– two letters: anusvara and visarga ). The character set is almost identical to that of other Indian languages. The Kannada script is almost entirely phonetic, but for the sound of a "half n" (which becomes a half m). The number of written symbols, however, is far more than the forty-nine characters in the alphabet, because different characters can be combined to form compound characters (ottakshara). Each written symbol in the Kannada script corresponds with one syllable, as opposed to one phoneme in languages like English—the Kannada script is syllabic. Dictionary Kannada–Kannada dictionary has existed in Kannada along with ancient works of Kannada grammar. The oldest available Kannada dictionary was composed by the poet 'Ranna' called 'Ranna Kanda' (ರನ್ನ ಕಂದ) in 996 AD. Other dictionaries are 'Abhidhana Vastukosha' (ಅಭಿದಾನ ವಾಸ್ತುಕೋಶ) by Nagavarma (1045 AD), 'Amarakoshada Teeku' (ಅಮರಕೋಶದ ತೀಕು) by Vittala (1300), 'Abhinavaabhidaana' (ಅಭಿನವಾಭಿದಾನ) by Abhinava Mangaraja (1398 AD) and many more. A Kannada–English dictionary consisting of more than 70,000 words was composed by Ferdinand Kittel. G. Venkatasubbaiah edited the first modern Kannada–Kannada dictionary, a 9,000-page, 8-volume series published by the Kannada Sahitya Parishat. He also wrote a Kannada–English dictionary and a kliṣtapadakōśa (ಕ್ಲಿಷ್ಟಪಾದಕೋಶ), a dictionary of difficult words. Phonology Consonants Most consonants can be geminated. Aspirated consonants never occur in native vocabulary. The only exception is the number 9, which can be written with a /bʱ/, as in "ಒಂಭತ್ತು". However, it is usually written with a /b/, as in "ಒಂಬತ್ತು". The aspiration of consonants depends entirely on the speaker and many do not do it in non-formal situations. The alveolar trill /r/ may be pronounced as an alveolar tap [ɾ]. The voiceless retroflex sibilant /ʂ/ is commonly pronounced as a /ʃ/ except in consonant clusters with retroflex consonants. There are also the consonants /f, z/ which occur in recent English and Perso-Arabic loans but they may be replaced by the consonants /pʰ, dʒ/ respectively by speakers. Additionally, Kannada included the following phonemes, which dropped out of common usage in the 12th and 18th century respectively: // ಱ (ṟ), the alveolar trill. // ೞ (ḻ), the retroflex central approximant. Old Kannada had an archaic phoneme /ɻ/ under retroflexes in early inscriptions which merged with /ɭ/ and it maintained the contrast between /r/ (< PD ∗t̠) and /ɾ/ from (< PD ∗r). Both merged in Medieval Kannada. In old Kannada at around 10th-14th century, many of the initial /p/ debuccalized into a