documenting badaga
When a language dies, a culture dies alongside of it. Badaga, an endangered Dravidian language spoken in the Nilgiri Mountains of Southern India, is part of a rich and long-lasting culture of community and spirituality.
Recently, I began documenting the Badaga language through the International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA) and my own personal transcriptions.
Now, I’m a teenager living in the States with a full time commitment to school and work, so obviously I can’t fly out to India and conduct field-work in person: through contacts, however, I got in contact with a wonderful Badaga wife and her husband. With a friend back in India recording the words, we were able to work together virtually and record over 550 words. Currently, I’m transcribing words into the International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA) for linguistic analysis and language preservation.
Phonology
From my current transcription, Badaga seems to have an incredibly similar IPA chart to Tamil, with some Kannada aspects.
In addition to this, I believe there is some spirantization (where a stop turns into a fricative). It occurs when the plural suffix (/-go/ → [-ɣo]) is added, and it might have occured for the word flower (theoretically /puː/, but could be either [pʰuː] or [ɸuː]).
Badaga’s vowels are also identical to that of Tamil, with the exception of some retroflexed vowels (seen in chicken: Ba. [ko˞ ːɪ])
Characteristics
KEY
Badaga: Ba
Kannada: Kn
Tamil: Ta
Badaga is incredibly similar to both Kannada and Tamil: it stems off the Kannada branch of the Dravidian family tree, however, due to the large presence in the region, the language has heavy influence from Tamil.
For example, some common Kannada sound changes can be observed, such as the debuccalization of /p/ to /h/ in the word-initial position.
ex) tooth
Ba: hallu
Kn: hallu
Ta: pal
On the other hand, some Tamil features can be observed as well, such as the voicing of stops intervocalically and loss of aspiration.
ex) face
Ba: muga
Kn: mukʰa
Ta: mugam
Another feature of Badaga can be seen in this example: the loss of word-final m (neuter ending) in comparison with the Tamil word. This also occurs in the word for heart (Ba. idaya, Ta. idayam).
Badaga also palatalizes consonants in certain scenarios. For example, in the word for vomit, kārikkʲĕ, the final syllable has a palatalized onset (kʲ). This can also be seen in cough, which is kʲemmalu, and might be possible in words like day (d͡ʒɪ.nɐː), a possible cognate with the Kannada word, dina (a palatalized d often turns into d͡ʒ).
Challenges
As the recordings only record sound (obviously), I don’t have access to vital information, like the placement of the tongue during pronunciation. To combat this, I have been comparing what I’ve heard with their respective Kannada and Tamil equivalents for retroflex placement. Additionally, I have been grouping together these similar sounds as well to search for a pattern in addition to this cross-referencing, so I have a pretty good understanding of how a possible retroflex consonant sounds.
All in all, this is incredibly memorable experience for me: talking with actual Badaga speakers and being able to leave a real and lasting impact is something I’m incredibly grateful for and I’m glad it’s something I love to do as well.
Keep you guys updated,
Kabi
