South First spoke to Kannada authors, professors and epigraphists to understand the origin of Kannada, Tamil and other Dravidian languages.
Published May 29, 2025 | 11:32 AM ⚊ Updated May 29, 2025 | 1:47 PM
The replica of the Halmidi inscription, the oldest known full-length Kannada inscription dating back to 450 CE, mounted on a pedestal.
Synopsis: Recently, actor Kamal Haasan said Kannada was born out of Tamil, creating a controversy. While several people slammed him and demanded an apology, experts point out that there is no credible evidence to support his claim.
Actor Kamal Haasan’s statement that Kannada was born out of Tamil, during the audio launch of his upcoming release, Thug Life, sparked a huge debate in Karnataka.
He started his speech saying, “Uyire Urave Tamizhe (My life and my family are Tamil).” Later, referring to Kannada actor Shiva Rajkumar, who was on the stage, Haasan said, “You are my family, residing in Karnataka, and hence, you came all the way here. When I started the speech, I said that my life and my family are Tamil. Your language (Kannada) was born out of Tamil, and hence you are part of it.”
Several Kannada speakers and activists slammed the actor, saying that his claims had no basis. Pro-Kannada organisations, including Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, launched statewide protests slamming the actor, and some of them tore posters of the movie Thug Life. They also asked Haasan to apologise and warned that the movie would not be released in Karnataka if he failed to do so.
Adding to the discourse, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said, “Kannada language has a long-standing history, poor Kamal Haasan is unaware of it.”
Similarly, BJP Karnataka President and MLA BY Vijayendra accused Haasan of uncultured behaviour and arrogance, and demanded an unconditional apology.
In a post on X, Vijayendra said, “One should love one’s mother tongue, but showing disrespect in its name is uncultured behavior. Especially artists should have the culture of respecting every language. It is the height of arrogance and arrogance that an actor Kamal Haasan who has acted in many Indian languages, including Kannada, has insulted Kannada by including actor Shivarajkumar in the glorification of his Tamil language.”
After facing massive backlash, Haasan said on Wednesday, 29 May, that in-depth discussions must be left to historians, archaeologists and experts.
“What I said was said out of love. Historians have taught me language history, and I didn’t mean anything. Tamil Nadu has been an open state, where a Menon has been the chief minister, a Reddy has been our CM, and a Kannadiga Iyengar has been our CM. When there was a problem in Chennai with the Chief Minister, who hailed from Karnataka, it was Karnataka that supported me. It was Kannadigas who said, ‘Come here, we will give you a home’. It is people who will take care of Thug Life, Kamal Haasan and all these controversies,” he said.
“Politicians are not qualified enough to talk about the language. They don’t have enough education to talk about it, which includes me. Let’s leave all this in-depth discussion to archaeologists, historians and language experts. I spoke to Shivanna (Shiva Rajkumar) out of love. We are a family, and so are the languages. This is not an answer, but an explanation. Love will never apologise.”
Meanwhile, South First spoke to Kannada authors, professors and epigraphists to understand the origin of Kannada, Tamil and other Dravidian languages.
Kannada author and Kannada Development Authority Chairperson Purushotham Bilimale explained the origin of Kannada and Tamil.
“Research seeking the origin of Dravidian languages was done by several people. Colonial scholar and researcher Robert Caldwell’s research on Dravidian languages is referred to by people across the world, including linguistic experts. Earlier, in Annamalai University, there was a Dravidian Language Centre. Renowned linguists like KK Gowda, A Murigeppa and others studied in this centre. Currently, there are 130 languages identified under the umbrella of Dravidian languages.”
“Earlier, we identified five Dravidian languages, including Tamil, Tulu, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam, which are called ‘pancha’ Dravidian languages. Now, a lot of research is being done on tribal languages as well. Hence, over 130 languages have been identified to belong to the Dravidian group of languages,” he noted.
He noted that, around 4,000 years ago, these five Dravidian languages were a single language — proto-Dravidian.
“Though it is not firmly established but it is believed that people from the Harappan and Mohenjo-daro culture spoke Dravidian language. The reason behind this was the discovery of the Pashupati symbol, which is Shiva. The scholars believe that Shiva is a symbol of Dravidian culture. After the fall of the Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, people migrated to different parts.”
Purushotham highlighted that many are unaware that a Dravidian language, ‘Brahui’, is spoken in some parts of Iran, Afghanistan and Balochistan.
“There is ondu (one), yeradu (two), mooru (three) and other words in this language. It shows that the aboriginal people from Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro migrated and settled in these areas. However, since these regions were under Persian rule for a long time, there is a lot of Persian (Farsi) influence on Brahui. Whatever it is, we must take note that there is a Dravidian language there,” he noted.
