Tulu and the demand for official language status

Context

Various organisations initiated a campaign demanding official language status to Tulu in Karnataka and Kerala.

About Tulu and its history

• Tulu is a Dravidian language spoken mainly in two coastal districts Dakshina Kannada and Udupi of Karnataka and Kasaragod district of Kerala.
• This region is also known as ‘Tulu Nadu’.
• Tulu is among the earliest Dravidian languages with a history of 2000 years.
• Tulu has a rich oral literature tradition with folk-song forms like paddana, and traditional folk theatre yakshagana.

Languages in the Eight schedule

• Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri are the 22 languages presently in the eighth schedule to the Constitution.
  • Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali were added in 2004.