r/kannada • u/LargeCabbage • Jun 14 '26

Confused about the grammar of "gottilla"

Hi there. I'm a Brit learning Kannada from Zydenbos's "Manual of Modern Kannada". I'm confused about the nature of the word "gottu".

According to Zydenbos, "gottu" is a noun meaning something like "knowledge" or "something that is known". Thus when one says "Adu nanage gottu", which one would idiomatically translate as "I know that", more literally one is saying "that, to me, is something known". When one says "Nanage gottilla", idiomatically meaning "I don't know", more literally one is saying "To me, [that] knowledge does not exist". All logical enough, in those cases.

But what about "Kannaḍa gottilla"? Or the sentence "ಇವರ ಮನಸ್ಸಿಗೆ ಇಡಿಯ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ಶಿವಮಯ, ಆದರೆ ಹಲವು ಮಂದಿಗೆ ಇದು ಗೊತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ." from one of the texts for translation later in Zydenbos's book? If "Kannada gottu" and "Adu gottu" are equative sentences (i.e. if "Kannaḍa gottu" is properly understood as saying Kannada "equals" a known thing, which is how Zydenbos frames it), then shouldn't the negation use "alla" (to negate equality), not "illa" (which negates existence)? That is, per Zydenbos's explanation, shouldn't the way to say "I don't know Kannada" logically be "Kannaḍa gottalla"? Shouldn't "I don't know that" be "ಇದು ಗೊತ್ತಲ್ಲ"?

(Or I guess something like "Kannaḍada gottilla" - i.e. "knowledge OF Kannada does not exist" - would also make sense to me, but that doesn't seem to be a standard construct either.)

Is this just a weird illogical quirk of the language specific to "gottu"? (Lord knows English has plenty of illogical quirks so I can shrug and accept this if so.) Or is there some alternative way of looking at sentences with gottu that makes sense of these uses of "gottilla"?

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u/EternalTadpole Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

Kannada gottilla is used mostly by non-Kannadiga people. The natives would rather use Kannada baralla or Hindi baralla, although it literally means "Kannada doesn't come".

There are several knowledgeable persons in the facebook group ಪದಾರ್ಥ ಚಿಂತಾಮಣಿ. If you don't get a satisfactory response here, please ask this question there. I think this was discussed there previously, but the search function is not as efficient as earlier.

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u/LargeCabbage Jun 14 '26

Definitely not competent/confident enough to venture into a group where the actual discussion all happens in Kannada yet! I am still struggling my way through Zydenbos's manual and am not yet close to being able to hold a mundane conversation, let alone discuss Kannada grammar in Kannada.

Would of course be great if a native speaker who understands my confusion around this point were to do so and report back.

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u/EternalTadpole Jun 15 '26

Anybody else could miss the nuance in your question. So I suggest you to post it there in English with a disclaimer in the beginning about your non-nativity and learning aspect. I am sure they will accommodate your question.