Byari or Beary (ಬ್ಯಾರಿ) is a geographically isolated dialect of

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

spoken by the Byaris who are part of the

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

community in

Tulu Nadu Tulu Nadu, or Tulunad, is a region and Proposed states and union territories of India, proposed state on the southwestern coast of India. The Tulu people, known as 'Tuluva' (pl. 'Tuluver') are speakers of Tulu language, Tulu, a Dravidian langu ...

region of Coastal

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

and Northern

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, 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 ...

(

Dakshina Kannada Dakshina Kannada district is located in the states and territories of India, state of Karnataka in India, with its headquarters in the coastal city of Mangaluru. The district covers an area nestled in between the Western Ghats to its east and the ...

Udupi Udupi () also known as 'Odipu' () is a city in the Indian state of Karnataka. It is the administrative headquarters of Udupi district, and one of the fastest-growing cities in Karnataka. Udupi is one of the top tourist attractions in Karnataka an ...

, and

Kasargod Kasaragod () is a municipal town and the administrative headquarters of the Kasaragod district in the state of Kerala, India. Established in 1966, Kasaragod was the first municipal town in the district. It is the northernmost district of Ker ...

districts). The community is often recognized as Beary or Byari Muslims., p. ix Byari is influenced by Tulu phonology and grammar. Due to the trading role of the community, the language acquired loan words from other languages of Tulu and Arabic sources., p. ix

Etymology

See Beary#Etymology.

Features

The language uses the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

and

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

alphabets for writing. Being a distant cousin of other dialects of Malayalam and surrounded by other linguistic groups for centuries, mainly Tulu, the dialect exhibits ancient features as well as modern innovations not seen in other well-known dialects of Malayalam. Surrounded by Tulu-speaking populations, the impact of Tulu on the phonological, morphological and syntactic structure of the dialect is evident.

Distinction of ''ḻ'', ''ṇ'', ''ṟ''

Sounds peculiar to Malayalam such as 'ḻ', 'ṇ', 'ṟ' are not found in this dialect., p.65 'ḷ' and 'ṇ' are merged with l and n, respectively. 'ṟ' is merged with r and tt, 'tt' to t., p.66 This resembles Tulu.

''v'' > ''b''

The initial ''v'' of standard Malayalam corresponds to an initial ''b'' in Byari. The same change has taken place in Tulu, too. # Some dialects. # This orthographic representation is phonemic. On a phonetic level, it often becomes , which is closer to the Tulu and Byari forms. This occurs because of a rule whereby voiced plosive consonants are intervocalic allophones of their unvoiced counterparts. However, this only applies to native Dravidian words, and as ''vāṭaka'' is a Sanskrit loanword, the prescriptively correct pronunciation is indeed .

Distinction of 'a' and 'e'

The final 'a' of standard Malayalam corresponds to the final 'e' in Byari.

Distinction of 'n' and 'm'

The word final 'n' and 'm' of standard Malayalam are dropped in Byari.

Degeminated consonants

Geminated In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

consonants occurring after a long vowel and also after a second short vowel of a word in standard Malayalam get degeminated in Byari.

Lexical relations

Almost all lexical items in Byari language can be related to corresponding lexical items in Malayalam, Tulu or Perso-Arabic origin., p.79 However, some equivalents can only be found in Mappila dialects of Malayalam in Kerala.

Person endings

Verbs in old

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages are a language family, family of languages spoken by 250 million people, primarily in South India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan, with pockets elsewhere in South Asia. The most commonly spoken Dravidian l ...

did not have any person marking., p.68 Person endings of verbs observed in modern Dravidian languages are later innovations. Malayalam is the only Dravidian language that does not show any verbal person suffixes, so Malayalam verbs can be said to represent the original stage of Dravidian verbs (though Old Malayalam did have verbal person suffixes at some point). Person suffixes in Byari closely resemble those of Tulu, although the past tense in this dialect agrees with that of standard Malayalam in shape as well as in the distribution of allomorphs.

Arabic influence

Byari is strongly influenced by the Arabic language. Nativised Arabic words are very common in everyday speech, especially in coastal areas. Byari also has words related to

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

and

. Tamil and Malayalam Speakers can understand Byari up to an extent of 75%.

Byari language films

The first Byari -language feature film '' Byari'' shared the award for the best feature film at the 59th Indian National Film Awards.Here's why Byari won the National Award for Best Film
Rediff.com (7 March 2012). Retrieved on 2017-04-26.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Beary Bashe Islamic culture Languages of Karnataka Languages of Kerala Malayalam language Arabi Malayalam