Meet Sakshi Gaggar, a fourth-year student of Visual Communication Design at the Srishti School of Art, Design, and Technology in Bengaluru, who have designed a visually astonishing way to learn Kannada in the city. It’s been 4 years, Sakshi has moved to Bengaluru from Mumbai to pursue her studies and like everyone, she didn’t find the need to learn Kannada as Hindi and English worked fine for her. However, Sakshi then moved on to understand that how important it is to learn the local language and the challenges behind.
Sakshi while her stay in a P.G, she met a few people, who were keen to learn the language. She talked to them and understood that there are some hindrances stopping them to learn the language. There is a lack of interest but the roots to it are the constraint on time, lack of resources available and most importantly, the necessity to learn and speak.
Through an online survey and talks with various migrants, Sakshi understood the importance of learning the language before conceptualizing a project called ‘Kannada Kaliyiri.’ This aims to help migrants to learn Kannada through a visual medium and the entire idea behind is fresh and new-fangled.
Thanks to Sakshi Gaggar for Conceptualizing ‘Kannada Kaliyiri’
In a diverse country like India, if you have to fill those tiny communication gaps then learning a local language helps in a big way. Sakshi believes that simple and rounded tools like this can inspire people to learn the language and she also considers that Hindi would be a bridge language for people to learn Kannada.
Kannada Kaliyiri is for Nontech-savvy People
Yes, Sakshi found through her research that online tools are not helping and somewhere, people are finding it difficult to grasp the nuances. So, Sakshi came up with this idea where people can experience something beyond digital and experience fun, and a seamless learning.
Sakshi’s Kannada Kaliyiri includes the following:
Kannada – Hindi Manual
This actually helps because the manual translates Kannada words to Hindi, and Hindi to Kannada. It is beautifully designed where you can see the words based on their first letter, which further breaks down across ten categories – pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, time relation, number, food articles, greetings, and questions. Sakshi has thoughtfully designed this which encourages people to get the basics right thereby creating their own sentences.
Kannada Varnamala / Reading Chart
This is not a usual Varnamala we see but a fun-filled alphabet series that co-relates the object that begins with it. For an instance, if there is a word called ‘Mother’ then you can see an illustration of a woman holding a child. So, this way it helps the learners to catch the words with ease. Also, the chart contains vowels and consonants.
GIF Series
GIF series is a combination of letters and images that will take a loop. Sakshi thinks that this would work well as a screen display in a public place.
In a nut-shell, Kannada Kaliyiri is a book, a chart, and a bunch of GIFs (if implemented in Public places) which helps the migrants to learn the language with ease. It is said that Sakshi has tested this initiative in her peer group and found the results to be positive, and encouraging.
So, a Non-Kannadiga learning the language and coming up with a project like this is truly an inspiring one. Isn’t it? It is not that you have to learn the language but when you learn it, you can be a part of their culture and tradition.
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