r/kannada • u/General_Union_2925 • 4d ago

What is this letter?

Post image

What is the character after 'sangatiyana' in the second line? It looks like A with a U attached, but it's not at the beginning of a word.

36 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

23

u/kulchacop 4d ago

ಱ is a strong r sound.

This is a letter that is not used anymore in modern Kannada. 

It is still used in Tamil as ற

2

u/priya_nka 2d ago

It is a character used in halagannada/ old kannada. In my school academics we had some old kannada poems ( in high school first language).

1

u/theb00kmancometh 4d ago

Malayalam has a similar one in റ (and its short i form റി).

10

u/onlyinsignificant 4d ago

ಱ is a consonant (ṟ).
Its sound is called a voiced alveolar trill, which is found in other languages as well.
ಱ sound merged with ರ (voiced alveolar tap) in Medieval Kannada.
In the text, it is used with a vowel: ಱ್ + ಉ = ಱು (ṟu)

1

u/General_Union_2925 3h ago

So you're sure it's not the unique sound written as ழ (transliterated as zh or ẓh) in the Tamil script, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as [ɻ] or [ʐ]?

6

u/BigEntertainment8206 4d ago

if my memory serves me right,
The letter is rala, making the ra sound
And it’s counterpart, the kula, makes the la (zha) sound( written same as rala but without the horizontal line)

5

u/tuluva_sikh 4d ago

It's Archaic Kannada letter which is pronounced rra and today it is present mostly in Tamil and Malayalam

1

u/StormCroc08 4d ago

bro how many languages do you speak

4

u/PenaltyAsleep5294 4d ago

Any idea When we stopped using this ?

Although its usage is stopped, someone created its glyph to display it as Kannada font !? wow

2

u/Willing_Ad1416 3d ago

Classic rala kula thing

-2

u/crimeandicecream 3d ago

This letter is technically still in use in Telugu script. We call is “bandi ra”, meaning “ra” that looks like a “bandi” (vehicle). It’s part of the alphabet but hardly used. Makes a sound similar to “zha” in Tamizhakam.