Badaga...the unique and wonderful Language

Just a word - in Badaga

Ayya - Grandfather [Old man]

Hethe - Grandmother {Old Lady]

Appa - Father

Awway - Mother

Anna - Elder Brother

Akka - Elder Sister

Thamma - Younger Brother

Ammay - Younger Sister

Mamma - Uncle [Mother's brother or any elder person]

Mammi - Aunt [Father's sister or any elder lady]

Dhodda Appa - Father's Elder Brother

Kunna Appa - Father's younger brother

Dhodda Awway - Mother's elder sister

Chik Awway - Mother's younger sister

Sosay - daughter in law

Aliya - son in law

Bawa / Mamma - Sister's husband

Ahthigay - Elder brother's wife / husband's sister but elder in age

Badaga Language

Badagas of the Blue Mountains…..their unique history, origin, culture, customs, rituals, language and lifestyle !!

Research on Badaga

I found this interesting article on the net. Is it not fascinating that so much research has been done on our language ?

Peter Ladefoged Languages index

Badaga is a Southern Dravidian Language (Tamil-Kannada branch) spoken by approximately 250,000 people in the Nilgiris hills in Southern India. There are several dialects, only the most conservative having the complete set of contrasts illustrated here.
>Badaga has five vowels /i e a o u/ , all of which can be contrastively half and fully retroflexed.
Half retroflexed vowels are indicated by the diacritic for rhotocity :[a~], fully retroflexed vowels with a subscript dot [a]

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A very interesting link - though I may not agree with the contents

Badaga language Totally Explained

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Badaga, one of the South Dravidian Languages is spoken in the Nilgiri District of Tamilnadu, India and the present paper deals with the Badaga nouns with particular reference to gender, number and declension. Though it is considered by many, as one of the dialects of Kannada, there are many distinct features ( some are innovations and some others are due to the retentions of Old Kannada features) which may lead one to claim it as a separate language. The identity of certain pronouns both in Kodagu and Badaga is very striking though we may not be able to make any definitive statement regarding the dialect area whence Proto-Badaga migrated

from the ‘Journal of the American Oriental Society, 92.2 (1972) page 276′

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No articles, images and other material in this website can be reproduced without the written permission of

Wing Commander Bellie Jayaprakash B.E.(GCT,Madras Univ).,M.B.A (FMS, Delhi Univ)

Contact : bjaypee@gmail.com

belliejayaprakash©2006-2012

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Wing commander Bellie Jayaprakash’s website from the heart for some ‘light’ reading

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A Script For BADAGA

BADAGA SCRIPT - BADAGA BARAE

It has always been felt that for a language to survive, it should have its own script. It cannot remain only as a spoken language for long. But of course, the script need not be peculiar and specific one pertaining to that particular language.
So too is the necessity of a script for Badaga. Many have attempted to achieve this objective with various degrees of success. But unfortunately, to my knowledge, no records exists, if any. I am no expert on phonetics or languages or much less innovating an unique script. But the urge to have a separate script has convinced me that it is very much possible to ‘ADOPT’ an existing script and ‘ADAPT’ it to Badaga language.
Three scripts come to mind straight away - Tamil, English and Kannada.Tamil - because a majority of us know how to speak and write due to the simple fact that we belong to Tamil Nadu, English - since most of us choose to learn as well as put our children in English medium schools and Kannada - due to the fact that Badaga is more akin to Kannada than any other language [though I firmly beleive that Badaga is a separate language on its own merit and not a dialect of Kannada].
But when trying to choose a script for Badaga, Kannada script is ruled out for the basic reason that most of us do not know the language or familiar with the script and no scope to learn it in our schools in the Nilgiris. Hence the choice between Tamil and English. Badaga ,like many other Indian languages, has very definitive and distintive sounds/words [I do not know the exact English equivalent] that distinguishes one word from another. Even a small change in pronounciation could result in an entirely different meaning in Badaga. For example,a subtle change in context of the word ‘BAE [bay]‘ could mean mouth, bangle, lentil, crop etc. Bella [jaggery] or BeLLa [ a male name] are two entirely differnt things. So are ‘kallu - stone’ and ‘KaLLu - a drink’. So, what could or should be the choice?
In Tamil script we cannot differentiate ‘K’ from ‘G’ or ‘T’ from ‘D’. This makes a huge impact when Badaga words are written in Tamil script. ‘Gaasu - potato’ is totally differnt from ‘Kaasu - coin, remove’. Or ‘Ettu - eight’ and ‘Eddu - getup’. Another drawback could be the absence of ‘Ha’ in classical Tamil. On the other hand, in English, we cannot clearly bring out the difference of ‘na’ from ‘Na’ [anna - food, aNNa- elder brother] or ‘halli - lizard’ from ‘haLLi - name, village’. ‘Kalla - a male name’ sounds the same as ‘ kaLLa - a thief.
Yes, it is indeed a little tricky to choose between Tamil and English. But, taking into consideration the younger generation who are going to be the future hope and the irrefutable fact that they are all more familiar with English than Tamil, the choice is English. Keeping in mind the successful adoptation of English script for Malay language (Malaysia) I would plump in for English. With a few minor modifications to overcome the grey areas mentioned above, English script can be easily used in Badaga.
Remember Devanagiri (Hindi) is the script for Nepali. The ‘minor’ modifications that can be undertaken to overcome the drawbacks I referred above could be by using an extra ‘a’ - thus milk can be written as ‘haalu’; ‘dhadi - stick’ can be different from ‘dhaadi - beard’. So on and so forth. We may use ‘capital’ letters to differentiate between ‘bella and beLLa’ as I have done above.What if a complete sentence is in capital letters ? - We may use ‘bold’ letters or underline the words to give the emphasis. Innovative use of - ‘ - [apostrophe] can bring out the differnce between “soppu - green ” and “so’ppu - soap” or “kodi - flag” and “ko’di - crore”.
It is said that Indians [read Badagas] will reject 50% of anything without even hearing it, another 50% without understanding it; and if ‘anything’ is left behind they reject it just for the sake of rejecting it. Like what is happening in many hattis with ‘young gowdas’ ruling the roost.
BUT, ALL YOU TRUE BADAGAS - LET US START SOMEWHERE TO HAVE A SCRIPT FOR OUR LANGAUGE. IMPROVEMENTS AND INNOVATIONS CAN FALLOW. IF MICROSOFT CAN ACCEPT BADAGA AS AN UNIQUE LANGUAGE , THERE MUST BE SOMETHING . SARI THAANE ?
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Badaga in English Script

