INVITED SPEAKERS

Language and Social Transformation: The Evolution of Modern Kannada

S.N. Sridhar

State University of New York, Stony Brook

The Kannada-speaking regions of South India initiated and accomplished a number of major social and cultural transformations in the last one hundred years. A populations who were minorities in neighboring provinces came together and formed a unified Kannada entity. A bloodless revolution took place, involving a transfer of power from the privileged classes to the less privileged classes. As education spread among the population, the language’s normative standards, which were based on the variety used by Brahmins, loosened. With the growing awareness of political rights and exasperation with corruption, a militant political activism emerged, of which both the instrument and the result was an irreverent journalistic style and a sinuous prose style that defied the urbane norms of the previous generations. At the same time, the democratization of education introduced and empowered speakers and writers from a wide range of caste, profession, and geographical backgrounds, leading to the influx of colloquial expressions never before seen in writing. There was an active opposition to the Sanskritized styles in belles letters but a Classicization of style in scientific writing. The power and prestige of English led to practically unconstrained code-mixing with English. The rising international cache of English and more recent liberalization and globalization of media led to the mixing of a racier and more Americanized style of English changed from a stream to a torrent. This transformation has also engendered numerous anxieties, uncertainties, tensions and insecurities. However, embodying and reacting to all these social movements and trends, modern Kannada has evolved into a rich, versatile, sinuous, and flexible idiom, enriched by varied inputs but dominated by none. My paper will outline and illustrate this transformation of Kannada.