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The Instrumental-Ablative Case Welcome to Lesson 6 of Kannada by @currylangs! Today’s lesson is about ತೃತಿಯ ವಿಬಕ್ತಿ (tṛtiya vibhakti), the third case, which is the instrumental-ablative. This case is used to indicate a noun as the way you do something or the item that you use to do something. It is also used to indicate a noun as a point from which movement is going away. Let’s first look at all the endings:

See how the instrumental-ablative is used in practice in the examples below:

ಮೀನಮ್ಮ ಶಾಲೆಯಿಂದ ಬರುತ್ತಾಳೆ.

Mīnamma śāleyinda baruttāḷe.

Mīnamma comes from school

ನಾನು ಈ ಮೂರ್ತಿಯನ್ನು ಕೈಯಿಂದ ಶಿಲ್ಪ ನಿರ್ಮಿಸುತ್ತೇನೆ.

Nānu ī mūrtiyannu kaiyinda śilpa nirmisuttēne.

I make this statue by hand.

ಈವರು ಶಿಮ್ಮೊಗದಿಂದ ಹೊರಡುತ್ತಾರೆ.

Īvaru Śimmogadinda horaḍuttare.

They depart from Shimoga.

ಈ ಮನೆಯನ್ನು ಏನಿನಿಂದ ಕಟ್ಟುತ್ತಾನೆ?

Ī mane ēnininda kaṭṭuttāre?

What does he make this house from?

Personal Pronouns in the Instrumental-Ablative Case:

The Accusative Case

The accusative case, also known as ದ್ವಿತಿಯ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ (dvitiya vibhakti - second case), is a very important case in Kannada. The accusative case marks the direct object of a verb, and the declined noun usually precedes the verb. Remember the four classes of nouns from the last lesson? Well, if not, here’s a quick list:

Nouns that are people and end in ಅ or ಆ

Nouns that aren’t people and end in ಅ or ಆ

All nouns that end in ಇ, ಈ, ಎ, ಏ, or ಐ

All nouns that end in ಉ, ಊ, ಒ, ಓ, ಔ, ಋ, or ೠ

See the table below for how each class of noun changes:

The forms ending in ಅ rather than ಉ are less common. See examples of how the accusative case is used:

ನಾನು ಸೇಬನ್ನು ತಿನುತ್ತೇನೆ

Nānu sēbannu tinnuttēne.

I eat an apple.

ಅವಳು ಮರವನ್ನು ಒದೆಯುತ್ತಾಳೆ

Avaḷu maravannu odeyuttāḷe.

She kicks the tree.

ನಾವು ರಾವಣನನ್ನು ಹೊಡೆಯುತ್ತೇವೆ.

Nāvu Rāvaṇannu hoḍeyuttēve.

We hit Ravana.

ಹುಡುಗ ಕುಂದಿಲಿಯನ್ನು ಅಪ್ಪಿಕಳ್ಳುತ್ತಾನೆ.

Huḍuga kundiliyannu appikoḷḷuttāne.

Diacritics

Diacritics are the changes in the form of letters to reflect a particular vowel. Each vowel sound has its own complete, independent form (when it is at the beginning of a word for example). See below.

In Kannada, the mark used to indicate a long vowel is known as ದೀರ್ಘ (dīrgha).

*This vowel is a purely hypothetical letter used to represent an obsolete vowel in Sanskrit texts.

**This symbol: ಂ, is known as the ಅನುಸ್ವಾರ (anusvāra), and the realization (the ultimate pronunciation and changes induced) is called ಅನುನಾಸಿಕ (anunāsika). It nasalizes vowels, and is distinct from ನ್ (terminated n), but is pronounced differently based on what kind of consonant it precedes. If it’s a velar, it is pronounced as [ŋ]; if it’s a palatal, it is pronounced as [ɲ]; if it’s a retroflex it is pronounced as a [ɳ]; if it’s a dental or a sonorant ([s], [ʃ], or [ʂ]), it is pronounced as [n]; and if it’s a labial, then it is pronounced as [m].

