Literacy and it's acquisition in Kannada

Book section : Chapter

Deep rooted knowledge of language is essential for Kannada literacy development. A strong cognitive-linguistic understanding of the working principles of this morphologically rich language is needed alongside knowledge about the akshara orthography. A range of linguistic units contributing to literacy development have been identified over approximately half a century of empirical work; all these must be cognitively well-represented for Kannada literacy to advance meaningfully. Essential theoretical constructs for this area include orthographic breadth, approaches to akshara recognition, the alphasyllabic principle, and morphological processing around polysemy, homonymy, phonologically conditioned allomorphy and morpho-phonological changes. Using the understudied word class of adjectives, some notable aspects of Kannada’s morpho-syntax and the mapping of meaningto-print are examined. The chapter ends with the argument that, aside from vigorously contributing to theorising in the wider field of literacy development in the akshara languages, Kannada acquisition research is also well-placed to engage with the study of the classification of writing systems, and model the acquisition and developing mastery of literacy when words are multisyllabic and polymorphemic.

Authors: Nag, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Host title: The Oxford Handbook of Dravidian Languages
• Series: Oxford Handbooks
• Place of publication: Oxford
• Publication date: 2025-01-23
• Edition: 1
• DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197610411.013.29
• EISBN: 9780197610442
• ISBN: 9780197610411
• Language: English
• Keywords: alphasyllabic principle; orthographic breadth hypothesis; reading comprehension; polysemy; Kannada; sandhi; polymorphemic words; akshara; literacy acquisition; allomorphy
• Subtype: Chapter