He further stated that people from Harappa and Mohenjo-daro migrated to different regions, including West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra, Tamil Nadu and the Deccan Plateau (which is now mostly Karnataka).
“It is believed and argued that Tamil got separated from the proto-Dravidian (moola Dravida), and it is one of the oldest languages. However, Tamil is not the proto-Dravidian language, even though it is close to proto-Dravidian, which is at least 500 years older than Tamil,” he said and added that Tulu was the second language to get separated from proto-Dravidian, which was spread across coastal areas.
“Somewhere, around the second century CE, Kannada grew as an independent language. Kannada got its script from Brahmi, which was propagated by Buddhists and Jains. For instance, the Halmidi inscription, the oldest known full-length Kannada inscription dating back to 450 CE, has similarities with some of the Brahmi words, including ‘Avana’ and others. In 850 CE, Kavirajamarga was written by Rashtrakuta king Amogavarsha. It is one of the earliest rhetoric, poetry and grammar in Kannada,” said Purushotham.
Purushotham noted that Telugu grew independently as a language. Around the ninth and tenth centuries CE and Malayalam got its individual identity as a language in the 11th century.
“However, we don’t have sufficient pieces of evidence to establish which language grew independently with an exact date and year. For instance, Tulu does not have a script, therefore, one cannot establish under whose rule or when it grew independently as a language. We cannot consider the oral tradition to reconstruct the language. However, there are similarities between the words used in the languages. For example, Buffalo is called Yerame in Tamil, Yeramai in Tulu and Yamme in Kannada. Among all the five Dravidian languages, Kannada is the only language to be influenced by other languages, whether it is English, French or any other. We Kannadigas also take these changes seriously and evolve according to the times,” he added.
Purushotham noted that the proto-Dravidian language, which became the basis for the rest of the Dravidian languages, got lost over the years as people migrated to different regions and established individual identities.
“The properties of proto-Dravidian are seen in the rest of the languages. Unlike Tamil and Tulu, Kannada has Mahapranas (Kha, Cha, Tha, Dha), which were taken from Sanskrit. Kannada was much influenced by Sanskrit. Therefore, proto-Dravidian language, which existed earlier, is being reconstructed with linguistic experts, researchers with the help of existing Dravidian languages.”
Purushotham further stated, “The relationship between Kannada, Tamil and Telugu is of sisters and not of mother and daughters. Kannada was not born out of Tamil, but people keep asserting it to establish their language supremacy. That is the politics they play around language.”
Meanwhile, Dr PV Krishnamurthy, an epigraphist for over four decades, also opined that Kannada was not born out of Tamil.
“The basis for five languages, including Tamil, Tulu, Kannada and Malayalam, is a proto-Dravidian language. None of these languages was born out of the other. It is a wrong myth that Tamil is the mother of the rest of the languages. There is also a Dravidian etymological dictionary written by T Burrow and MB Emeneau, which notes similarities between these languages,” he said.
For instance, Tulu does not have a script but is one of the oldest languages. However, that does not mean it was borrowed from Tamil. When the political power expands, languages dominate the region. Tulu was highly spoken in coastal areas, but it did not spread to different areas of Karnataka. This is because the people who ruled over these regions were kings who conversed in Kannada,” he added.
“We may learn different languages to gain more knowledge, but it does not mean that the mother tongue was born out of some other language. One language might be influenced by another language. For instance, Sanskrit has its influence over most of the languages in India. But that does not mean these languages were born out of Sanskrit. It was a scholarly language across India under various dynasties. Similarly, most of the languages in India were majorly influenced by the Brahmi script because of the rule by King Ashoka,” Krishnamurthy said.
Keeping history, inscription apart, Basavaraj Kodagunti, a Kannada professor at Central University of Karnataka, Gulabarga, emphasised the tree model to understand the origin of the language.
“One of the common and basic questions that must come to our mind is: How do languages take birth? Therefore, there are a lot of theories explaining the origin or birth of languages. Among all the theories, the tree model explanation is the most used one. However, in this model, it is difficult to establish how one branch grew out of another. It was this theory that colonial scholar Robert Caldwell used in the 1860s to say that Kannada and Tamil belong to the same family of languages. He published the first edition of his comparative study of South Indian, or Dravidian, languages. He was among the first to examine 10 Dravidian languages and assert that they are distinct from Sanskrit,” he said.
At the time, he did not claim that Kannada or Telugu originated from Tamil,” he added.
Basavaraj further explained the reason why Tamil is called the oldest language among all the other Dravidian languages.