***This symbol: ಃ, is known as the ವಿಸರ್ಗ (visarga), and its presence is mostly a spelling convention. It means “sending forth”, and as such, it echoes the vowel it is placed after. So, ಅಃ is pronounced [əhə] and ಇಃ [ɪhɪ]. It appears almost exclusively in Sanskrit loanwords, like ದುಃಖ (duḥkha - grief/pain), where it may even be ignored when pronouncing the words.

To indicate a particular vowel other than the base vowel ಅ, the letters in Kannada change form slightly. The example letter ಕ and its forms are given beneath each complete vowel.

A full table of how each letter changes form can be found on the Kannada script Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kannada_alphabet#Akshara.

Conjunct Consonants and Consonant Diacritics

The consonant diacritic is known as ಒತ್ತಕ್ಷರ (ottakṣara), and typically, no more than two consonant diacritics can be stacked on top of each other, as in the word ವಸ್ತ್ರ (vastra). Below is a table of corresponding diacritics for each single consonant (excluding conjuncts). Note, that in most of them, typically the top line of each character is removed to make it a diacritic, and then placed to the bottom right of a given letter. Below is a table for the most common diacritics.

That’s all for this lesson! Just keep writing the letters over and over, and practice changing the vowel, and you’ll be reading Kannada in no time! 

Practice reading the following words and write out their IAST romanization:

ಗರೀಬು

ಮಾರಾಟ

ಹಾಲು

ಪಟ್ಟಿಗಳು

ಮೆಣಸಿನಕಾಯಿ

ಹಲಸಿನಹಣ್ಣು

ತಾಳ

ಪ್ರೌಢಶಾಲೆ

ಪಾಠ

ಘಂಟೆ

ಮತ್ತು

ರಾತ್ರಿ

ಚಾಪೆ

ಚಪ್ಪಲಿ

ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತಿ

Introduction to nouns

In Kannada, nouns (ಹೆಸರುಪದ/ನಾಮಪದ - hesarupada/nāmapada) are declined into one of seven cases:

nominative - ಕರ್ತವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ಪ್ರಥಮ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - kartāvibhakti/prathama vibhakti - 1st

accusative - ಕರ್ಮಬಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ದ್ವಿತಿಯ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - karmavibhakti/dvitiyavibhakti - 2nd

instrumental-ablative - ಕರಣವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ತೃತಿಯ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - karaṇavibhakti/tṛtīya vibhakti - 3rd

dative case - ಸಂಪ್ರದಾನವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ಚತುರ್ಥಿ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - saṃpradānavibhakti/caturthi vibhakti - 4th

genitive case - ಸಂಭಂದವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ಪಂಚಮಿ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - saṃbhandavibhakti/pancami vibhakti - 5th

locative case - ಅಧಿಕಾರಣವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ಸಷ್ಠಿವಿ ಭಕ್ತಿ - adhikaraṇavibhakti/ṣaṣṭhi vibhakti - 6th

vocative case - ಸಂಬೊಧನಾವಿಭಕ್ತಿ/ಸಪ್ತಮಿವಿ ಭಕ್ತಿ - saṃbodhanāvibhakti/saptami vibhakti - 7th

Each case will be explained individually as they come. A side note: Here, one can observe the tendency of Kannada to use simpler words not only in pronunciation but also in meaning; for most people, it is more pragmatic to label the cases by number and remember their function, rather than use the traditional name from Sanskrit, which requires some amount of extrapolation to interpret the meaning. Something to remember for case declension is something called declensional sandhi, which refers to the sound or spelling changes that occur in a word as a result of declension. In Kannada, there are four declensional classes, and each case has different endings for different nouns. Fortunately, there are relatively simple ways to figure out whether a noun is of a certain class. (Note: when a complete vowel character is being given by itself in instructions, it refers to the sound, not the letter itself. For example, if an instruction says to drop the final ಉ, it means to drop the final u sound from the stem. So dropping the ಉ from ಬರು would make it ಬರ್.) 

