Sholaga language

Sholaga
Soliga
Native to	India
Region	Karnataka, Tamil Nadu
Ethnicity	Soliga
Native speakers	24,000 (2006)
Language family	Dravidian Southern Southern I Tamil–Kannada Badaga–Kannada Kannadoid Sholaga
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sle
Glottolog	shol1240
ELP	Template:Endangered Languages Project
Linguasphere	Template:Infobox language/lingualist
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The Sholaga language () is a Dravidian language that is related to Kannada and Tamil and is spoken by the Soliga people. The language is also known as Kadu Sholigar, Sholiga, Sholigar, Solaga, Solega, Soliga, Soligar, Solanayakkans, Sholanayika.

Etymology

The language's name comes from śōla "forest" and -ga "people".

Classification

Sholaga is classified as a Dravidian language. The Dravidian languages are split into five main categories, called Southern, South Central, Central, North and Unclassified. Sholaga falls into the Southern category, which has three subcategories: Tamil-Kannada, Macro-Tulu, and unclassified. Sholaga is a Tamil-Kannada language.

Phonology

Here are the vowel and the consonant phonemes of Sholaga:

Vowels

	Front		Central				Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
High	i	iː	ɨ	ɨː	ʉ	ʉː	u	uː
Mid	e	eː	ə	əː	ɵ	ɵː	o	oː
Low			a	aː

Kamil Zvelebil listed centralized <ä, ǟ> in the phonology. The real quality distinguishing <ä, ǟ> and <a, ā> is unclear.

• There are phonemic nasal vowels. All plain vowels have nasal counterparts, mostly from old final nasals: akkã "sister", mö̃yi "body".

Consonants

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal/ Pst.alv	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n̪	ɳ		ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t̪	ʈ	t͡ʃ	k
	voiced	b	d̪	ɖ	d͡ʒ	ɡ
Fricative			s				h
Approximant		ʋ	l	ɭ	j
Rhotic			ɾ⠀r	ɽ

• /s/ is in free variation with [ʃ] and does not clash with /t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ/.
• p- > h- > ∅-: Sholaga aga, Kannada hoge; Sholaga haḍagu, Kannada haḍagu. Initial p-. also exists like in paḍḍe.
• /ɖ, ɽ/ contrast: nōṛ- "see", ōḍ- "run".
• /k/ palatalization does not occur unlike in Kannada: Sholaga kimi, Kannada kivi, Tamil cevi.
• Rare /g/ > /ṅ/: Sholaga maṅa, Kannada maganu.

Grammar

Source:

• The formative morpheme *-ay is -a: Tamil iṯappay "eyelid", Kannada rappe, Sholaga ṟappa.
• Like Irula and nearby Nilagiri languages, it lacks the oblique form in compounds with a modifier followed by the modified: kāḍu aṉḏi "forest pig", Tamil kāṭṭu (< kāṭu) paṉṟi.
• Unlike Jenu Kuruba, it has a rich use of plural forms. Most take -ga, but most nouns that end with -ã take -diru, but others take -ru.
• Most cases are like in Kannada, but the forms are not identical.
• There are only two tense stems: past/non-past (which is more like verb finished vs unfinished). From the past tense, the preterite tense is frmed, and from the non-past tense, the present-future tense is formed.

Words

English	Sholaga
tiger	dodinayi
elephant	coquedana
elephant with huge tusks	coquedonga
female elephant with growing tusks	coreyani
deer	Maan
Sambar deer	kadave
Chital	saraga
Moss Deer	koore
muntjac	tadu-koori
Area with boulders and rarely any rain	udugaru
An evergreen forest	Patchai kadu

Sources

• Zvelebil, Kamil V. (1990). "The Language of the Shōlegas, Nilgiri Area, South India". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 110 (3): 417–433. doi:10.2307/603185. JSTOR 603185.

External links

• OLAC resources
• Si, A. (2011). ScholarSpace at University of Hawaii at Manoa: Documenting traditional biological and ecological knowledge: An Indian example