| Malayalam script | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Script type | |
Period | c. 830 – present[1][2] |
| Direction | Left-to-right  |
| Languages | Malayalam Sanskrit Tulu Jeseri Konkani Paniya Betta Kurumba Ravula and other minor languages |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Egyptian
|
Sister systems | Tigalari script Thirke script Dhives Akuru Saurashtra script |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Mlym(347), Malayalam |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Malayalam |
| U+0D00–U+0D7F | |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
| Brahmic scripts |
|---|
| TheBrahmi script and its descendants |
Malayalam script (Malayāḷa lipi;IPA:[mɐlɐjaːɭɐliβ̞i][3][4] /Malayalam:മലയാളലിപി) is aBrahmic script used to writeMalayalam, the principal language ofKerala,India, spoken by 45 million people. It is aDravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories ofLakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by theMalayali people. It is one of theofficial scripts of the Indian Republic.[5][6]
The Malayalam script resemblesTulu script andTigalari script, used to write theTulu language, spoken incoastal Karnataka (Dakshina Kannada andUdupi districts) and the northernmostKasargod district of Kerala.[7] Like many Indic scripts, it is an alphasyllabary (abugida), a writing system that is partially "alphabetic" and partially syllable-based. The modern Malayalam alphabet has 15 vowel letters, 42 consonant letters, and a few other symbols. The Malayalam script is aVatteluttu alphabet extended with symbols from theGrantha alphabet to representIndo-Aryan loanwords.[8]The script is also used to write several minority languages such asPaniya,Betta Kurumba, andRavula.[9] The Malayalam language itself has been historically written in several different scripts.
Malayalam was first written inVattezhuthu script, an ancient script ofTamil andMalayalam languages. Modern Malayalam script evolved from theGrantha alphabet, andVattezhuthu, both of which evolved independently fromTamil-Brahmi script.
Vatteluttu (Malayalam:വട്ടെഴുത്ത്,romanized: Vaṭṭeḻuttŭ,lit. 'round writing') is a script that had evolved from Tamil-Brahmi and was once used extensively in the southern part of present-dayTamil Nadu and inKerala. TheVazhappally inscription issued byRajashekhara Varman is the earliest example, dating from about 830 CE.[1][2] During the medieval period, theTigalari script that was used for writingTulu inSouth Canara, andSanskrit in the adjacentMalabar region, was very similar to the modern Malayalam script.[7] In the Tamil state, the modernTamil script had supplanted Vattezhuthu by the 15th century, but in theMalabar region, Vattezhuthu remained in general use up to the 17th century,[10] or the 18th century.[11] A variant form of this script,Kolezhuthu, was used until about the 19th century mainly in theMalabar-Cochin area.[12] Another variant form,Malayanma, was used in the south ofThiruvananthapuram.[12]
According toArthur Coke Burnell, one form of the Grantha alphabet, originally used in theChola dynasty, was imported into the southwest coast of India in the 8th or 9th century, and then modified in course of time in this secluded area, where communication with the east coast was very limited.[13] It later evolved into Tigalari-Malayalam script was used by theMalayali, Havyaka Brahmins and Tulu Brahmin people, but was originally only used to writeSanskrit. This script split into two scripts: Tigalari and Malayalam. While Malayalam script was extended and modified to write vernacular language Malayalam, the Tigalari was written for Sanskrit only.[13][14] In Malabar, this writing system was termed Arya-eluttu (ആര്യ എഴുത്ത്,Ārya eḻuttŭ),[15] meaning "Arya writing" (Sanskrit isIndo-Aryan language while Malayalam is aDravidian language).
Vatteluttu was in general use, but was not suitable for literature where many Sanskrit words were used. Like Tamil-Brahmi, it was originally used to writeTamil, and as such, did not have letters for voiced or aspirated consonants used in Sanskrit but not used in Tamil. For this reason, Vatteluttu and the Grantha alphabet were sometimes mixed, as in theManipravalam. One of the oldest examples of the Manipravalam literature,Vaishikatantram (വൈശികതന്ത്രം,Vaiśikatantram), dates back to the 12th century,[16][17] where the earliest form of the Malayalam script was used, which seems to have been systematised to some extent by the first half of the 13th century.[1][11]
Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan is credited with developing Malayalam script into its current form through the intermixing and modification ofVatteluttu,Kolezhuthu, andGrantha script, which were used to write the inscriptions and literary works of Old and Middle Malayalam.[18] He further eliminated excess and unnecessary letters from the modified script.[18] Hence, Ezhuthachan is also known asThe Father of modern Malayalam.[18] The development of modern Malayalam script was also heavily influenced by theTigalari script, which was used to write theTulu language, due to the influence ofTuluva Brahmins in Kerala.[18]
Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, a poet from around the 16th century,[19] used Arya-eluttu to write his Malayalam poems based on Classical Sanskrit literature.[13] For a few letters missing in Arya-eluttu (ḷa,ḻa,ṟa), he used Vatteluttu. The popularity of his works caused the Malayali people to call him the father of the Malayalam language, which also popularised Arya-eluttu as a script to write Malayalam. Grantha did not have distinctions betweene andē, and betweeno andō, as it was as an alphabet to write a Sanskrit language. The Malayalam script as it is today was modified in the middle of the 19th century whenHermann Gundert invented the new vowel signs to distinguish them.[13]
By the 19th century, old scripts like Kolezhuthu had been supplanted by Arya-eluttu – that is the current Malayalam script. It is now widely used in the Malayali press in Kerala.[20]
In 1961, theGovernment of Kerala reformed theorthography of Malayalam by a government order to the education department.[21][22] The objective was to simplify the script for print and typewriting technology of that time, by reducing the number of glyphs required. In 1967, the government appointed a committee headed bySooranad Kunjan Pillai, who was the editor of the Malayalam Lexicon project. It reduced the number of glyphs required for Malayalam printing from around 1000 to around 250. Above committee's recommendations were further modified by another committee in 1969.
