Kannadigas

The Kannadigas or Kannaḍigaru (Kannada: ಕನ್ನಡಿಗರು), often referred to as Kannada people, are a Dravidian ethno-linguistic group who natively speak Kannada and trace their ancestry to the South Indian state of Karnataka in India and its surrounding regions. The Kannada language belongs to the Dravidian family of languages. Kannada stands among 30 of the most widely spoken languages of the world as of 2001.

Evidence for human habitation in Karnataka exists from at least the 2nd millennium BCE, and the region is said to have had contact with the Indus Valley civilization. In the 3rd-4th century BCE the land was ruled by the Mauryas and Jainism had dominant presence. It is said that Mauryan emperor Chandragupta Maurya himself, after abdicating the throne to his son Bindusara, retired to the Shravanabelagola region with his Jain guru.

After the Mauryas, parts of Karnataka were variously ruled by dynasties who were either ethnically Kannadiga or from the outside. One of its most well-known empires, the Vijayanagara Empire was founded by Kannada chieftains who were great patrons of Kannada art and literature. The Kadambas, Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and Hoysalas were some of the other major Kannada kingdoms and dynasties ruling the region.

The Kannada language has written inscriptions since 450 CE. Kannada literature is mostly composed of treatise on various topics and poems on religious works. Kannada architecture is dominated by stone-carved sculptured palaces, temples and traditional wooden folk houses known as thotti mane and chowki mane. Many of religious architectures built during ancient and medieval period are today UNESCO World Heritage sites.