The
Kannada alphabet (
IAST:
Kannaḍa lipi) is an
abugida of the
Brahmic family, used primarily to write the
Kannada language, one of the
Dravidian languages of
South India especially in the state of
Karnataka, Kannada script is widely used for writing
Sanskrit texts in Karnataka. Several minor languages, such as
Tulu,
Konkani,
Kodava,
Sanketi and
Beary, also use alphabets based on the Kannada script. The Kannada and
Telugu scripts share high mutual intellegibility with each other, and are often considered to be regional variants of single script. Similarly,
Goykanadi, a variant of Old Kannada, has been historically used to write Konkani in the state of
Goa.