About this Dictionary
This dictionary draws on two primary sources. The main corpus is the
Tulu-English Dictionary compiled by Prof. M. Mariappa Bhat and
A. Shanker Kedilaya (University of Madras, 1967). It is supplemented by
B. Männer’s Tulu-English Dictionary (Basel Mission Press, Mangaluru, 1886),
an earlier scholarly work that preserves many archaic and regional forms.
Words marked [M] are drawn from Männer and may differ in spelling or meaning
from the 1967 edition.
We are grateful to KTC, Mangaluru for their support of Tulu language preservation, and to Mission 21, Basel (successor to the Basel Mission) for their stewardship of the Basel Mission Press archives.
Tulu is a Dravidian language spoken in Tulu Nadu (southern coastal Karnataka and northern Kerala). It is written in the Kannada script and spoken by the Tuluva people.
Transliteration System
Roman headwords use the following system (vowels listed in Tulu alphabetical order):
Vowels
| Roman | Notes |
|---|---|
| ụ (ụ) | Short special u (subapical retroflex vowel, unique to Tulu) |
| a | Short a |
| ā (ā) | Long a |
| i | Short i |
| ī (ī) | Long i |
| u | Short u |
| ū (ū) | Long u |
| e | Short e (as in "bet") |
| é (é) | Close-mid e; also marks 3rd person masculine singular (e.g. ayé = he) |
| ē (ē) | Long e |
| ai | Diphthong |
| o | Short o |
| ō (ō) | Long o |
| au | Diphthong |
| ṁ (ṁ) | Anusvara (nasal resonance) |
Consonants
| Roman | Notes | Roman | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| k | Velar stop | t | Dental stop |
| g | Voiced velar | d | Voiced dental |
| ṅ (ṅ) | Velar nasal | n | Dental nasal |
| c | Palatal affricate | p | Bilabial stop |
| j | Voiced palatal | b | Voiced bilabial |
| ñ (ñ) | Palatal nasal | m | Bilabial nasal |
| ṭ (ṭ) | Retroflex stop | y | Palatal approximant |
| ḍ (ḍ) | Voiced retroflex | r | Trill |
| ṉ (ṇ) | Retroflex nasal | l | Lateral |
| sʼ (s') | Palatal sibilant (Sanskrit loans) | v | Labial approximant |
| ṣ (ṣ) | Retroflex sibilant (Sanskrit loans) | s | Dental sibilant |
| ḷ (ḷ) | Retroflex lateral | h | Glottal fricative |
Abbreviations
| Abbrev. | Meaning | Abbrev. | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
n. | noun | int. | interjection |
v. | verb | part. | particle |
adj. | adjective | prv. | proverb |
adv. | adverb | cf. | compare |
pron. | pronoun | coll. | colloquial |
conj. | conjunction | fig. | figurative |
m. | masculine noun / proper name | sing. | singular |
nm. | noun (name) | pl. | plural |
Source / Language markers
| Marker | Meaning |
|---|---|
[M] | From Männer's earlier dictionary (1886); may be archaic |
K. or (K) | Borrowed from Kannada |
Sk. | Borrowed from Sanskrit |
E. | Borrowed from English |
F. | Foreign (other) origin |
~ | Refers back to the main headword of the entry |
Usage Notes
Verbs
All verbs are given in the imperative mood, second person singular (the base form). Example: akku = "digest!" (infinitive: akkuni).
The é ending
A final é always marks third person masculine singular for both nouns and verbs. Examples: ayé = he; kalavé = a male thief; poyé = (he) went; batté = (he) came. Compare: batte (I came) vs batté (he came).
Sanskrit loan adaptation
Sanskrit words with final -a typically become -o in Tulu: dharma → darmo; amsa → amso; Rama → Ramé (masculine).
Tulu alphabetical order
Headwords follow Tulu-Roman alphabetical order, which differs slightly from English: ụ, a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, e, é, ē, ai, o, ō, au precede the consonants. Within the consonants: k, g, ṅ, c, j, ñ, ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, t, d, n, p, b, m, y, r, l, v, s', ṣ, s, h, ḷ.
Technical Notes (this database)
This database was extracted from the 1967 PDF using automated text parsing. Some entries may contain OCR artifacts (garbled characters from the scanned original). Cross-references to other entries (e.g. "see Vonees") may show garbled Kannada script in place of the actual headword — this is a known limitation of the PDF text layer.
Single-character vowel entries for ā, ī, ū, ē, ō are missing because the PDF OCR digitized those Tulu letters as digits (1, 4, 7) rather than the correct Unicode characters. These will be recovered in a future update using the high-resolution Männer DjVu source.
Use the Editor to correct, add, or delete entries.