"Oh, C'mon Rajesh, I know you are kidding! " I am tired of listening to these words again and again each time someone realises that I don't know to read & write Kannada. What adds to their disbelief, is the fact that I speak a good, sometimes sanskritised, close-to-purist Kannada. As they slowly overcome the disbelief, they inquire - "How come? I thought Kannada is your mother tongue, isn't it so?........"
If you too are amused as you are reading this, please don't be so. I have a proper justification. But, lets not get into "why so?" because its anyway a thing of the past(I hope). I have spent the last few months learning Kannada & I can now read and write(type to be precise) Kannada pretty decently. (Agreed that "decently" is too fuzzy an adjective, but lets put that thought aside for the moment).
It is not just a matter of eagerness but compulsion that has driven me to learn kannada. My job requires me to be able to read & write Kannada decently to survive.But, as I learn more & more of it, the more complex it gets. I have two big problems with kannada as a language-
2. Writing Kannada gives you a feel of sculpting. The number of twists, turns & curves are huge! To write a simple word, say "ಕನ್ನಡ"(Kannada), you need to lift the pen nearly eight times off the paper! In English, the same word could be written without lifting the pen even once ! :P
So, how does our national language hindi fare? To write कन्नड the count is a mere four. Besides, the number of curved lines is a lot less!
Since I can do very little about it, I will try to embrace Kannada and patiently hope that it embraces me too!
Dear Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, Jai Karnataka, Mr Vatal Nagaraj & other Kannada ಅಭಿಮಾನಿಗಳೆ(fans), I sincerely hope & pray that you are not reading this post. Just in case you do-
ಸಿರಿಗನ್ನಡಂ ಗೆಲ್ಗೆ!
If you too are amused as you are reading this, please don't be so. I have a proper justification. But, lets not get into "why so?" because its anyway a thing of the past(I hope). I have spent the last few months learning Kannada & I can now read and write(type to be precise) Kannada pretty decently. (Agreed that "decently" is too fuzzy an adjective, but lets put that thought aside for the moment).
It is not just a matter of eagerness but compulsion that has driven me to learn kannada. My job requires me to be able to read & write Kannada decently to survive.But, as I learn more & more of it, the more complex it gets. I have two big problems with kannada as a language-
1. Kannada is too fussy about pronunciations. In hindi, you only have के(ke) कॆ(kai). In kannada you have one more addition - ಕೆ(ke) ಕೇ(kE) ಕೈ(kai). For example, there is only one way to write kendra in hindi which is केन्द्र् . However, kannada allows you to have - ಕೆಂದ್ರ(kendra) as well as ಕೇಂದ್ರ(kEndra). What a mess! In my honest opinion, most of kannada mistakes could be traced to it.
2. Writing Kannada gives you a feel of sculpting. The number of twists, turns & curves are huge! To write a simple word, say "ಕನ್ನಡ"(Kannada), you need to lift the pen nearly eight times off the paper! In English, the same word could be written without lifting the pen even once ! :P
So, how does our national language hindi fare? To write कन्नड the count is a mere four. Besides, the number of curved lines is a lot less!
Since I can do very little about it, I will try to embrace Kannada and patiently hope that it embraces me too!
Dear Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, Jai Karnataka, Mr Vatal Nagaraj & other Kannada ಅಭಿಮಾನಿಗಳೆ(fans), I sincerely hope & pray that you are not reading this post. Just in case you do-
ಸಿರಿಗನ್ನಡಂ ಗೆಲ್ಗೆ!
