User:Ryanscott06/Konda language (Dravidian)

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Konda-Dora, also known simply as Konda or Kubi, is a Dravidian language spoken in India. It is spoken by the scheduled tribe of the Konda-Dora, who mostly live in the districts of Vizianagaram, Srikakulam, and East Godavari in Andhra Pradesh,and the Koraput district in Odisha.

Konda-Dora is sometimes written in the Telugu and Odia scripts. Some text books in Konda-Dora have been developed for schools up to 5th standard. A unique writing system was developed by Sathupati Prasanna Sree for use with the language. Most speakers of Konda-Dora have also learned Telugu because of economic pressures to be able to integrate into the larger economy and region.

Phonology

The phonology of Konda is similar to the phonology of its larger neighbor, Telugu, but with some subtle differences.

Vowels

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
High	i	iː			u	uː
Mid	e	eː			o	oː
Low			a	aː

In Konda, there exist five vowel sounds, each with a long and short form, therefore having ten total vowel sounds, which is the standard for most Dravidian languages. Konda only distinguishes between long and short vowels when the sound is in the word-initial position. There exist no diphthongs in Konda, but there are instances where two vowels will be in sequence of one another; in this case, the vowels are pronounced separately and this marks the separation between words.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɳ	ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p	t̪	ʈ	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d̪	ɖ	ɡ
Fricative	voiceless		s			(h)
	voiced		z
Tap			ɾ	ɽ
Trill	voiceless		r̥
	voiced		r
Approximant	central	w			j
	lateral		l	ɭ

Consonants in Konda are roughly in line with those of other Dravidian languages like Telugu, albeit with some small differences.

In Konda, there exists a phonemic glottal stop, /ʔ/. The glottal stop present in Konda is not present in other Dravidian languages, and alongside /r̥/, /ɳ/, and /ŋ/, cannot occur in the initial position. Within consonant clusters, /ʔ/ cannot occur in the first position, and /r̥/ cannot occur in the second position.

Stop consonants present in Konda, when they follow a short vowel, are equivalent to double consonants in Telugu (e.g. p = pp, b = bb, etc.).

Grammar

Gender

There exist two grammatical genders: masculine and neuter. Most nouns do not exhibit clear markers of gender, rather, the gender of a noun can be determined from its meaning. Male persons, both singular and plural, belong to the masculine gender; female persons and non-person objects (i.e birds, plants, animals, objects, etc.) belong to the neuter gender.

Number

In Konda, there are two grammatical numbers: singular, denoting one, and plural, denoting more than one. The singular, in all cases, goes unmarked.The plural, however, has two groups of suffixes; one suffix only used for masculine nouns, and another suffix mainly used for non-masculine nouns. In this sense, Konda, in most cases, can be understood to use gender and number in an intertwined manner.

Case

Konda, as in other Dravidian languages, exhibits a number of cases, each with separate endings used to denote certain situations. These cases are:

Nominative

All noun stems in the singular and plural, which occur without any suffixes, are said to be in the nominative case. Nouns in the nominative case, if they are marked for number and gender as well, are the subjects of the sentences they are in. Nouns that are not quantifiable are ineligible for becoming the subject of the sentence.

Accusative-Dative

In Konda, as happens in the Pengo and Manda languages, the accusative and dative cases in each language are marked by the same ending(s), romanized for Konda as -ŋ/-ŋi. In Konda, these endings are obligated to follow human nouns. In the case of Konda, the common ending for the accusative and dative cases is thought to have originated via a combination of the two endings; the accusative -n combined with the dative -k.

Genitive

Konda exhibits the genitive case with its stem system, with there being two uses for the genitive case. There exists the oblique stem, which is added onto the noun when it is in its genitive form to indicate possession. In Konda, the oblique-genitive stem is identical to a noun in its genitive form, with the genitive indicated by the addition of a suffix -di to singular neuter stems, and -a added to plural neuter stems. For masculine stems, all masculine nouns lack markers in the oblique, in the singular. In the plural, masculine nouns ending in -r, add the suffix, -i, to mark the oblique.