Editing Kannada (section)

==Writing system==
{{Main|Kannada script|Kannada braille}}

The language uses forty-nine [[phonemic]] letters, divided into three groups: ''swaragalu'' (vowels – thirteen letters); ''vyanjanagalu'' (consonants – thirty-four letters); and ''yogavaahakagalu'' (neither vowel nor consonant – two letters: ''[[anusvara]]'' {{lang|kn|ಂ}} and ''[[visarga]]'' {{lang|kn|ಃ}})<!--Swaragalu+Yogavaahakagalu=vowels?-->. The character set is almost identical to that of other [[Languages of India|Indian languages]]. The Kannada script is almost entirely phonetic, but for the sound of a "half n" (which becomes a half m). The number of written symbols, however, is far more than the forty-nine characters in the alphabet, because different characters can be combined to form ''compound'' characters ''(ottakshara)''. Each written symbol in the Kannada script corresponds with one [[syllable]], as opposed to one [[phoneme]] in languages like English—the Kannada script is syllabic.