Kannada

Kannada is a South Dravidian language, the principal speech of Karnataka in south-western India. Its history falls into Old Kannada from about 450, Middle Kannada from 1200 and Modern Kannada from 1700. Its earliest records include the fifth-century Halmidi inscription, in the Kadamba script from which the Kannada alphabet descends. It was the court language of successive Deccan dynasties, including the Rashtrakutas and Hoysalas.

Old Kannada literature, mostly by Jain court poets, opened with the Kavirajamarga of about 850, a treatise on poetics and grammar, and flourished under the Rashtrakutas. Ranna compiled the first Kannada dictionary in 996.

The grammar Shabdamanidarpana of about 1260 fixed Middle Kannada literary norms, used by the thirteenth-century Shaiva poets Harihara and Raghavanka for hagiographies and devotional verse. Kannada was influenced by Sanskrit and Prakrit and has southern, northern, central and coastal dialects.