MANGALORE: Tulu film Oriyardori Asal (one smarter than other) is still doing well in theatres across Mangalore after it was released a week ago. It has brought Tulu back in to public consciousness, something that had not happened even after the Vishwa Tulu Sammelan in December 2009.
'Tuluva pride', which has hit nadir, now sadly needs mediums such as films and festivals to remind people about Tuluvas's history, customs, culture and that its 'original script' is not receiving the kind of attention it deserves. This practice of neglecting everything about Tulu, including its original script, is not a recent phenomenon. Lack of royal patronage throughout the evolution of Tuluwhich is more than 2,000 years oldand contempt shown to the language by teachers popularised a myth that Tulu language is a 'tribal language', without a script of its own.
"Tulu is a protoDravidian [original] language," asserts Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy President Palthady Ramakrishna Achar. In fact, Tulu script is similar to Thigalaya script, which was one of the few earliest original scripts such as Persian and Latin.Quoting from published works of Malayalam linguist researchers Namboodripad, Padmanabha Kekunnaya and Venkatraj Punichinthaaya, Achar stresses that Tulu is the parent language of Malayalam. For most part of the century, south Kerala was under different dynasties such as Cheru dynasty, which patronised Tamil.Later on, Pottis and others popularised the script as Malayalam script. Around 95 per cent of Malayalis easily decipher Tulu script, describing it as "like Malayalam", says Academy Registrar B Chandrahasa Rai."(As) for the language, Brahuyie spoken on the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan is also similar to Tulu," says Achar.Tulu never received any royal patronisation as was seen with other Dravidian languages such as Telugu, Tamil or Malayalam. Alupa dynastythis dynasty had the longest lineage, surpassing even the Roman Empire dynastypatronised Kannada but not Tulu. Until 16th century, there was no serious literature because literacy level was below four per cent. As only Brahmins could learn Tulu script in Gurukul system, all classic literatures were written in Brahmin dialect. Later, many classic Tulu works such as 'Bhaagavatho' poem (Vishhnu Thunga17th century), 'Mahabhaaratho' poem (Arunaabja13th century), 'Devi Mahaathme' prose (15th century) and others were written in Tulu scripts, inscribed on palm leaves.It was Basel Mission who set foot in Mangalore on an evangelical mission in 1824 and made significant contributions to Tulu literature. Mission's efforts to teach Tulu in schools came to a naught, following protests from parents who insisted on English.Dying but Highlighting the prevalence of Tulu script during the height of its popularity, Dakshina Kannada Sahitya Parishat President Pradeep Kumar says although Kannada is widely spoken in Kundapur, some of the old land records were written in Tulu script. He believes that Kannada replaced Tulu script in the beginning of 19th century.In phase I of implementation of Tulu script, Tulu Sahitya Academy introduced text books for students of sixth standard in Kannada script in the previous academic year.Meanwhile, B S Shivakumar of Department of Tulu and Translation Studies, Dravidian University in Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh, has initiated efforts to develop a word net for Tulu as there exists for English, Hindi and other languages.
Comments
0 comment