GS PAPER I: Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

Context: Various organisations initiated a Twitter campaign demanding official language status to Tulu in Karnataka and Kerala and received an overwhelming response. More than 2.5 lakh people tweeted in support of the campaign.

• As the clamour grows for Tulu to be included in the eighth schedule of the Constitution and given official language status in Karnataka and Kerala.

Who all speak Tulu in India now and what is its history?

• Tulu is a Dravidian language spoken mainly in two coastal districts Dakshina Kannada and Udupi of Karnataka and Kasaragod district of Kerala.
• As per the 2011 Census report, there are 18,46,427 Tulu-speaking people in India.
• Some scholars suggest Tulu is among the earliest Dravidian languages with a history of 2000 years.

What exactly is the demand by Tulu speakers?

• The Tulu speakers, mainly in Karnataka and Kerala, have been requesting the governments to give it official language status and include it in the eighth schedule to the Constitution.
• Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri are the 22 languages presently in the eighth schedule to the Constitution.

What is the present status of Tulu?

• According to Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, people who speak Tulu are confined to the above-mentioned regions of Karnataka and Kerala, informally known as Tulu Nadu.
• Tulu is not an official language in the country. Efforts are being made to include Tulu in the eighth schedule of the Constitution.
• If included in the eighth schedule, Tulu would get recognition from the Sahitya Akademi.

Tulu in Education

• The Karnataka government introduced Tulu as a language in schools a few years ago.
• According to the state education department, in the year 2020, a total of 956 children from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts wrote Tulu as the third optional language in SSLC (Class 10) examination.

Tulu art, culture and cinema

• Tulu has a rich oral literature tradition with folk-song forms like paddana, and traditional folk theatre yakshagana.
• Tulu also has an active tradition of cinema with around 5 to 7 Tulu language movies produced a year.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/tulu-language-protest-history-7358953/

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