Its soft, curving lines swirling into jalebi-like shapes, the ancient Tulu script or Tulu lipi, etched in temple inscriptions and scratched onto palm leaf manuscripts, is unfamiliar to many Tulu speakers today. The misconception that Tulu has no written script, 19th-century printing presses choosing Kannada to print Tulu texts, and the fact that only trained scribes knew the script are among the reasons Tulu lipi faded into obscurity.
As the language gets its long-sought recognition as Karnataka’s second additional official language in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada, city-based photographer-researcher Nishant Ratnakar is helping curious folks learn how to write the language close to its traditional form with his YouTube Channel ‘Solmelu Studios’. “Year after year, Tulu has been on UNESCO’s list of languages with declining speakers and in the critical range. A lot of people are trying to promote, revive and teach Tulu on their own. For me, Solmelu Studios began with the thought to teach people the historically correct form of the script,” he says.
Ratnakar, who also heads the Linguistics & Research team at the Tulu Cultural Research Foundation (TCRF), began teaching the Tulu-Tigalari script, a revived version of the traditional Tulu lipi, through short videos which then evolved into live classes on Sunday mornings. “Each video would focus on one word – a place, a community name like Shetty or cultural terms like gaggara, the anklet worn in bhoota kola. I would tell a story and show how it is written, just to convey the beauty of the script,” he says, adding, “When I started the live classes, both Tulu and non-Tulu speakers across the globe tuned in. I use English as the medium of instruction and a notation system called the International Alphabet for Sanskrit Transliteration, which is used to learn Indic languages [through romanised letters].”
Tulu-Tigalari received Unicode recognition in 2024, making it possible to type the script across electronic platforms. However, a debate continues over how Tulu should be standardised. “Many people try to teach or learn the 2021 Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy proposal, which was an oversimplified version based on the assumption that the original orthography is difficult. That doesn’t hold true, with many people having successfully learned the original orthography on Solmelu Studios and using it to write. With knowledge of only the 2021 standard, though, one cannot read any historical account in Tulu,” he explains.
After completing a four-month series of live classes, Ratnakar is now preparing pre-recorded lessons that will teach conversational Tulu to non-Tulu speakers while allowing the previous series’ learners to continue studying the script. They will introduce words in English, compare with other languages to explain grammar, and use Tulu script and IAST for practice. The TCRF is also publishing Tuluvarnamrta by Prahlad Tantry in October, a primer demystifying the script.
For Ratnakar, the revival is already visible in the community around his classes. “People are writing shlokas, finding old poems, sharing them on social media, showing that the script is not that difficult.”
