Sholaga language

The Sholaga (Soliga) language is a Dravidian language related to Kannada and Tamil, spoken by the Soliga people.

Sholaga
Soliga
Native to	India
Region	Karnataka, Tamil Nadu
Ethnicity	Soliga
Native speakers	24,000 (2006)[1]
Language family	Dravidian Southern Southern I Tamil–Kannada Badaga–Kannada Kannadoid Sholaga
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sle
Glottolog	shol1240
ELP	Sholaga

Other names

Sholaga language, is also known as Kadu Sholigar, Sholiga, Sholigar, Solaga, Solega, Soliga, Soligar, Solanayakkans, Sholanayika.

Phonology

The tables present the vowel and the consonant phonemes of Sholaga.^[2]

Vowels

	Front		Central				Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
High	i	iː	ɨ	ɨː	ʉ	ʉː	u	uː
Mid	e	eː	ə	əː	ɵ	ɵː	o	oː
Low			a	aː

Zvelebil had listed centralized <ä, ǟ> in the phonology. The real quality distinguishing <ä, ǟ> and <a, ā> isn't clear.

• There are phonemic nasal vowels.

Consonants

Consonants^[3]

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal/ Pst.alv	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n̪	ɳ		ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t̪	ʈ	t͡ʃ	k
	voiced	b	d̪	ɖ	d͡ʒ	ɡ
Fricative			s				h
Approximant		ʋ	l	ɭ	j
Rhotic			ɾ⠀r	ɽ

• /s/ in free variation with [ʃ].

Classification

Sholaga is classified as a Dravidian language, more specifically South Dravidian. Dravidian languages are split into five main categories by the name of Southern, South Central, Central, North and Unclassified. Sholaga falls into the Southern category which is then split into the three categories: Tamil-Kannada, Macro-Tulu, and unclassified. Sholaga falls into the Tamil-Kannada category.

Words

English	Sholaga
tiger	dodinayi
elephant	coquedana
elephant with huge tusks	coquedonga
female elephant with growing tusks	coreyani
deer	Maan
Sambar deer	kadave
Chital	saraga
Moss Deer	koore
muntjac	tadu-koori
Area with boulders and rarely any rain	udugaru
An evergreen forest	Patchai kadu