REPORT ON THE CURRENT STATUS OF
UNITED NATIONS ROMANIZATION SYSTEMS FOR GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES
Compiled by the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems
Version 2.2, January 2003

Kannada

The United Nations recommended system was approved in 1972 (II/11) and amended in 1977 (III/12), based on a report prepared by D. N. Sharma. The tables and their corrections were published in volume II of the conference reports (Second United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. London, 10-31 May 1972. Vol. II. Technical papers. United Nations. New York 1974, pp. 147-148; Third United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. Athens, 17 August - 7 September 1977. Vol. II, Technical papers, pp. 393 etc.).

There is no evidence of the use of the system either in India or in international cartographic products.

Kannada uses an alphasyllabic script whereby each character represents a syllable rather than one sound. Vowels and diphthongs are marked in two ways: as independent characters (used syllable-initially) and in an abbreviated form, to denote vowels after consonants. The romanization table is unambiguous. The system is mostly reversible but there may exist some ambiguities in the romanization of vowels (independent vs. abbreviated characters) and consonants (combinations with subscript consonants vs. character sequences).

Romanization

I. Independent vowel characters

1 a
2 ā
3 i
4 ī
5 u
6 ū
7
8 ĕ
9 e
10 ai
11 ŏ
12 o
13 au

II. Abbreviated vowel characters and other symbols (ಕ stands for any consonant character)

1 aA
2 ಕಾ ā
3 ಕಿ iB
4 ಕೀ ī
5 ಕು uC
6 ಕೂ ūD
7 ಕೃ
8 ಕೆ ĕ
9 ಕೇ e
10 ಕೈ ai
11 ಕೊ ŏ
12 ಕೋ o
13 ಕೌ au
14 ಕಂ
15 ಕಃ
16 (E)

III. Consonant characters

1 ka
2 kha
3 ga
4 gha
5 ṅa
6 cha
7 chha
8 ja
9 jha
10 ña
11 ṭa
12 ṭha
13 ḍa
14 ḍha
15 ṇa
16 ta
17 tha
18 da
19 dha
20 na
21 pa
22 pha
23 ba
24 bha
25 ma
26 ya
27 ra
28 la
29 va
30 sha
31 ṣha
32 sa
33 ha
34 ḷa

IV. Subscript consonant characters (with ಕ or ಲ /in lines 31, 33/ as base character)

1 ಕ್ಕ kA
2 ಕ್ಖ kh
3 ಕ್ಗ g
4 ಕ್ಘ gh
5 ಕ್ಙ
6 ಕ್ಚ ch
7 ಕ್ಛ chh
8 ಕ್ಜ j
9 ಕ್ಝ jh
10 ಕ್ಞ ñ
11 ಕ್ಟ B
12 ಕ್ಠ ṭh
13 ಕ್ಡ
14 ಕ್ಢ ḍh
15 ಕ್ಣ
16 ಕ್ತ tC
17 ಕ್ಥ th
18 ಕ್ದ d
19 ಕ್ಧ dh
20 ಕ್ನ n
21 ಕ್ಪ pD
22 ಕ್ಫ ph
23 ಕ್ಬ b
24 ಕ್ಭ bh
25 ಕ್ಮ m
26 ಕ್ಯ y
27 ಕ್ರ r
28 ಕ್ಲ l
29 ಕ್ವ v
30 ಕ್ಶ sh
31 ಲ್ಷ ṣh
32 ಕ್ಸ s
33 ಲ್ಹ h
34 ಕ್ಳ

Combinations with r as the first component are written by adding a special symbol after the second consonant: ರ್ಗ rga.

Other systems of romanization

For differences between the UN system and the ISO transliteration standard ISO 15919: 2001 see the section on the romanization of Hindi.