Symbols
113Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Tamil script: vowels
Each vowel as a full letter (at the start of a syllable) and as the sign it becomes after a consonant. அ has no sign: a bare consonant already says a.
Tamil script: consonants
Tamil order, read row by row. Each hard letter stands for both the voiceless and the voiced sound (க = k or g). The Grantha letters write sounds outside the core alphabet; Badaga uses ஹ often.
Kannada script: vowels
Full letter and vowel sign side by side; ಅ needs no sign. Anusvara writes a nasal, virama removes a consonant's vowel.
Kannada script: consonants
Kannada order. Unlike Tamil, voiced sounds have letters of their own, so ಬಡಗ spells Badaga exactly.
Rupee, flag and the Nilgiris
India's rupee sign and flag, and the tea and Blue Mountains of the Badaga homeland.
On the map
Loading…
The Badaga language script: Tamil and Kannada letters
Badaga is a Dravidian language spoken by the Badaga people of the Nilgiris district in Tamil Nadu, India. At least two Badugu scripts have been devised: one by Yogesh Raj in 1967–68 and another by Anandhan Raju in 2009. Most speakers went to school in Tamil and write Badaga with the Tamil alphabet, which is the script CLDR records for it; Kannada script, the alphabet of Badaga's closest relative, is used too, and dictionaries and many people online simply type Badaga in Latin letters.
Because there is no official spelling, the same word can look quite different in each script. The name of the language is the best example: in Tamil letters it is usually written படகா, where the first letter is the one for p, while in Kannada letters it is ಬಡಗ, with letters that show the b, the retroflex ḍ and the g exactly. The page gives you both full alphabets so you can write Badaga whichever way your family, school or village does.
Writing Badaga in Tamil letters
The Tamil alphabet has 12 vowels, அ ஆ இ ஈ உ ஊ எ ஏ ஐ ஒ ஓ ஔ, 18 consonants, க ங ச ஞ ட ண த ந ப ம ய ர ல வ ழ ள ற ன, and the special letter ஃ (āytham). Four extra Grantha letters, ஜ ஷ ஸ ஹ, write j, ṣ, s and h. Badaga needs ஹ far more often than Tamil does: where Tamil has a p at the start of many words, Badaga, like Kannada, often has an h, so the Badaga word for a village is hatti while Tamil place names end in -patti.
A consonant on its own carries the vowel a; to give it another vowel you add a vowel sign, ா ி ீ ு ூ ெ ே ை ொ ோ ௌ, so க (ka) becomes கா (kā), and the dot ் (pulli) removes the vowel completely, as in க். These signs never stand alone in real text; you copy them and they attach to the letter before them.
The real difficulty is voicing. Tamil uses one letter for k and g (க), for ṭ and ḍ (ட), for t and d (த) and for p and b (ப), because in Tamil the difference is predictable. In Badaga it is not, so a Tamil-script spelling leaves the reader to know whether a word has b or p, and Badaga writers rely on context, just as Tamil readers do with English names.
Writing Badaga in Kannada letters
Kannada script fits Badaga sounds more closely, which is no surprise: the two languages are near relatives. Its consonants come in rows of five, voiceless, aspirated, voiced, voiced aspirated and nasal, such as ಕ ಖ ಗ ಘ ಙ and ಪ ಫ ಬ ಭ ಮ, so k and g, p and b each get their own letter. The aspirated ones (ಖ ಘ ಛ ಝ ಠ ಢ ಥ ಧ ಫ ಭ) appear mainly in words borrowed from Sanskrit and Kannada.
Like Tamil, Kannada writes a vowel at the start of a syllable as a full letter (ಅ ಆ ಇ ಈ ಉ ಊ ಎ ಏ ಐ ಒ ಓ ಔ) and after a consonant as a sign: ಬ (ba) with ಾ becomes ಬಾ (bā). ಂ (anusvara) writes a nasal before a consonant, and ್ (virama) strips a consonant of its vowel. Badaga's village word hatti is ಹಟ್ಟಿ in Kannada letters, with the doubled ṭ written as a stacked letter.
