Karnataka government warns of legal action on Kannada row, Google apologizes

BENGALURU: Google on Thursday apologised to people of Karnataka for hurting their sentiments following an outrage triggered by a search result that showed Kannada to be the country's “ugliest language”. It also said the search result did not reflect its opinion.
“We apologise for the misunderstanding and hurting any sentiments,” Google said in a tweet in Kannada.

"Sometimes, the way content is described on the Internet can yield surprising results to specific queries. We know this is not ideal, but we take swift corrective action when we are made aware of an issue and are continually working to improve our algorithms," a Google representative said.
The search result showed up in response to the query 'ugliest language in India'. It soon went viral and triggered a backlash aimed at Google.
The state's IT department had also threatened to issue a legal notice to Google. Kannada & culture minister Aravind Limbavali earlier told reporters that a legal notice would be served to Google for showing such an answer to that question.

He also took to Twitter to demand an apology from Google. Others including BJP's Bengaluru Central MP PC Mohan slammed Google and asked it to apologise. BJP national general secretary CT Ravi tweeted, "Dear @GoogleIndia, Rev. Ferdinand Kittel from Germany produced the first ever Kannada-English dictionary after working on it for 24 years. Ptolemy mentioned Kannada in his treatise. How can Kannada be an ugly language? I am glad you removed the offensive search result."

Several Kannadigas took to social media to express their anguish and highlighted the significance of the language. "Kannada language has a history of its own, having come into existence about 2,500 years ago. The language has been the pride of Kannadigas through the ages. Eight persons from Karnataka have also won the prestigious Jnanpith Award,'' wrote a journalist on Facebook.