Канара: История, География и Культура Прибрежного Карнатаки

Region in Karnataka, India
similarly named places

Kanara or Canara, also known as Karavali is the historically significant stretch of land situated by the southwestern coast of India, alongside the Arabian Sea in the present day Indian state of Karnataka. The subregion comprises three civil districts, namely: Uttara Kannada, Udupi, and Dakshina Kannada. Kassergode was included prior to the States Reorganisation Act.

According to historian Severino da Silva, the ancient name for this region is Parashurama Srushti (creation of Parashurama). According to him and Stephen Fuchs, the name Canara is the invention of Portuguese, Dutch, and English people who visited the area for trade from the early sixteenth century onwards. The Bednore Dynasty, under whose rule this tract was at that time, was known to them as the Kannada Dynasty, i. e., the dynasty speaking the Kannada language. "Karāvalli", the Kannada word for 'coast', is the term used by Kannada speakers to refer to this region.

Since antiquity, much of the Canara coast (now spelled as 'Kanara') occupied a culturally distinct area known as Tulu Nadu. Historically, Tulu Nadu lay between the Gangavalli River in the north and the Chandragiri River in the south. Currently, Tulu Nadu consists of the Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka, and the Manjeshwaram taluk of Kerala. The Uttara Kannada district in general is considered to be the southernmost part of the Konkan coast. Specifically, the littoral region north of the Gangavalli River is traditionally included in the Konkan. The Portuguese occupied Kanara from 1498–1763. During this period, the geographical extent of Canara stretched from the southern banks of the Kali River in Karwar in the north to the northern banks of the Chandragiri River in Kasaragod in the south. After India's independence in 1947, the Bombay Presidency was reconstituted as the Bombay State. Following the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, the southern portion of Bombay State was added to Mysore State, which was renamed Karnataka in 1972. Kasaragod was included in Kerala.

The Kanara region forms the coast of Karnataka situated on the south western portion of Peninsular India. Coastal Karnataka forms the northern segment of the Malabar coast. Kanara constitutes an area of about 10,000 square kilometres (4,000 square miles). It is bounded by Konkan to the north, the Western Ghats to the east, the Kerala Plains to the south, and the Arabian Sea to the west. It stretches from north to south for about 225 kilometres (140 miles) and has a maximum width of about 64 kilometres (40 miles) in the south.

Contemporary Kanara extends from the village of Majali in the north to the village of Talapady in the south. The three districts in the region: Uttara Kannada, Udupi, and Dakshina Kannada have their capitals in Karwar, Udupi, and Mangalore respectively.

The Kanara region have 3 Districts: Uttara Kannada, Udupi, and Dakshina Kannada. The combined population of these districts, according to the 2011 Census is about 47,04,179 .

Hinduism is the largest and the most dominant religion in the region with over 35,98,634 followers. Islam is the second largest religion in the region. Many believe it to be had existed before the Muslim conquests of India. It has over 7,72,874 followers. Christianity is the third largest religion in the region with over 2,81,718 followers .

The main languages that are closely associated with the Kanara region are Kannada, Konkani and Tulu.

Kannada is the official language of Karnataka but is spoken natively by less than a third of the population of Kanara. A vast majority of the people in Kanara, however, understand and speak Kannada as a second language, except in isolated rural villages in Tulu dominated regions in the south or the villages lying at the north quite close to Goa where there is a prevalence of Konkani. Various Kannada dialects are spoken in the region, including: Achchagannada by Halakki Vokkaligas, Havigannada by the Havyakas of Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada, Kundagannada spoken in and around Kundapura, Aregannada by the Gowda community in Dakshina Kannada, etc.

Konkani is an Indo Aryan language which is native to the Konkan coast and is closely related to Marathi. Speakers of various dialects of Konkani are settled along the entire Kanara coast with the concentration being higher at the northern and southern tips of the Kanara coast, namely Karwar and Mangalore respectively. Most Konkani speakers living in Kanara are descendants of Goans who fled from Goa in the 16th and 17th centuries to escape persecution at the hands of the Portuguese. However, since the Kanara coast overlaps with the Konkan coast at its northern tip, the Konkani people in Karwar might be native to Karwar itself, as opposed to descendants of people who fled from modern day Goa.

Tulu is strongly associated with the culture and identity of southern Kanara. Prevalence of Tulu starts in the southern part of the Udupi district; somewhere around the Udupi taluka of the Udupi district. From there onwards, it is dominant in the entire Dakshina Kannada district and also has a significant presence in the Kasaragod district which is in northern Kerala. It is a South Dravidian language, which branched off from Proto South Dravidian before Tamil and Kannada did, as evidenced by the fact that it contains archaic features which are lost in Tamil and Kannada. Tulu is closely associated with the cultures of the cities Udupi and Mangalore.

Marathi is spoken in the northern parts of the Uttara Kannada district. Due to its close proximity to Kerala, Dakshina Kannada has a sizeable minority of Malayalam speakers. The Beary language is spoken by the Beary Muslim community of Dakshina Kannada.