Malayalam is spoken by people in Kerala, Laccadive Islands, and neighboring states. Also spoken in Bahrain, Fiji, Israel, Malaysia, Qatar, Singapore, UAE, United Kingdom. Malayalis (speakers of Malayalam), who - males and females alike - are almost totally literate, constitute 4 percent of the population of India and 96 percent of the population of Kerala. In terms of the number of speakers Malayalam ranks eights among the fifteen major languages of India. The word /malayALam/ originally meant mountainous country) (/mala/- mountain + /aLam/-place).It belongs to the family of Dravidian languages. Both the language and its writing system are closely related to Tamil. Malayalam has a script of its own. Tamil is its neighbor on the south and east and Kannada on the north and east.
Dialects: MALABAR, NAGARI-MALAYALAM, MALAYALAM, SOUTH KERALA, CENTRAL KERALA, NORTH KERALA, KAYAVAR, NAMBOODIRI, MOPLAH, PULAYA, NASRANI, NAYAR.
In the early thirteenth century /vattezhuthu/ (round writing) traceable to the pan-Indian brahmi script, gave rise to the Malayalam writing system, which is syllabic in the sense that the sequence of graphic elements means that syllables have to be read as units, though in this system the elements representing individual vowels and consonants are for the most part readily identifiable. In the 1960s Malayalam dispensed with many special letters representing less frequent conjunct consonants and combinations of the vowel /u/ with different consonants.
Malayalam now consists of 53 letters including 20 long and short vowels with the remaining being consonants. The earlier style of writing is now substituted with a new style from 1981. This new script reduces the different letters for typeset from 900 to less than 90. This was mainly done to include Malayalam in the keyboards of typewriters and computers.
Variations in intonation patterns, vocabulary, and distribution of grammatical and phonological elements are observable along the parameters of region, community, occupation, social stratum, style and register. Influence of Sanskrit is most prominent in the Brahimin dialects and least in the Harijan dialects. Loanwords from English, Syriac, Latin, and Portuguese abound in the Christian dialects and those from Arabic and Urdu in the muslim dialects. Malayalam has borrowed from Sanskrit thousands of nouns, hundreds of verbs and some indeclinables. Some items of basic vocabulary (eg/mukhum/ face, /nakham/ nail, /bhArya/ wife, bharthAvu/ husband) also have found their way into Malayalam from Sanskrit. English stands only second to Sanskrit in its influence in Malayalam. Hundreds of individual lexical items and may idiomatic expressions in modern Malayalam are of English origin.
Decimal | Hex | Name | |
---|---|---|---|
ം | 3330 | 0D02 | Malayalam Sign ANUSVARA |
ഃ | 3331 | 0D03 | Malayalam Sign VISARGA |
അ | 3333 | 0D05 | Malayalam Letter A |
ആ | 3334 | 0D06 | Malayalam Letter AA |
ഇ | 3335 | 0D07 | Malayalam Letter I |
ഈ | 3336 | 0D08 | Malayalam Letter II |