How to type Badaga letters
Windows: go to Settings › Time & language › Language & region, add Tamil (India) or Kannada (India), and choose a keyboard such as Tamil 99, the layout standardised by the Tamil Nadu government, or the Kannada keyboard; Win Space switches layouts. Mac: add an input source in System Settings › Keyboard: Tamil offers layouts such as Tamil99 and Anjal, and Kannada has its own input sources.
Phones: Gboard and the iPhone keyboard both have Tamil and Kannada. Gboard's transliteration mode is the easiest way for Badaga: type badaga in English letters and pick the Tamil or Kannada spelling from the suggestions. HTML: Tamil letters sit in Unicode U0B80–U0BFF and Kannada letters in U0C80–U0CFF, so ஹ gives ஹ and ಬ gives ಬ. Or tap any letter on this page to copy it.
Where Badaga is spoken
CLDR estimates about 320,000 Badaga speakers, all in India , almost all of them in the Nilgiris, the "Blue Mountains" of western Tamil Nadu, around Ooty (Udhagamandalam), Coonoor and Kotagiri. Badaga villages, each called a hatti, sit among tea gardens, and Badaga families are among the hills' best-known small tea growers . Most speakers also speak Tamil, and many speak English.
The name means "northerners" (Kannada baḍagu means north), and Badaga tradition holds that the community came to the hills from the Mysore plateau to the north, now in Karnataka. Linguists class Badaga as a South Dravidian language closest to Kannada; its neighbours in the Nilgiris include Toda, Kota, Irula and Kurumba. See the Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam collections for the region's large languages, and the India collection for the country's emoji. Prices are in rupees, written .
How to use them
4 situationsClick to copyBadaga Language Letters & Script combos
10Worth knowing
- Badaga literally means "northerners": the word comes from the root for north (Kannada baḍagu), recalling the community's remembered journey south into the Nilgiri hills.
- In 1939 the linguist M. B. Emeneau described Badaga vowels said with the tongue tip curled back, in plain, half and fully "retroflexed" grades, a contrast almost unheard of among the world's languages; later phoneticians have found it hard to confirm in recordings.
- The name of the language shows why one script is not enough: Tamil spells it படகா with the letters for p, ṭ and k, while Kannada's ಬಡಗ uses the letters for b, ḍ and g.
- The rupee sign , adopted by India in 2010, was designed by D. Udaya Kumar, who comes from Tamil Nadu, the state where Badaga is spoken.
Questions people ask
7What is the Badaga language script?
Several Badugu scripts have been devised, though they remain little known. It is written in Tamil script, which most speakers learn at school in Tamil Nadu, or in Kannada script, the alphabet of its closest relative; many people also type it in English letters.
What are the Badaga language letters?
They are the letters of the Tamil alphabet (அ ஆ இ … க ங ச … plus ஜ ஷ ஸ ஹ and the vowel signs) or of the Kannada alphabet (ಅ ಆ ಇ … ಕ ಖ ಗ …). Every one of them is on this page to copy.
How do you write Badaga in Tamil?
The name is usually written படகா, and the people படகர். Because Tamil has one letter each for k/g, t/d and p/b, Tamil-script Badaga does not show which sound is meant; readers tell from the word.
Is Badaga a dialect of Kannada?
Linguists treat Badaga as a separate South Dravidian language (ISO code bfq), closest to Kannada and probably descended from older Kannada speech of the Mysore plateau. Badagas regard it as their own language.
What is the origin of the Badaga language?
Badaga is Dravidian and most closely related to Kannada. Badaga tradition says the community moved to the Nilgiris from the Mysore region to the north, which fits both the language's Kannada roots and its name, meaning "northerners".
How can I type Badaga on my phone?
Add Tamil or Kannada to Gboard or the iPhone keyboard. Gboard's transliteration lets you type Badaga words in English letters and pick the Tamil or Kannada spelling, or you can copy letters from this page.
Where is the Badaga language spoken?
In the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu, India, around Ooty, Coonoor and Kotagiri. CLDR estimates about 320,000 speakers.
