Tulu Script & Letters

Tulu (ತುಳು) is the language of Tulu Nadu, the coast between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea: the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts of Karnataka and the Kasaragod district of Kerala, with Mangaluru (Kudla, ಕುಡ್ಲ, in Tulu) and Udupi as its towns. CLDR estimates about 2.1 million speakers; India's 2011 census counted about 1.8 million, and many more people in Mumbai, the Gulf and beyond grew up with it at home. It is a Dravidian language, a relative of Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu, but one that branched off early and is not understood by their speakers without learning.

Tulu has two scripts. Almost everything printed or typed in Tulu today, from newspapers and film titles to WhatsApp messages and the Tulu Wikipedia, uses the Kannada script, the same letters as the Kannada page. The language's own script is Tigalari, which Tulu speakers call Tulu lipi (ತುಳು ಲಿಪಿ): a script descended from Grantha and a close sister of the Malayalam script, written for centuries on palm leaves. Unicode added it in version 16.0, September 2024, as the Tulu-Tigalari block (U+11380–U+113FF), a name that joins the two names it is known by.

This page has both: Tulu lipi first, as most people searching for 'tulu script' are looking for it, then the Kannada letters you need to write Tulu the everyday way, the rupee sign ₹, the flag of India 🇮🇳 and a few emoji of Tulu Nadu.

Tulu lipi letters in Unicode

Tigalari is an abugida like other Brahmic scripts: a consonant such as 𑎒 already says ka, and other vowels are added as signs, 𑎒 + 𑎹 for ki. The vowels run 𑎀 𑎁 𑎂 𑎃 𑎄 𑎅 then 𑎋 𑎎 𑎐 𑎑, and the consonants follow the familiar order from 𑎒 ka to 𑎲 ha, closing with three liquids, 𑎳 ḷa, 𑎴 ṟa and 𑎵 ḻa, the same extra letters Malayalam has. The word Tulu is 𑎡𑎻𑎳𑎻: ta, the u sign, ḷa, the u sign.

For centuries the script was used mainly for Sanskrit, the Vedas and their rituals, by Brahmin families of coastal Karnataka and northern Kerala; a few works in Tulu itself, such as a Tulu retelling of the Mahabharata, survive in it. That is why the block has Sanskrit and manuscript characters too: the vocalic 𑎆 𑎈, the avagraha 𑎷, the pluta sign 𑏓, the Vedic tone marks 𑏡 𑏢, and the ornamental om and shrii pushpikas 𑏗 𑏘 that open and close manuscript texts.

Clusters work differently from Kannada. The virama 𑏎 (and its looped form 𑏏) marks a consonant with no vowel, while a separate conjoiner 𑏐 forms conjuncts that may be horizontal, vertical, or mixed; the repha 𑏑 writes an r before a consonant, and the gemination mark 𑏒 shows a doubled consonant. Sentences and verses end with the danda 𑏔 and double danda 𑏕. To see any of this you need a font that covers the Tulu-Tigalari block: on a device without one the letters show as empty boxes even though the text is correct.

How to write Tulu in Kannada script

Writing Tulu in Kannada letters is simple if you know Kannada: the same vowels ಅ ಆ ಇ ಈ ಉ ಊ ಎ ಏ ಐ ಒ ಓ ಔ, the same vowel signs ಾ ಿ ೀ ು ೂ ೆ ೇ ೈ ೊ ೋ ೌ, the anusvara ಂ and the consonants ಕ to ಳ. The name ತುಳು itself uses ಳ, the l said with the tongue curled back, and so does ಕಂಬಳ, the buffalo race.

Two things look different from Kannada spelling. First, many Tulu words end in a short, unrounded vowel, a little like the u in English but said quickly, and Tulu writers commonly show it with a final halant ್: ತುಳುನಾಡ್ (Tulu Nadu), ರಡ್ಡ್ (two), ಪತ್ತ್ (ten), where Kannada words would end in a full vowel. Second, Tulu has an open e, as in English pen, that has no letter of its own in the Kannada script, so it is usually written with ಎ or the sign ೆ and the reader tells it from context.

Everyday Tulu punctuation is the same as English and Kannada: full stop, comma, question and exclamation marks, and curly quotes “ ” ‘ ’. Prices are written with ₹.

How to type Tulu on a phone and a computer

For Tulu in Kannada letters, use any Kannada keyboard. On Windows, add Kannada in Settings → Time & language → Language & region and choose the Kannada phonetic keyboard, then switch with Windows + Space; the Nudi and Baraha programs long used for typing Kannada work too. On a Mac, add a Kannada input source in System Settings → Keyboard. On Android and iPhone, add Kannada to Gboard or the iOS keyboard; typing Tulu words in Latin letters and picking the Kannada suggestion is the fastest way to write Tulu on WhatsApp.

Tulu lipi is new to Unicode, and few devices ship a keyboard for it yet, so copying letters from a chart like this one is the simplest way to use it. In MS Word you can type a letter's code and press Alt+X: 11392 Alt+X gives 𑎒 ka, 113A1 gives 𑎡 ta. In HTML write 𑎒. Then set the text in a font that covers Tulu-Tigalari, or readers without one will see boxes.

Tulu Nadu in emoji: Kambala, pili vesha and Bisu

No emoji stands for Tulu itself, so Tulu speakers reach for the things of their coast. 🐃 is Kambala (ಕಂಬಳ), the race of paired buffaloes driven through flooded paddy fields in the winter season. 🐅 is pili vesha (ಪಿಲಿ ವೇಷ), the tiger dance of Mangaluru Dasara and Udupi's Krishna Janmashtami, where dancers paint their bodies in stripes; pili is Tulu for tiger. 🐍 stands for Nagaradhane, the worship of the serpent deity, and 🎭 for Yakshagana, the night-long dance drama performed in Tulu as well as Kannada.

Tulu's oldest literature is oral: the paddanas, sung ballads of heroes and deities such as the twin heroes Koti and Chennaya and the woman Siri, still sung in villages and at the bhuta kola rituals that the 2022 film Kantara showed to audiences far beyond the coast. The Tulu new year is Bisu in April, wished with ಬಿಸು ಪರ್ಬದ ಸೊಲ್ಮೆಲು, and the slogan of Tulu pride is ಜೈ ತುಳುನಾಡ್. For the rest of the region's characters see the Kannada, Malayalam and Konkani collections and the India emoji page.