How the numbers are mentioned in various South Indian Languages is given below. This is from the :WWW -> NET : What I am trying to highlight is the use of English script !?

For numbers in more than 5000 languages go to zompist.com

Another Interesting Link -> Badaga language Totally Explained

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BELLE BENGUVE - GARLIC [in whatever language you say, is always good for health - though may not be for "LOVE"]

Notice : belle[white] is written as be!!e at the end
Sanskrit लशुन laśuna yields Hindi लहसन lahsan,
Urdu لہسن lahsan (but also سیر sīr from Persian), Nepali लसुन lasun, Marathi लसूण lasūṇ,
Bengali রসুন rasuna, Gujarati લસણ lasaṇa,
Oriya ରସୁଣ rasuṇa, Punjabi ਲਸਣ lasaṇ, Konkani लोसुण losuṇa.
Tamil has வெள்ளைப்பூண்டு veḷḷaippūṇṭu ‘white herb’, less commonly வெள்ளுள்ளி veḷuḷḷi,
like Malayalam വെളുത്തുള്ളി veḷuththuḷḷi and
Kannada ಬೆಳ್ಳುಳ್ಳಿ beḷḷuḷḷi ‘white onion’, and வெள்வெங்காயம veḷvengkāyam,
like Badaga beḷḷe benguve ‘white onion’.
Sanskrit लशुन laśuna yields Hindi लहसन lahsan, Urdu لہسن lahsan (but also سیر sīr from Persian), Nepali लसुन lasun, Marathi लसूण lasūṇ, Bengali রসুন rasuna, Gujarati લસણ lasaṇa, Oriya ରସୁଣ rasuṇa, Punjabi ਲਸਣ lasaṇ, Konkani लोसुण losuṇa. I wanted to include a choice quote from The Bower Manuscript (better description in this review of Hoernle’s publication) on the Origin (and folk etymology) of Garlic (quoted in English in The Book of Garlic from an article by von Strubing in Ernährungsforschung), but even the inexpensive Indian edition is a bit steep. So if I manage to track it down, it can be part of the next garlic post. Tamil has வெள்ளைப்பூண்டு veḷḷaippūṇṭu ‘white herb’, less commonly வெள்ளுள்ளி veḷuḷḷi, like Malayalam വെളുത്തുള്ളി veḷuththuḷḷi and Kannada ಬೆಳ್ಳುಳ್ಳಿ beḷḷuḷḷi ‘white onion’, and வெள்வெங்காயம veḷvengkāyam, like Badaga beḷḷe benguve (வெள்ளெவெஙுவெ?) ‘white onion’.

The above interesting piece is taken from ->

http://polyglotveg.blogspot.com/2007/03/garlic.html#rest

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As far as the English script used to show Badaga, I am giving below two examples of 1) the UCLA Phonetics Laboratory [for over half a century, has collected recordings of hundreds of languages from around the world, providing source materials for phonetic and phonological research] and 2) Prof.P Hockings , From the UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive

(The unicode entry tool was developed by the Linguist List. To obtain it for use in other web pages click here)

