The Malayalam script is an alphasyllabary consisting of 51 letters plus other characters including diacritic marks, and is one of the largest writing systems in India.
Read about the simplified script
Characteristics
- Abugida: All consonants have an inherent ‘a’ vowel. Diacritics or vowel markers can appear before, after, above or below a consonant.
- Direction: left to right
- Vowels: The vowels also have an independent form, and it is used when they appear at the beginning of a syllable.
- Conjuncts: Conjuncts occur when a consonants join together, some consonants have special markers which denotes their presence.
- Chillu: Chilleluttukal (ചില്ലെഴുത്തുകള്‍) is a special feature of Malayalam orthography. Chillus are independent pure consonants that lack the inherent vowel.
Vowels (ഉയിരെഴുത്തുകള്‍)
The Malayalam orthography includes 5 short vowels and 5 long vowels, two diphthongs and a rarely used (as seperate) Sanskrit vowel.
- ഋ, അം, അഃ, ഔ are Sanskrit loans.
- അഃ is rare in Malayalam, and native speakers do not pronounce the sound accurately.
Diphthongs
ഐ [ai] /ai/ - can be supplemented with അയി.
ഔ [ou] /ou/
Diacritics (vowel & diphthong markers)
| vowel | marker | vowel | marker |
|---|---|---|---|
| അ | no marker | ആ | ാ |
| ഇ | ി | ഈ | ീ |
| ഉ | ു | ഊ | ൂ |
| എ | െ | ഏ | േ |
| ഒ | ൊ | ഓ | ോ |
| ഐ | ൈ | ഔ | ൗ |
| ഋ | ൃ |
Consonants (മെയ്യഴുത്തുകള്‍)
There are 35 main consonants in Malayalam. Due to Sanskrit loan words Malayalam have aspirates, these are pronounced with a strong burst of breath. However, it is highly unlikely that you will hear a native speaker accurately pronouncing these aspirate consonants during a normal conversation.
Nasals
മ ന ണ ഞ ങ
-
It is to be noted that Malayalam is the only major Dravidian language that distinguishes the 6 Dravidian nasal sounds correctly.
-
ന includes two phonemes, dental na and alveolar na (as in ‘pan’). This difference has been preserved in all the earlier writing systems of Malayalam. Although there is a letter ഩ to denote the alveolar na, It is restricted to scholarly usage.
Chillu letters (ചില്ലെഴുത്തുകള്‍)
Chillu letters are pure consonants, and are widely used in Malayalam writing.
-
ന് is always an alveolar n.
Conjunct letters
Malayalam uses conjunct consonants. They are divided into geminates and non-geminates. All conjuncts are formed with a chandrakkala (virama) in theory. ക് + ക = ക്ക (kka).
-
Geminates : All consonants except aspirates, ര, ഴ, ഷ and ഹ has geminates.
-
Non-geminates: These are conjunct consonants formed when two different consonant sounds are pronounced together.
Common geminates
| consonant + virama | consonant | Conjunct |
|---|---|---|
| ക് | ക | ക്ക |
| ങ് | ങ | ങ്ങ |
| ച് | ച | ച്ച |
| ഞ് | ഞ | ഞ്ഞ |
| ട് | ട | ട്ട |
| ണ് | ണ | ണ്ണ |
| ത് | ത | ത്ത |
| ന് | ന | ന്ന |
| പ് | പ | പ്പ |
| മ് | മ | മ്മ |
| ല് | ല | ല്ല |
| ള് | ള | ള്ള |
| റ് | റ | റ്റ* |
*ṟ + ṟa (റ്റ) is pronounced as a ṯ in ‘ticket’
Common non-geminates
| consonant + virama | consonant | Conjunct |
|---|---|---|
| ങ് | ക | ങ്ക |
| ഞ് | ച | ഞ്ച |
| ണ് | ട | ണ്ട |
| ന് | ത | ന്ത |
| മ് | പ | മ്പ* |
| ന് | റ | ന്റ** |
*historically ന് (alveolar) + പ
**alveolar na + ṯ = nta
Vowel diacritics
| Consonant + virama | vowel | consonant |
|---|---|---|
| ക് | അ | ക |
| ക് | ഇ | കി |
| ക് | ഈ | കീ |
| ക് | ഉ | കു* |
| ക് | ഊ | കൂ* |
| ക് | ഋ | കൃ* |
| ക് | എ | കെ |
| ക് | ഏ | കേ |
| ക് | ഐ | കൈ |
| ക് | ഒ | കൊ |
| ക് | ഓ | കോ |
| ക് | ഔ | കൗ |
| ക് | അം/അമ് | കം |
| ക് | അഃ | കഃ |
*can change in form with the old lipi (old orthography) which is quite popular.
Consonant diacritics
Some consonants have their own markers like the vowels.
-
ക് + യ = ക്യ (kya)
-
പ് + ര = പ്ര (pra) / pronounced as pṟāvŭ (പ്റാവ് ) or prāvŭ. depends on the word.
-
ശ് + വ = ശ്വ (śva)
Other Notes
- Malayalam distinguishes half u (ŭ) from an absolute stop. This is crucial in spoken Malayalam. For example, ക്കണ് and ക്കണ് are pronounced as kkaṇŭ and kkaṇ respectively.
- When to use half u and full u? In Malayalam writing, if a word ending in half u is followed by a word starting in a vowel then the half u should be changed to a full u.
- While in Malayalam keeps a decent level of phonetic consistency, it is still has a lot of issues with how words are written and pronounced.