Malayalam script

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Malayalam script

Type Abugida
Spoken languages Malayalam
Konkani
Time period c. 830[1][2]–present
Parent systems
Sister systems Tulu script
Tamil script
Sinhala script
Unicode range U+0D00–U+0D7F
ISO 15924 Mlym
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
Malayalam is written in a non-Latin script. Malayalam text used in this article is transliterated into the Latin script according to the ISO 15919 standard.
Brāhmī
The Brahmic script and its descendants


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The Malayalam script (Malayalam: മലയാളലിപി, Malayāḷalipi ^[?], pronounced [mɐləjaːɭɐ lɪβɪ]( listen)) is a Brahmic script used commonly to write the Malayalam language—which is the principal language of the Indian state of Kerala, spoken by 36 million people in the world.[3] Like many other Indic scripts, it is an abugida, or a writing system that is partially “alphabetic” and partially syllable-based. The modern Malayalam alphabet has 13 vowel letters, 36 consonant letters, and a few other symbols. Konkani, which actually means two individual languages (ISO 639-3: knn and gom), is also sometimes written in the Malayalam script,[4] though relatively rarely. The script is also used to write several minority languages such as Paniya, Betta Kurumba, and Ravula.[5] On the other hand, Malayalam was historically written in several different scripts. Even today it is sometimes written in Arabi Malayalam, a variant form of the Arabic script, mainly by Muslims in Singapore and Malaysia.[1]

Overview

Characteristics

The basic characters can be classified as follows:

• Vowels (സ്വരം, svaram)
  1. Independent vowel letters
  2. Dependent vowel signs
• Consonant letters (വ്യഞ്ജനം, vyañjanam)

An independent vowel letter is used as the first letter of a word that begins with a vowel. A consonant letter, despite its name, does not represent a pure consonant, but represents a consonant + a short vowel /a/ by default. For example, ക is the first consonant letter of the Malayalam alphabet, which represents /ka/, not a simple /k/. A vowel sign is a diacritic attached to a consonant letter to indicate that the consonant is followed by a vowel other than /a/. If the following vowel is /a/, no vowel sign is needed. The phoneme /a/ that follows a consonant by default is called an inherent vowel. In Malayalam, its phonetic value is unrounded [ɐ],[6] or [ə] as an allophone. To denote a pure consonant sound not followed by a vowel, a special diacritic virama is used to cancel the inherent vowel. The following are examples where a consonant letter is used with or without a diacritic.

• കി ki = ക ka + ി vowel sign i
• കു ku = ക ka + ു vowel sign u
• കൈ kai = ക ka + ൈ vowel sign ai
• ക് k = ക ka + ് virama
• ക ka = consonant letter ക ka itself, with no vowel sign

Malayalam alphabet is unicase, or does not have a case distinction. It is written from left to right, but certain vowel signs are attached to the left (the opposite direction) of a consonant letter that it logically follows. In the word Kēraḷa, the vowel sign ē visually appears in the leftmost position, though the vowel ē logically follows the consonant k.

History

The Malayalam language was first written in Vatteluttu, an ancient script for Tamil. However, modern Malayalam script evolved from Grantha, a script originally used to write Sanskrit. Both Vatteluttu and Grantha evolved from Brahmi, but independently.

Vatteluttu

Vatteluttu (Malayalam: വട്ടെഴുത്ത്, Vaṭṭeḻuttŭ ^[?], “round writing”) is a script that had evolved from Tamil-Brahmi, and was once used extensively in the southern part of present-day Tamil Nadu and in Kerala.

Malayalam was first written in Vatteluttu. The Vazhappalli inscription issued by Rajasekhara Varman is the earliest example, dating from about 830 CE.[1][2] In the Tamil country, the modern Tamil script had supplanted Vatteluttu by the 15th century, but in the Malabar region, Vatteluttu remained in general use up to the 17th century,[7] or the 18th century.[8] A variant form of this script, Kolezhuthu, was used until about the 19th century mainly in the Kochi area and in the Malabar area.[9] Another variant form, Malayanma, was used in the south of Thiruvananthapuram.[9]

Grantha