Kannada Alphabet - Evolution

Evolution

Over the centuries some changes have been made to the Kannada script. These changes consist of:

1. Modification of existing glyphs: In the early Kannada script, no orthographic distinction was made between the short mid ಎ, ಒ and long mid ಏ, ಓ. However, distinct signs were employed to denote the special consonants viz. the trill ಱ the retroflex lateral ಳ and the retroflex palatal ೞ found only in South Indian languages, by 5th century.
2. Introduction of new characters: Kannada script includes characters like ಶ, ಷ, ಋ, ೠ, ఌ, ౡ, ಐ, ಔ, ಅಂ, ಅಃ, and mahāprāṇa characters like ಖ, ಘ, ಛ, ಝ, ಥ, ಧ, ಠ, ಢ, ಫ, ಭ. The introduction was done so that Sanskrit and also loanwords into the Kannada language from the donor language Sanskrit) could be written using the Kannada script.

These changes have facilitated the use of the Kannada script for writing many of the literary Indic languages, including Sanskrit.