Speech Disorders
(ಮಾತಿನ ತೊಂದರೆಗಳು)
The penultimate chapter examines speech and language disorders (ಮಾತಿನ ತೊಂದರೆಗಳು), connecting grammatical knowledge to clinical speech-language pathology. The chapter distinguishes developmental disorders (disorders that arise in childhood language acquisition) from acquired disorders (disorders that result from brain injury or stroke in adults who previously had normal speech). Developmental disorders discussed include: hearing loss and its consequences for language development (ಕಿವಿ ಕೇಳಿಸದ ಮಕ್ಕಳು), phonological disorders (ಉಲಿಯ ತೊಂದರೆಗಳು), grammatical-morphological disorders (ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆಯ ತೊಂದರೆಗಳು), reading disorders/dyslexia (ಓದಿನ ತೊಂದರೆಗಳು), and stuttering (ಉಗ್ಗುಮಾತು). Among adult acquired disorders, the chapter briefly addresses aphasia — the partial or total loss of language ability following brain damage.
The chapter argues that effective diagnosis and therapy for all these conditions requires a grammar of the target language: to identify a morphological disorder, the clinician must know what the correct morphological patterns are; to develop reading disorder interventions, the clinician must understand the relationship between the phonological structure of Kannada words and the graphemic structure of the Kannada script. The chapter notes that speech-language pathology as a clinical field is almost entirely absent in Karnataka, partly because there is no good Kannada grammar that clinicians could use as a reference for normal language patterns. This makes the grammar-writing project relevant not only to linguists and educators but also to public health.
Chapter 11 — Conclusion
(ಮುಕ್ತಾಯ)
The concluding chapter draws together the ten domains covered in the preceding chapters into a unified argument. The author distinguishes multiple types of grammar relevant to different user communities: descriptive grammar (describing what speakers do), prescriptive grammar (prescribing what writers should do), pedagogical grammar (teaching grammar to learners), and computational grammar (encoding grammar for use by machines). These are not competing approaches but complementary ones — each is needed by a different set of users, and all ultimately depend on a good descriptive grammar of Kannada as their foundation.
The chapter returns to the book’s opening theme — that Kannada speakers already have perfect grammar in the tacit sense, and that what they need is to make parts of that grammar explicit for specific practical purposes. The key insight is that making tacit grammar explicit is always a means to an end, never an end in itself: the point of explicit grammar is to help people read better, write better, translate better, plan language change better, and teach language better. The chapter criticises the tradition of teaching grammar as an end in itself — as a set of definitions and rules to be memorised — and argues that grammar instruction becomes genuinely valuable only when it is anchored to a specific task where the grammatical knowledge makes a visible practical difference. The book ends with a short glossary of the native Kannada terms used throughout (ಕೆಲವು ಪದಗಳ ಹುರುಳುಗಳು) and a bibliography (ಸುಟ್ಟುಗೆ).
Key Terms Glossary
| Kannada | English | Eke |
|---|---|---|
| ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆ | grammar / linguistics | sollarime |
| ಸೊಲ್ಲು | sentence | sollu |
| ಉಲಿ | phoneme / speech sound | uli |
| ಬರಿಗೆ | letter / grapheme | barige |
| ಕಟ್ಟಲೆ | grammatical convention / rule | kaTTale |
| ಇಪ್ಪುರುಳು | ambiguity / double meaning | ippuruLu |
| ಇಟ್ಟಳ | structure / construction | iTTaLa |
| ಪಸುಗೆ | chapter | pasuge |
| ಕುರಳು | paragraph | kuraLu |
| ನಲ್ಬರಹ | creative literature (story, poem, drama) | nalbara |
| ನುಡಿಮಾರಿಕೆ | translation | nuDimArike |
| ನುಡಿಹಮ್ಮುಗೆ | language planning | nuDihammuge |
| ಎಣ್ಣುಕ | computer | eNNuka |
| ಎಲ್ಲರ ಕನ್ನಡ | standard Kannada / Kannada for all | ellara kannaD |
| ಆಡುನುಡಿ | spoken dialect | ADunuDi |
| ಒಳನುಡಿ | dialect / sub-variety | oLanuDi |
| ಅರಿಮೆ | science / knowledge (used for “academic”) | arime |
| ಅರಿಮೆಯ ಪದ | technical / scientific term | arimeya pada |
| ಮಾರ್ಪುರುಳು | passive (grammatical voice) | mArpuruLu |
| ಸಿಕ್ಕಲು ಸೊಲ್ಲು | complex / tangled sentence | sikkalu sollu |
| ತೋರುಗ ಪದ | cohesive / demonstrative word | tOruga pada |
| ಹೊದ್ದಿಕೆ ಗುರುತು | punctuation mark | hoddike gurutu |
| ಹೊಸ ಬರಹ | simplified / new spelling (hosa baraha) | hosa bara |
| ಉಗ್ಗುಮಾತು | stuttering | uggumAtu |
| ತಾಯ್ನುಡಿ | mother tongue | tAynuDi |
This document is an English-language overview of D. N. Shankara Bhat’s ಕನ್ನಡ ವ್ಯಾಕರಣ ಯಾಕೆ ಬೇಕು? (2009), based on the original Kannada text written in hosa baraha. The Kannada text can be read in the companion file 29-kannaDa-vyAkaraNa-yAke-bEku-book.md.
Related books in this series: