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Malayalam Script

 
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The Malayalam script is an abugida
Abugida

An 'abugida' is a segment writing system which is based on consonants but in which vowel notation is obligatory. About half the writing systems in the world are abugidas, including the extensive Brahmic family of scripts used in South and Southeast Asia....
 of the Brahmic family
Brahmic family

The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, descended from the Brahmi script....
, used to write the Malayalam language
Malayalam language

Malayalam is a Dravidian language used predominantly in the States and territories of India of Kerala, in South India India. It is one of the 22 List of national languages of India, and it is used by around 36 million people....
. From the Brahmi script, the Grantha script emerged as one of the earliest Southern scripts. It further evolved into the Malayalam script. Early Malayalam was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Tamil. Earliest records of the Malayalam writing system include inscriptions on rock and metallic plates from around 10th century CE . Nowadays, written Malayalam is widely used in the press of the Malayali population in Kerala, India.






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The Malayalam script is an abugida
Abugida

An 'abugida' is a segment writing system which is based on consonants but in which vowel notation is obligatory. About half the writing systems in the world are abugidas, including the extensive Brahmic family of scripts used in South and Southeast Asia....
 of the Brahmic family
Brahmic family

The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, descended from the Brahmi script....
, used to write the Malayalam language
Malayalam language

Malayalam is a Dravidian language used predominantly in the States and territories of India of Kerala, in South India India. It is one of the 22 List of national languages of India, and it is used by around 36 million people....
. From the Brahmi script, the Grantha script emerged as one of the earliest Southern scripts. It further evolved into the Malayalam script. Early Malayalam was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Tamil. Earliest records of the Malayalam writing system include inscriptions on rock and metallic plates from around 10th century CE . Nowadays, written Malayalam is widely used in the press of the Malayali population in Kerala, India.

Malayalam is traditionally written from left to right and each character represents a syllable though modifications in modern times have incorporated alphabetic elements into the script. During 1970-1980, a simplified script of Malayalam emerged in which the diacritics were linearized so that complex characters could be organized from left to right to simplify typesetting in printing presses. Further modifications also broke up consonant clusters into more atomic characters. Though both these modifications aim to make the script more alphabetic, the changes are not consistent across all of the characters.


The characters are classified into two categories: swarams (or vowel
Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
s) and vyanjanams (or consonant
Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
s). Swarams include 5 long and short vowels (a,i,e,o,u) and two additional symbols: the enuciative vowel /?/ and the marginal segement found in english borrow words. Vowels also occur in phonetic dipthongs though only two are expressed as unitary symbols (/ai/ and /au/). vyanjanams include stops, fricative, nasals, liquids and glides.

In the Malayalam Script, there are many ways to form words. In the most straightforward case, svaram and vyanjanam character can be strung together to form words. Often, it is more complicated because svaram characters are used only when a word begins with a vowel and vyanjanam characters are used to signify a consonant and a vowel.


Stop and fricative consonants do not occur in the final position of words. Certain nasal consonants do (m, n) and can end words depending on the dialect. Consonants all can occur in the initial position of a word except for .

Vowels

Letter Vowel sign Vowel with [p] Unicode name IPA Remarks
? ? (pa) A a short 'a'
? ? ?? (pa) AA a? long 'a'
? ? ?? (pi) I i short 'i'
? ? ?? (pi) II i? long 'i'
? ? ?? (pu) U u short 'u'
? ? ?? (pu) UU u? long 'u'
? ? ?? (pr) VOCALIC R  
?   (pr) LONG VOCALIC R Obsolete/rarely used
?   VOCALIC L obsolete/rarely used
?   LONG VOCALIC L obsolete/rarely used
? ? ?? (pe) E e short 'e'
? ? ?? (pe) E e? long 'e'
? ? ?? (pai) AI ai  
? ? ?? (po) O o short 'o'
? ? ?? (po) OO o? long 'o'
? ? ?? (pau) AU au  
??   (pum) UM um  
??   (pah) AH ah  


It is important to note the vowel duration as it is can be used to differentiate words that would otherwise be the same. For example, /kalam/ means "earthernware pot" while /kaalam/ means "time" or "season".

Consonants


There is no distinction of case, i.e. no uppercase and lowercase letters. Diacritics, or vowel signs, are used to associate a vowel to a consonant though with some vowels such as "u" and "u" are irregular with certain consonants. When no diacritic is used, the vowel sound 'a' is assumed. To denote the absence of a vowel specifically, a chandrakkala (also called virama) is used.


Other symbols

Symbol Name Function
? virama
Virama

Virama, or virama, is a generic term for the diacritic in many Brahmic scripts that is used to suppress the inherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter....
 or chandrakkala		 denotes the absence of a vowel
? anusvara
Anusvara

Anusvara is the diacritic used to mark a type of nasalization used in a number of Indic languages. Depending on the location of the anusvara in the word, and on the language within which it is used, its exact pronunciation can vary greatly....
 nasalizes the preceding vowel
? visarga
Visarga

Visarga is a Sanskrit word meaning "sending forth, discharge". In Sanskrit phonology , is the name of a Phone , , written as IAST , Harvard-Kyoto , Devanagari ....
 adds voiceless breath after vowel (like h)


In addition to these symbols, there are many more symbols to indicate ligatures of the various consonants with each other.

Digits

Malayalam digits are written as follows:

Unicode for Malayalam


The Unicode
Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate Character expressed in most of the world's writing systems....
 range for Malayalam is U+0D00–U+0D7F. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points.

See also

  • List of alphabets
  • Grantha script
  • Arabi Malayalam
    Arabi Malayalam

    Arabi Malayalam is a system of writing Malayalam language in a variant form of Arabic script.The Arabic script has been modified to represent the peculiar sounds of Malayalam.Writing Malayalam in this script is mainly carried out in Malaysia and Singapore by the migrant Muslim community.It is also used to teach Malayalam in Madrassas of Kera...


External links

  • Web-based tool to transliterate from Romanised English to Unicode Malayalam
  • Virtual Learning Environment