Numerous consonants have their own origin from the Dravidian languages like "kha" "gha" "dha" and "jha". These are derived from the Tigalari alphabet. Dialects Tulu language has four dialects, which are broadly similar, with slight variations. The four dialects are: Common Tulu Spoken by the majority includes the Bunts, Billava, Mogaveera, Tulu Madivala (Madialnakl), Tulu Gowda, Kulala, Devadiga, Jogi, Padmashali communities and others. This is the dialect of commerce, trade and entertainment and is mainly used for inter-community communication. It is further subdivided into seven groups: Northwest Tulu: spoken in Udupi Central Tulu: spoken in Mangalore Northeast Tulu: spoken in Karkala and Belthangady Northern Tulu: spoken in Kundapura, also known as KundaTulu because of Kundagannada dialect influence Southwest Tulu: spoken in Manjeshwar and Kasaragod, known as Kasaragod Tulu influencing Malayalam Southcentral Tulu: spoken in Bantwal Southeast Tulu: Spoken in Puttur Sullia and in some villages/Taluks of Coorg (Kodagu). Southern Tulu: spoken in South of Kasaragod and Payaswini (Chandragiri) river influencing Malayalam known as Thenkaayi Tulu Brahmin Tulu Spoken by the Tulu Brahmins who are subdivided into Shivalli Brahmins, Sthanika Brahmins and Tuluva Hebbars. It is more influenced by Sanskrit. Jain dialect Spoken by the Tulu Jains. It is a dialect where the initial letters 'T' and 'S' have been replaced by the letter 'H'. For example, the word is pronounced as , is pronounced as . Adivasi dialect Spoken by the Koraga, Mansa, and other tribals of Tulu Nadu Phonology Vowels Five short and five long vowels (a, ā, e, ē, u, ū, i, ī, o, ō) are common in Dravidian languages. Like Kodava Takk (and also like Konkani and Sinhala), Tulu also has an like vowel, generally occurring word-finally which is from the old ai. The Kannada script does not have a symbol to specifically represent this vowel, which is often written as a normal e. For example, the first person singular form and the third person singular masculine of a verb are spelled identically in all tenses, both ending in e, but are pronounced differently: the terminating e in the former sounds nearly like ‘a’ in the English word ‘man’ ( , "I make"), while that in the latter like ‘e’ in ‘men’ ( , "he makes"). In his grammar of 1932, S. U. Paniyadi used a special vowel sign to denote Tulu /ɛ/ in the Kannada script: according to Bhat, he used two s for this purpose