ഉ | 3337 | 0D09 | Malayalam Letter U |
ഊ | 3338 | 0D0A | Malayalam Letter UU |
ഋ | 3339 | 0D0B | Malayalam Letter VOCALIC R |
ഌ | 3340 | 0D0C | Malayalam Letter VOCALIC L |
എ | 3342 | 0D0E | Malayalam Letter E |
ഏ | 3343 | 0D0F | Malayalam Letter EE |
ഐ | 3344 | 0D10 | Malayalam Letter AI |
ഒ | 3346 | 0D12 | Malayalam Letter O |
ഓ | 3347 | 0D13 | Malayalam Letter OO |
ഔ | 3348 | 0D14 | Malayalam Letter AU |
ക | 3349 | 0D15 | Malayalam Letter KA |
ഖ | 3350 | 0D16 | Malayalam Letter KHA |
ഗ | 3351 | 0D17 | Malayalam Letter GA |
ഘ | 3352 | 0D18 | Malayalam Letter GHA |
ങ | 3353 | 0D19 | Malayalam Letter NGA |
ച | 3354 | 0D1A | Malayalam Letter CA |
ഛ | 3355 | 0D1B | Malayalam Letter CHA |
ജ | 3356 | 0D1C | Malayalam Letter JA |
ഝ | 3357 | 0D1D | Malayalam Letter JHA |
ഞ | 3358 | 0D1E | Malayalam Letter NYA |
ട | 3359 | 0D1F | Malayalam Letter TTA |
ഠ | 3360 | 0D20 | Malayalam Letter TTHA |
ഡ | 3361 | 0D21 | Malayalam Letter DDA |
ഢ | 3362 | 0D22 | Malayalam Letter DDHA |
ണ | 3363 | 0D23 | Malayalam Letter NNA |
ത | 3364 | 0D24 | Malayalam Letter TA |
ഥ | 3365 | 0D25 | Malayalam Letter THA |
ദ | 3366 | 0D26 | Malayalam Letter DA |
ധ | 3367 | 0D27 | Malayalam Letter DHA |
ന | 3368 | 0D28 | Malayalam Letter NA |
പ | 3370 | 0D2A | Malayalam Letter PA |
ഫ | 3371 | 0D2B | Malayalam Letter PHA |
ബ | 3372 | 0D2C | Malayalam Letter BA |
ഭ | 3373 | 0D2D | Malayalam Letter BHA |
മ | 3374 | 0D2E | Malayalam Letter MA |
യ | 3375 | 0D2F | Malayalam Letter YA |
ര | 3376 | 0D30 | Malayalam Letter RA |
റ | 3377 | 0D31 | Malayalam Letter RRA |
ല | 3378 | 0D32 | Malayalam Letter LA |
ള | 3379 | 0D33 | Malayalam Letter LLA |
ഴ | 3380 | 0D34 | Malayalam Letter LLLA |
വ | 3381 | 0D35 | Malayalam Letter VA |
ശ | 3382 | 0D36 | Malayalam Letter SHA |
ഷ | 3383 | 0D37 | Malayalam Letter SSA |
സ | 3384 | 0D38 | Malayalam Letter SA |
ഹ | 3385 | 0D39 | Malayalam Letter HA |
ാ | 3390 | 0D3E | Malayalam Vowel Sign AA |
ി | 3391 | 0D3F | Malayalam Vowel Sign I |
ീ | 3392 | 0D40 | Malayalam Vowel Sign II |
ു | 3393 | 0D41 | Malayalam Vowel Sign U |
ൂ | 3394 | 0D42 | Malayalam Vowel Sign UU |
ൃ | 3395 | 0D43 | Malayalam Vowel Sign VOCALIC R |
െ | 3398 | 0D46 | Malayalam Vowel Sign E |
േ | 3399 | 0D47 | Malayalam Vowel Sign EE |
ൈ | 3400 | 0D48 | Malayalam Vowel Sign AI |
ൊ | 3402 | 0D4A | Malayalam Vowel Sign O |
ോ | 3403 | 0D4B | Malayalam Vowel Sign OO |
ൌ | 3404 | 0D4C | Malayalam Vowel Sign AU |
് | 3405 | 0D4D | Malayalam Sign VIRAMA |
ൗ | 3415 | 0D57 | Malayalam AU LENGTH MARK |
ൠ | 3424 | 0D60 | Malayalam Letter VOCALIC RR |
ൡ | 3425 | 0D61 | Malayalam Letter VOCALIC LL |
൦ | 3430 | 0D66 | Malayalam Digit ZERO |
൧ | 3431 | 0D67 | Malayalam Digit ONE |
൨ | 3432 | 0D68 | Malayalam Digit TWO |
൩ | 3433 | 0D69 | Malayalam Digit THREE |
൪ | 3434 | 0D6A | Malayalam Digit FOUR |
൫ | 3435 | 0D6B | Malayalam Digit FIVE |
൬ | 3436 | 0D6C | Malayalam Digit SIX |
൭ | 3437 | 0D6D | Malayalam Digit SEVEN |
൮ | 3438 | 0D6E | Malayalam Digit EIGHT |
൯ | 3439 | 0D6F | Malayalam Digit NINE |