Tulu is one of the important languages belonging to the Dravidian family of languages and spoken by about 1.5 million population in the South Kanara (Dakshina Kannada) district of Karnataka as well as the northern part of the Kasaragod District of Kerala. Though confined to a small area the Tulu speaking community with its distinct socio-cultural traits, religious cults, artistic traditions and theatrical forms has made significant contributions to the cultural heritage of Karnataka and through it to the totality of Indian culture and civilization. Since this language displays certain features of the Central and Northern Dravidian languages and-since it has made certain innovations not noticed in other South Dravidian Languages it is believed that this language branched off from the parent language before other languages of the South Dravidian group came to be developed into well defined independent languages and hence can be considered as the earliest offshoot of the South Dravidian. In a Greek Papyrus- of 2nd Century B.C} known as Chariton, the characters of the Western Coast of Karnataka speak a peculiar language which is now being proved to be Tulu. This also lends support to the historicity of this language. more...