Conversational Kannada A Micro-Wave Approach

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Conversational Kannada" by Upadhyaya and Krishna Murthy is a welcome addition to the growing language material in Indian languages. Kannada material for advanced learners has been prepared before by Bright, Santha Rau, McCormack and Krishnamurthy, Ramanujam, Upadhyaya and Leelavathi. This text is a demonstration of creative adaptation or rewriting of the basic Kannada material based on a somewhat deeper analysis of the language to the specific needs of groups of learners following a new technique of presentation known as the micro-wave technique. The general format of most advanced material is to begin with a dialogue relevant to the socio-topical matrix of the learner's immediate need and break it down into the tiniest grammatical bits through information of syntax and morphology and explanations for all cultural facts and events. Some have tried to reverse the presentation and begin either with an action chain (such as, I get up, I brush my teeth, I dress up, etc.) or a micro-text (a small narrative) and link it up with a realistic conversation. Grammatical and cultural notes find appropriate place in this style of presentation. Both the styles, if handled competently, yield satisfactory results. Earl W. Stevick is a proponent of micro-text and micro-wave technique. It is under his able guidance that the American Peace Corps adopted this style for the production of their language material. The present text which was originally designed for the Peace Corps, has now been revised to make it a little broad based.

Kannada is one of the four major languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. There are about 60 million people who speak Kannada as their mother-tongue. Most of them are in Karnataka State in the southern part of India. Kannada is one among the twenty three languages accepted by the constitution of India. This has a rich literary heritage of over 2000 years. It is now the language of State administration and is being introduced as the medium of instruction for higher education.

Area populated by the Kannada speaking community extends from Bidar district in the North to Mysore district in the South, and from Kanara districts in the West Coast to Kolar district in the East. Distance between the northernmost and the southernmost points of this area is 750 kilometres and that between the western and eastern borders is about 450 kilometres. It is quite natural that the language spoken in such a vast geographical area by the people of different sociological strata shows dialectal variations of considerable magnitude. We can broadly divide these into three major dialect groups namely southern, northern and coastal which are popularly known as Mysore dialect, Dharwar dialect and Kanara dialect. The speech form selected for this book is the one used in the formal speech of the educated people of the southern part of the State.