r/kannada • u/General_Union_2925 • Aug 27 '26

What is this letter?

Post image

What is the character after 'sangatiyana' in the second line? It looks like A with a U attached, but it's not at the beginning of a word.

46 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

11

u/onlyinsignificant Aug 27 '26

ಱ is a consonant (ṟ).
Its sound is called a voiced alveolar trill, which is found in other languages as well.
ಱ sound merged with ರ (voiced alveolar tap) in Medieval Kannada.
In the text, it is used with a vowel: ಱ್ + ಉ = ಱು (ṟu)

3

u/General_Union_2925 Aug 31 '26

So you're sure it's not the unique sound written as ழ (transliterated as zh or ẓh) in the Tamil script, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as [ɻ] or [ʐ]?

3

u/onlyinsignificant Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26

Yeah, everywhere I've seen it's like:
ಱ್ = ற் = r = r2 = ṟ
ೞ್ = ழ் = ɻ = Zh = ḻ
More common in Kannada:
ರ್ = ர் = ɾ = r
ಳ್ = ள் = ɭ = l̤

I got the info from Aksharamukha (guide script can be changed at the top right) and Wikipedia articles.

25

u/kulchacop Aug 27 '26

ಱ is a strong r sound.

This is a letter that is not used anymore in modern Kannada. 

It is still used in Tamil as ற

4

u/priya_nka Aug 29 '26

It is a character used in halagannada/ old kannada. In my school academics we had some old kannada poems ( in high school first language).

2

u/theb00kmancometh Aug 27 '26

Malayalam has a similar one in റ (and its short i form റി).

6

u/BigEntertainment8206 Aug 27 '26

if my memory serves me right,
The letter is rala, making the ra sound
And it’s counterpart, the kula, makes the la (zha) sound( written same as rala but without the horizontal line)

5

u/tuluva_sikh Aug 27 '26

It's Archaic Kannada letter which is pronounced rra and today it is present mostly in Tamil and Malayalam

1

u/StormCroc08 Aug 27 '26

bro how many languages do you speak

4

u/PenaltyAsleep5294 Aug 27 '26

Any idea When we stopped using this ?

Although its usage is stopped, someone created its glyph to display it as Kannada font !? wow

2

u/Willing_Ad1416 Aug 28 '26

Classic rala kula thing

-2

u/crimeandicecream Aug 28 '26

This letter is technically still in use in Telugu script. We call is “bandi ra”, meaning “ra” that looks like a “bandi” (vehicle). It’s part of the alphabet but hardly used. Makes a sound similar to “zha” in Tamizhakam.