Badaga language


Badaga is a southern Dravidian language spoken by the Badaga people of the Nilgiris district of Northwest Tamil Nadu. The language is closely related to Kannada.

Phonology

Badaga has five vowels qualities,, each of which may be long or short and until the 1930s were contrastively half and fully retroflexed, for a total of 30 vowel phonemes. Current speakers only distinguish retroflection for a few vowels.
IPAGloss
disease
scar
sprout
tiger's den
to spread out
to remove
seven
tamarind
bangle
banana
to strike
tamarind
chisel

Note on transcription: rhoticity indicates half-retroflexion; doubled it indicates full retroflexion.

Badaga script

Several attempts were made at constructing an orthography based on English and Kannada. The earliest printed book using Kannada script was a Christian work, "Anga Kartagibba Yesu Kristana Olleya Suddiya Pustaka" by Basel Mission Press of Mangaluru in 1890.
The Badaga language is also written in the Tamil script.
List of Books in Kannada Script:
  1. Anga Kartagibba Yesu Kristana Olleya Suddiya Pustaka
  2. Jonah
  3. Mana Kannadi
  4. Marka Bareda Loka ratchagana kade
  5. Zion

    Dictionary

The Badaga language is well studied and several Badaga-English Dictionaries have been produced since the latter part of the nineteenth century.