These Kannada dialects are never spoken in Karnataka

Kannada is one of the oldest Dravadian languages and it has got its own place in the galaxy of languages. It has been spoken 2,500 years ago and it has a written history going back 1,900 years.

Kannada is also the third oldest language in India after Sanskrit and Tamil.

Kannada is spoken by more than 40 million people and it is classified as among the top 40 languages in the world. There are about 20 dialects of Kannada, that includes Kundagannada, Nadavarkannada, Havigannada, Are Bhashe, Soliga, Gulbarga Kannada, Dharwad Kannada and a few more.

However even among the dialects, Urali (Mala Malasar) and Hoya or Holiya are distinct enough to be frequently considered separate languages. These two dialects along with another dialect Badaga are spoken outside Karnataka and all of them bear very close resemblance to Kannada.

The Holiya is spoken about by tribal people of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and their numbers are believed to be less than five hundred.

This dialect is slowly disappearing and the people who speak then are mainly hunters and people living in forests. These people follow the Hindi culture but the language resembles Kannada. The script is Hindi though.

The dialect is also called Holar, Hole, Holu and Golari-Kannada latest census figures estimate that 500 people in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh speak this dialect.

Another dialect, Badaga, was earlier considered as a sub language of Kannada, but many linguists claim that it should be studied and also classified as a separate branch emerging out of the south Dravidian language group.

There is no possibility of this dialect becoming extinct as it is spoken by more than 2.5 lakh people. These speakers primarily reside in villages spread across the Nilgiris or the Blue mountains in Tamil Nadu. They had settled at the place where the eastern and western Ghats converge in the southern peninsula of India.

The region where they stay is known as Badaganadu  or the land of Badagas. The Badaga language resembles Kannada a lot. During earlier times, Kannada script was used but now educated Badagas prefer Tamil or English scripts.

According to legends, the Badagas were Kannada speaking people and they migrated from Badagahalli, a village near Mysore and settled among in the Nilgiris more than a thousand years ago. They never came back. Nor did the villagers of Badagahalli contact them again. Due to the lack of contact with their erstwhile habitat, the Badagas developed a unique language form.

Like the Holar, the Badagas too are primarily hunters and live in forests. In the last few decades, they have taken to agriculture.  

Another dialect is Urali and it is spoken about by tribals living in Idduki in Kerala.

Urali too is an almost extinct language and there is no exact figure ion how many speak in it. Almost all the Urali speakers are primarily found in Idukki district.

They belong to a scheduled tribe and the speakers are mostly the elder members of the tribe. The younger members are mostly educated in Malayalam and communicate in the same language. Urali shares many features with Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and also with Irula.

The Urali speaking tribals follow a traditional religion and now they have taken to agriculture. Interestingly, there are very few speakers of these dialects in Karnataka and outside the State, their numbers are decreasing and their link with Kannada is getting strenuous day by day.   

The oldest Railway bridge

This is one of the oldest bridges in the world which had a regular railway track. Though the bridge was built almost two centuries before the railway tracks were laid, the bridge was and is more commonly labeled as the oldest Railway bridge in the world.

Though the bridge was built in 1735, it is still in excellent condition and it is an engineering marvel in itself.

At a time when modern bridges vie with each other for repairs and restoration, this bridge has not seen anything of that sort. It hosted the metre gauge trains from Mysore till a new bridge was constructed and the meter gauge was replaced with broad gauge tracks.

This is the Kabini bridge near Nanjangud near Mysore and it is today a heritage structure. It is between the Tandavapura and Nanjangud railway stations on the Mysore-Chamarajanagar railway route.

The bridge has a 51spans of 10 feet and before 1902 it existed as a road bridge ferrying bullock, camel and horse carriage traffic across the Kabini.

A Meter gauge Railway line was being built from Mysore to

Nanjangud in 1902 and the Railways used the arched bridge to connect to the Nanjangud railway station. This bridge was used till early 2008 when the Railways decided to put a stop to meter gauge and operate broad gauge trains.

Since broad gauge needs a different alignment from narrow and meter gauge, a new bridge was built across the Kabini. Today’s trains pass on this bridge, while giving a spectacular view of the heritage bridge.

The heritage bridge was built by Dalvoy Devaraj. Rev Schwartz, a Danish missionary, who was sent by the then East India Company as their emissary to negotiate with Haidar Ali, has recorded in his memoirs that he crossed the Kabini over

this Bridge on August 23, 1779.

He describes the structure  as “a strong bridge of 23 very substantial arches over the river Kapini built by Dalvoy Devraj about 1735. The other twenty eight more spans must have been

added later possibly at different times all prior to the 20th

century.

The bridge is almost three centuries old and it could also be one of the oldest railway bridges in India as the first Railways steamed in India  only after 1825.

This bridge has a series of Gothic arches of 10ft span with 8ft wide intervening piers. The earth cushion over the arch crest is over 5 feet. The foundations are laid on rocky strata and built in lime concrete. The bridge is of stone masonry with lime concrete filling

and mortar.

The information board by South Western Railway near the bridge says - It was built by Dalvoy Devraj in 1735 with brick, sand and stone adopting ancient Gothic style. It was strong and wide enough to carry road traffic as well as metre guage trains, which started running in 1889. This ancient bridge today stands as an engineering marvel, which bears testimony to the skills of those who built it.”

Shivanasamudra bridge

However, the oldest heritage stone bridge in the erstwhile princely state of Mysore was built in 1818 at Shivanasamudra near Madhyaranga across the Cauvery.

This bridge is considered to be an engineering marvel.

According to an article called “Bridge Erected Over the Eastern Branch of the Cauvery by a Native” which was published in the Asiatic Journal, the bridge, which is thrice as long as the Wellesley Bridge in Srirangapatna, commenced on the 1st March 1819, and completed on the 31st March1821.

It says the bridge is the work of a single individual, Ramaswamy Mudliar who received the Island of Shivasamudram as a Jagir from the British. It was planned and built not only entirely at his own expense but also in defiance of the general opinion at that time that he was a mad man. He was brought up by Colonel Wilkes, the hero of the last Mysore war, and was employed under him for twenty - four years. The idea of this work which is a testimony to individual enterprise originated in him when he first visited the Island of Shivanasamudra with Col. Wilkes, in the year 1805. This is called the Lushington bridge.

Tipu had in 1791 destroyed the old bridge at Shivanasamudra and Mudaliar had conceived the idea of having a new bridge built to connect the small island of Shivanasamudra with the mainland.

Wellesley bridge

This bridge was built by Purnaiah, the Dewan of Mysore state, after the fall of Tipu. He named it in honor of Arthur Wellesley. The bridge is no longer in use as the Railways have constructed a new bridge. However, it is a heritage structure.