The Hindu

MANGALORE, May 20: Although the people are passionate about Tulu, which they feel proud to communicate with on all occasions and platforms, the dialect suffers from lack of newspapers and periodicals.

It is an irony that the land that gave birth to the first Kannada newspaper “Mangalore Samachar” has no periodical worth the name in Tulu despite the region being identified as Tulunadu, the land of Tulu-speaking people.

The Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, however, publishes “Madipu”, a quarterly magazine. Apart from that, an enthusiast Ba. Samaga publishes the monthly “Tuluver” from New Delhi. But these two seem to have a limited readership as their copies are not seen on the newsstands.

Blogs

For the net-savvy Tuluvas, however, there are a few of blogs which throw light on the history and culture of the Tulunadu, and discuss various aspects related to the region.

The most striking of them is “tulu-research.blogspot.com” with Ravi Mundkur as its main contributor. It has regular contributors from Pune, Italy and Bangalore. The latest script posted on this blog discusses about the history of Malpe and surrounding areas, including the St. Mary’s island in Udupi district. Beginning from the origin and evolution of Tulu, it discusses issues such as Munda aborigines of Karavali (coast), origin of the word Bant, a community, and traces of Tulu-Kannada-Dravida words in early Sumerian language, while offering a “taste of Tulunadu” in two articles, with the native dishes such “Kori Rotti”and “Neer Dose”, and the very unforgettable “Gadbad” ice cream mentioned there. The blog offers unique videos of “bhoota” (spirit-worship), and many scholarly articles on art and culture of the region.

A write up by Budha Shivalli, the author of the book “Tulu Paatero”, posted on another blog “tulu-language.blogspot.com” offers a unique script that suits the language, although it is based on the Kannada script. The author argues that most words in Tulu end with consonants while Kannada words end with vowels and hence the need for some changes in the script.