koraga

Language information by source

Koraga (also rendered Koragar, Koragara, Korangi) is a Dravidian language spoken by the Koraga people, a Scheduled tribe people of Dakshina Kannada, Karnataka, and Kerala in South West India. The dialect spoken by the Koraga tribe in Kerala, Mudu Koraga, is divergent enough to not be intelligible with Korra Koraga.

The language was first described and classified by indologist Kamil Zvelebil, who in 1955 showed that the Irula language is an independent Southern Dravidian language that is akin to Tamil, particularly Old Tamil, with some Kannada-like features. Before that, it was traditionally denied or put to doubt, and Irula was described as a crude or corrupt mixture of Tamil and Kannada.

All the speakers who speak Mudu dialect are bilingual with Kannada language and all speaking onti dialect are bilingual with Tulu language.[2] This has resulted a strong influence of Kannada on Mudu koraga and also similar influence of Tulu is seen on onti koraga dialect.[6] Majority of negative forms of onti koraga language are borrowed from Tulu language.