First class nouns include all masculine and feminine that end in ಅ (a). These nouns drop the final ಅ before adding markers and declensional endings. 

Second class nouns include all neuter nouns that end in ಅ. These nouns drop the final ಅ before adding markers and declensional endings.

Third class nouns include all nouns that end in ಇ (i), ಈ (ī), ಎ (e), ಏ (ē), or ಐ (ai). These nouns add a final ಯ್ (y) (known as a ಯತ್ವ - yatva) before adding markers and declensional endings. Merge the letter with the ending.

Fourth class nouns (by far the most common) include all nouns that end in ಉ (u), ಊ (ū), ಋ (ṛ), ೠ (ṝ), ಓ (ō), or ಔ (au). These nouns add a final ವ್ (v) (known as a ವತ್ವ - vatva) before adding markers and declensional endings. Merge the letter with the ending.

Most nouns in native Kannada end in ಉ, and many nouns that have had that ಉ normalized for euphony require the final ವ್ to be added. If the form in the dictionary or vocabulary list has ಉ at the end, then it has been normalized.

The most basic case to learn is the nominative case, which simply specifies that a noun is the subject of a phrase, and has no prepositional, object, or adverbial functions. Every noun listed in a dictionary is given in its base form which, unlike other languages with case systems, is not its nominative form. That said, colloquial Kannada tends to ignore the nominative cases in a lot of cases. See the table below for the endings for the nominative case (ಪ್ರಥಮ ವಿಭಕ್ತಿ - prathama vibhakti - first case):

Something to remember: Just because a word is someone’s name does not mean it is automatically 1st Class declension, even though many are. The declensional class of noun does not indicate anything about its qualities (such as a woman’s name being worth less if it ends in ಇ and as a result is 3rd Class declension).

Lesson 10 - The Progressive Aspect 

 Welcome to the tenth installment in @currylangs’ series on Kannada, this time featuring the progressive aspect. The progressive aspect is an affix used to denote the ongoing nature of a particular verb in a certain tense. The basic form of a progressive verb is taking the present adverbial participial form (the form marked by -ಉತ್ತ (-utta) in the present tense), and adding the appropriately conjugated auxiliary form of the verb ಇರು (to be or to wait). The table below shows the difference between the regular form of ಇರು and the auxiliary form:

In order to construct the present progressive, simply take the present adverbial participle and then add the auxiliary form of ಇರು:

ಮಾಡುತ್ತ + ಇದ್ದೇನೆ = ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದೇನೆ

māḍutta + iddēne = māḍuttiddēne

present adverbial participle + 1st person singular form of ಇರು

ಮಲಗುತ್ತ + ಇದ್ದಾರೆ = ಮಲಗುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾರೆ

malagutta + iddāre = malaguttiddāre

present adverbial participle + 3rd person plural form of ಇರು

ಅರಳುತ್ತ + ಇದ್ದವೆ = ಅರಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದವೆ

araḷutta + iddave = araḷuttiddave

present adverbial participle + 3rd person neuter plural form of ಇರು

ಅರಳು (araḷu) = to bloom, flower, or blossom

It’s important to remember a fact about this form, especially when we get to a different compound form. The progressive aspect is essentially encoded in the part of the verb marked with -ಉತ್ತ (-utta), and the tense to which it applies is marked by the conjugation of the auxiliary ಇರು (iru). To change the tense of the progressive verb, just change the tense of conjugated ಇರು.

For practice, translate the following sentences:

The flowers are blooming.

The children are eating dinner.

The girls are writing.

My father is sitting.

The rabbit is running.

He is dancing.

We are leaving.

They are sleeping.

You (polite) are reading.