Learning Kannada, by enjoying the letter forms

Sindhu designed this simple wooden kannada letter forms “Varna Male” long time ago. We opened it recently when we found Samu was learning Kannada at school. He was quite excited to play with the wooden planes. He started making blocks, trains, some random shapes and later he soon got interested on the symbols screenprinted on the planes. Images behind did not seem to excite him but the kannada words — Aa, Aaa, E, Eee, U….so forth seem to get attention. He started collecting them in order and place them linearly. He tried hard to make a train of them and also read along loudly when left alone.

After a couple of play, he started making patterns of shapes that are similar. In kannada, va, cha, ma all look similar or da, dha, tha look similar. Long ago kannada was taught using the shapes (ra,tha, e, kha…method), but the academic thinking bought it in the form of current A, Aaa, E, Eee… framework on the basis of “Swaras” and “Consonants”. This natural tendency to keep letterforms of similar shapes together is a great sign of form observation. The wooden planes allows this quality during play and learning.

This flexibility made Samu to run and bring his book (a behavior established by school) and copy the letters that he liked. We allowed him to write the way he wants and not worry about the hierarchical structure as taught to us. He went about moving his whole body along the line he created and copying them in his book. Like a living typewriter, his book was filled with hundreds of letters all over. He is learning the “Sign” not the symbol. Meaning need not make sense to him. So “Sign” can be as free as possible, so that the “Form” of the letter is felt. Letter has to become a living experience not a recorded symbol.

Sindhu’s thesis at IDC, IIT Bombay was based on the formal aspects of letterforms in early learning stages. Interested can contact her for more details.