Kanikkaran is a Dravidian language spoken by about 19,000 Kanikkar tribals in southern India. They dwell in forests and hills of

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...

and Kollam districts of

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

, and

Kanyakumari Kanniyakumari (; , referring to Devi Kanya Kumari), also known as Cape Comorin, is a city in Kanniyakumari district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent and the southernmost city in mainland Ind ...

and

Tirunelveli Tirunelveli (, ta, திருநெல்வேலி, translit=Tirunelveli) also known as Nellai ( ta, நெல்லை, translit=Nellai) and historically (during British rule) as Tinnevelly, is a major city in the Indian state of Tam ...

districts of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

. It is called ''malambhāsha'', or "hill-language."

Phonology

Vowels

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

Consonants

They use the phoneme /l̩/ occasionally. Kanikkaran has transformed words in Malayalam starting with /a/ into /e/. ''añcu'' (5) becomes ''eñcu'', ''ari'' (rice) becomes ''ei'', ''arivāḷu'' (sickle) becomes ''erivāḷu'', ''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

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

References

Dravidian languages Endangered diaspora languages Languages of Tamil Nadu Languages of Kerala {{dr-lang-stub