Ravula, known locally as Yerava or Adiyan, is a Dravidian language of Karnataka and Kerala spoken by the Adiyar. It is classified under the category Malayalamoid languages in both the linguistics and the Census of India. However their language exhibits a number of peculiarities which marks it off from Malayalam as well as from other tribal speeches in the districts of Kodagu and Wayanad. It is spoken by 25,000 Ravulas (locally called Yerava) in Kodagu district of Karnataka and by 1,900 Ravulas (locally called Adiyan) in the adjacent Wayanad district of Kerala. The term 'Yerava' is derived from the Kodava Language or Kannada word Yeravalu meaning borrow.
Phonology
Adiya's phonology is similar to Malayalam with a few differences.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Near-close | ɪ | ʊ | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Mid | ə | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
- All vowels except for /ɪ,ə,ʊ,ɔ/ demonstrate contrastive vowel length.5
Consonants
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n̪ | n | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Stop | voiceless | p | t̪ | ʈ | c | k | |
| voiced | b | d̪ | ɖ | ɟ | g | ||
| Fricative | s | ||||||
| Approximant | ʋ | l | ɭ | j | |||
| Trill | r | ||||||
References
"Tribes in Malabar : A Socio-Economic Profile" (PDF). ShodhGanga. http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/11187/12/12_chapter%203.pdf ↩
"Ravula Language". Ethnologue - Languages of the world. http://www.ethnologue.com/language/yea ↩
Marti, Felix (2005). Words and Worlds: World Languages Review. Multilingual Matters. p. 238. ISBN 9781853598272. 9781853598272 ↩
Sinha, Anil Kishore (2008). Bio-social Issues in Health. Northern Book Centre. p. 506. ISBN 9788172112257. 9788172112257 ↩
Mallikarjun, B. (1993). A descriptive analysis of Yerava. Central Institute of Indian Languages. OCLC 901560296. /wiki/OCLC_(identifier) ↩