Entry	Badaga	English
	(Note on transcriptions: rhoticity (e.g. i˞, e˞, etc. ) indicates half-retroflexion; underdot (e.g. ị, ẹ, etc. indicates full retroflexion)
1	noː	disease
2	pọː	scar
3	tọː	buffalo pen / cattle pen
4	mo˞e˞	sprout, shoot of plant
5	ho˞e˞	water course
6	ko˞e˞	carrion
7	ka˞e˞	weed
8	a˞e˞	tiger’s den
9	kọːga	a type of measure
10	ạːe	to measure
11	kaːsu	coin
12	ha˞ːsu	to spread out
13	kạːʃu	to remove
14	beː	mouth
15	be˞ː	bangle
16	bẹː	banana plant
17	i˞ːụ	seven
18	iː	to drag
19	hu:	flower
20	hụ	worm
21	hụːy	tamarind
22	ụy	chisel
23	huy	to strike
24	kae	unripe fruit
25	paːi	mat
26	beː	mouth
27	be˞ː (pharyngealized)	bangle
28	bẹː (retroflexion)	banana
29	kaːsu	coin
30	háːsu (pharyngealized)	spread out
31	kạːʃu (pharyngealized)	take off clothes
32	aːe	to measure
33	a˞e˞	tiger’s den
34	no˞ː	sickness
35	poː	scar
36	tọː	buffalo pen
37	ko˞e˞	dead body
38	huː	flower
39	hu˞ː	worm
40	huy	to strike
41	hu˞y	tamarind
42	ụy	chisel

See for more details : http://archive.phonetics.ucla.edu/Language/BFQ/bfq_word-list_1992_03.html

Research on Badaga

This is how Prof: P Hockings depicts the Badaga Words in English script

http://books.google.com/books?id=ykNYExBRIpgC&pg=PA10&ots=lxSXekODAu&dq=badaga+proverbs&sig=q2apINOE0mMtJdmEPzJPaBnyrs8#PPA54,M1

Some more thoughts on adopting English script for Badaga
Picking up from what Prof.Paul Hockings has mentioned - rather the unicode[?] used - in the example shown here from his book Counsel from the Ancients: Study of Badoga Proverbs, Prayers, Omens and Curses (page 54. Outline of Badaga Language - 2.1.2 Vowel Contrasts ) , I am suggesting a simple and straight forward work around.

The words ‘to stand’ & ‘paddy’ are written as ‘nillu & nellu’ . No problems with that.
But ‘whistling’ & ‘to cook’ are written as ‘bi:su & be:su’ . My suggestion is use ‘beesu & baesu’ as they are pronounced.
(FootBall is FUTBAL and Photo is Foto in some languages that go by the pronounciation and thus making it easy).
‘To wander’ ’suttu’ is used. But to me ’suttu’ sounds more like ‘to burn’ . I would suggest ’suthu’ for wandering. [ 'SUTHUGAL or SUTHUKAL' sounds familiar, is it not?]. Same thing for ‘property’ - ’sothu’ ‘ instead of ’sottu’ which sounds more like ’sottu’ - ‘drop’ .
To blow ‘oodu’ - udu’ sounds and looks better than ‘u:du’ and ‘odhu’ instead of ‘o:du’ which to a novice like me is ‘run’ or ’tile’ - ‘odu’ .
‘To shine’ - it could be ‘michu’ instead of ‘miccu and ‘muchu’ instead of ‘muccu’ for covering. ‘Muccu’ sounds or looks more like ‘mukku’ - to gobble or swallow .
‘hennu’ [girl] could be written as ‘heNNu’and ‘hannu’ [ 'fruit' ] as ‘haNNu’ to bring out the emphasis on ‘N’.
‘nadu’ for ‘middle’ or plant is OK but for ‘country’ it could be ‘ naadu ‘ than ‘na:du’ .
Similarly, my suggestin : - for ‘now’ - ‘ ‘eega’ , ‘bamboo’ - ‘oede’ , ‘village’ - ‘ooru’ ‘
The main and only creteria should be the ease of use and understanding and yes, without the use of , what I would like to term as, ‘dots’ and ‘quotes’.
(I would like to repeat that I am no expert on languages and no intention is implied to hurt the purists and followers of UNICODE etc]

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No articles, images and other material in this website can be reproduced without the written permission of

Wing Commander Bellie Jayaprakash B.E.(GCT,Madras Univ).,M.B.A (FMS, Delhi Univ)

Contact : bjaypee@gmail.com

belliejayaprakash©2006-2012

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Naakku Betta -நாக்கு பெட்டா

Badaga Dictionary

Recently Mamta from Chennai, obviously a non Badaga, wrote to tell me that she was interested in learning Badaga and whether I could suggest any book on the topic. I was stumped. Though I knew that there is a ‘Badaga - English’ dictionary by Paul Hockings and Christane Raichoor and some info available on the net, I could not recommend the book - dictionary for it is prohibitively priced.

So, the thought of making a dictionary with the active help of all Badaga friends who visit this website. Please spend a few minutes and send me any word you know. You can put it in the comments column below or send me an email :- bjaypee@gmail.com

Now let us start with the alphabet A

1. ah - pronounced as in ah’himsa - people [ah bandhidhaaray - people have come. Appara ah eddharay - lot of people are there]
2. aah - pronounced as in after -opening the mouth [aah ennu - say aah or open your mouth]

BADAGA SCRIPT – BADAGA BARAE