Kanikkaran language

Kanikkaran
கணிக்காரன்/കണ്ണിക്കാരൻ
Native to	India
Region	Tamil Nadu, Kanyakumari
Ethnicity	Kanikkaran
Native speakers	19,000 (2007)
Language family	Dravidian Southern Tamil–Kannada Tamil–Kodagu Tamil–Malayalam Tamil languages Kanikkaran
Writing system	Tamil script, Malayalam script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kev
Glottolog	kani1275

Kanikkaran is a Dravidian language spoken by about 19,000 Kanikkar tribals in southern India. They dwell in forests and hills of Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam districts of Kerala, and Kanyakumari and Tirunelveli districts of Tamil Nadu. It is called malambhāsha, or "hill-language."

Phonology

Vowels

Kanikkaran has 5 vowels, /a, e, i, o, u/. It demonstrates contrastive vowel length.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
Stop	voiceless	p		t̪		ʈ	c	k
	voiced	b		d̪
Nasal				n̪	n	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant			ʋ		l	ɭ	j
Trill					r
Flap					ɾ

They use the phoneme /l̩/ occasionally.

Kanikkaran has transformed words in Malayalam starting with /a/ into /e/. aɳcu (5) becomes eɳcu, ari (rice) becomes ei, arivāɭu (sickle) becomes erivāɭu, aluku (split reed) becomes elakku. It also adds a suffix -in or -n after all noun stems, except for nouns ending with -n in accusative.

Grammar

	singular	plural
1st	ɲān	ɲāɳkaɭu
2nd	īl	nīɳkaɭu
3rd	avanu/avaɭu	avaru

The language cannot use personal terminations, similar to Old Malayalam. Example: pōvā (will not go) and vārā (will not come).