Kodava Thakk
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Kodava Thakk, often called Coorgi or Coorg language in English, is the original language of the south Karnataka district of Kodagu. The number of speakers is estimated at around 300,000. It is the primary language of Kodavas, but a large portion of other communities and tribes in Kodagu also converse in Kodava Thakk. It belongs to the Dravidian languages family, and is related to and influenced by Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam.
Ethnologists have speculated that the female ancestry of the Kodavas has been from parts of Karnataka,Tamilnadu and Kerala and thus Kodava Thakk shows a great amount of dependence on Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam.
Kodava Thakk also has words which do not sound similar to words in other Indian languages. Kodava Thakk has no written script and usually Kannada script is used to write it.
References
- R A Cole, "An Elementary Grammar of the Coorg Language"
- K S Rajyashree, [Kodava speech community : An ethnolinguistic study |http://www.languageinindia.com/oct2001/kodavarajyashree.html]