“Since Robert lived in the Madras presidency back then, he conversed with people in the Tamil language. He researched more about Tamil, and it is quite common to think big of the place we live, no matter how scientific the facts we present are. Therefore, he called it the oldest language. Even in his book about Dravidian languages, Tamil is given more importance. We must appreciate the people of Tamil Nadu for having made the most of this book to advance the study of their language.”
Basavaraj noted that Tamil, even though it has similarities with proto-Dravidian language, no researcher has ever said that Kannada was born out of Tamil.
“But there are researchers who have stated that Malayalam evolved or was born out of Tamil. Even noted writer and researcher Bhadriraju Krishnamurthi did not mention Kannada being born out of Tamil in his book, The Dravidian Languages. It is one of the most famous books and is referred to by all linguists. So far, none of the linguists have said this or established this theory,” he added.
According to linguists and researchers, Basavaraj said, a Dravidian family of languages is divided into four branches — North Dravidian, Central Dravidian, South Dravidian 1 and South Dravidian 2.
“Kannada, Tamil, Tulu, Telugu and a few other languages fall under the wing of South Dravidian 1. Since we don’t know the name of the original language, we have named it as Proto-Dravidian. It has existed for around 8,000 to 10,000 years. Further, this branch, South Dravidian 1, has more than 15 languages that are spoken by different people in parts of South India. It includes Kuruma, Kotha, Irula, etc. Tulu is the early branch of South Dravidian 1, and further Kodava gets separated as a branch, followed by a few more languages. Later, Kannada got separated and grew individually. Linguists have said that Tamil, Irula Malayalam got separated later. All they mean to tell is that all these languages come from one particular original language, which is Proto-Dravidian. These languages have separated from each other but were not born out of each other.”
Basavaraj further delved into the details of the languages that are believed to have come out of one particular language. “Badaga language came out of Kannada, Malayalam from Tamil, and Belari and Koraga languages from Tulu. And there are several other examples, and also sufficient explanations to establish these examples. However, there is no such explanation to say Kannada came out of Tamil. Structurally, Tamil is closer to Kannada not Telugu. When we look at the script, we say the scripts of Kannada and Telugu are similar. But that is not the reality.
He added, “Just look at those words in Tamil and Kannada. Avan (he) is Tamil, avana is Kannada, aval (she) is Tamil, and avala is Kannada. This feature is called shared features in linguistics. These two are close languages that separated from a common source but were not born out of one another.”
Despite so many clarifications given by research and linguist experts, Basavaraj said, “Just like the majority of people believe that Sanskrit is the mother of all the languages, people from Tamil Nadu believe that Tamil is the origin of all the other Dravidian languages.”
A Murigeppa, former vice-chancellor of Kannada University, Hampi, explains that languages belong to different families. “There are over 5,000 languages in this world, and these languages are grouped into different families. The basis for grouping them into different families is the similarity of words between them. For example, there are words like thin (eat), kodi (give) in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam. These are similar words in different languages. In another example, nanu oorige hodenu (I went to the village) in Kannada, oorukku ponen in Tamil (I went to the village).”
Murigeppa explained that there are three types of similarities in languages;
“As a result, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and others have similarities. In Kannada, we call these languages as ‘Onde Thaayi Makkalu’ (Offsprings of the same mother),” he said.
“Languages grow individually and take their own forms and words, which are quite different from each other. Now, these languages belong to the family of Dravidian languages. Gujarati, Sindhi, and Hindi are Aryan languages which belong to the Indo-Aryan family. Tulu was the first language to branch out from a family of Dravidian languages. Then comes Kodava, Kannada, Badaga, Tamil and others,” Murigeppa said.
He reiterated that Tamil, Kannada, Tulu and others are from a proto language or proto form and not born out of each other. “It is a fact from the research conducted so far. Kannada came out of a proto form or a proto-Dravidian language and not out of Tamil,” he said.
Kalegowda Nagawara, another Kannada author, also opined that Kannada was not born out of Tamil.
“It took birth from one original form of Dravidian language, just like there are different sects and sub-sects. These two languages are sister languages which grew and expanded individually. When we call them sister languages, they are treated on an equal basis and not on the basis of mother and daughter seniority,” he said.
“Tamil might be one of the oldest languages among all the other Dravidian languages, but Kannada definitely has a rich literature. The actor might have said this statement to impress the public that had gathered there. Actors are innocent, and they might not know much about the history of the language. Whether it is the history of Kannada or Tamil, there are sensible realities. We believe that there is a sweet and good relationship between the languages, but that does not mean Kannada was born out of Tamil,” Kalegowda said.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