This proposal was later accepted by major newspapers in January 1971. The reformed script came into effect on 15 April 1971 (theKerala New Year), by a government order released on 23 March 1971.
In the traditional orthography that had been taught in the primary education system before the reforms, any consonant or consonant ligature followed by the vowel signu,ū, orr̥ were represented by a cursive consonant-vowel ligature. The glyph of each consonant had its own way of ligating with these vowel signs. This irregularity was simplified in the reformed script.[23] Thus, a vowel sign or consonant sign would always have a disconnected symbol that did not fuse with the base consonant.
Examples:
Also, most of traditional consonant-consonant ligatures, especially the less common ones only used to write words of Sanskrit origin, were split into non-ligated forms with explicitchandrakkala. For example:
Any consonant or consonant ligature followed by the conjoiningra is represented by a cursive tail attached to the consonant or the consonant-ligature. In the reformed script, this consonant sign would be disconnected from the base and represented as a left-bracket like symbol placed on the left side of the cluster.
Today the reformed orthography, is commonly calledput̪iya lipi (Malayalam:പുതിയ ലിപി) and traditional system,pazhaya lipi (Malayalam:പഴയ ലിപി).[24] Current print media almost entirely uses reformed orthography. The state-run primary education introduces the Malayalam writing to the pupils in reformed script only and the books are printed accordingly. However, the digital media uses both traditional and reformed in almost equal proportions as the fonts for both the orthographies are commonly available.
The basic characters can be classified as follows:
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 adiacritic 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. Thephoneme /a/ that follows a consonant by default is called aninherent vowel. In Malayalam, its phonetic value isunrounded[ɐ],[3] or[ə] as anallophone. To denote a pure consonant sound not followed by a vowel, a special diacriticvirama is used to cancel the inherent vowel. The following are examples where a consonant letter is used with or without a diacritic.
Malayalam alphabet isunicase, or does not have acase 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 wordകേരളം (Kēraḷam), the vowel signേ (ē) visually appears in the leftmost position, though the vowelē logically follows the consonantk.
The following tables show the independent vowel letters and the corresponding dependent vowel signs (diacritics) of the Malayalam script, withromanizations inISO 15919, transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
| Short | Long | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Independent | Dependent | Indep. | Dependent | |||
| Vowel sign | Example | Vowel sign | Example | |||
| a | അa /a/ | (none) | പpa /pa/ | ആā /aː/ | ാ | പാpā /paː/ |
| i | ഇi /i/ | ി | പിpi /pi/ | ഈī /iː/ | ീ | പീpī /piː/ |
| u | ഉu /u/ | ു | പുpu /pu/ | ഊū /uː/ | ൂ | പൂpū /puː/ |
| r̥ | ഋr̥ /rɨ/ | ൃ | പൃpr̥ /prɨ/ | ൠr̥̄ /rɨː/ | ൄ | പൄpr̥̄ /prɨː/ |
| l̥ | ഌl̥ /lɨ/ | ൢ | പൢpl̥ /plɨ/ | ൡl̥̄ /lɨː/ | ൣ | പൣpl̥̄ /plɨː/ |
| e | എe /e/ | െ | പെpe /pe/ | ഏē /eː/ | േ | പേpē /peː/ |
| o | ഒo /o/ | ൊ | പൊpo /po/ | ഓō /oː/ | ോ | പോpō /poː/ |
r̥,r̥̄,l̥,l̥̄, used to writeSanskrit words, are treated as vowels. They are called semi-vowels and are phonetically closer to vowels in Malayalam and in Classical Sanskrit wherePanini, the Sanskrit grammarian, groups them with vowel sounds in his sutras. (seeProto-Indo-European language andVedic Sanskrit). The letters and signs forr̥̄,l̥,l̥̄ are very rare, and are not considered as part of the modern orthography.[25]
The vowel signsā,i,ī are placed to the right of a consonant letter to which it is attached. The vowel signse,ē,ai are placed to the left of a consonant letter. The vowel signso andō consist of two parts: the first part goes to the left of a consonant letter and the second part goes to the right of it. In the reformed orthography, the vowel signsu,ū,r̥ are simply placed to the right of the consonant letter, while they often make consonant-vowel ligatures in the traditional orthography.
| Independent | Dependent | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel sign | Example | ||
| ai | ഐai /ai̯/ | ൈ | പൈpai /pai̯/ |
| au | ഔau /au̯/ | ൌ (archaic) | പൌpau /pau̯/ |
| ൗ (modern) | പൗpau /pau̯/ | ||
It is important to note the vowel duration as it can be used to differentiate words that would otherwise be the same. For example,/kalam/ means "earthenware pot" while/kaːlam/ means "time" or "season".[26]
| aṁ | അംaṁ /am/ | ം m̐ /m/ | പംpaṁ /pam/ |
|---|
Ananusvaram (അനുസ്വാരംanusvāram), or ananusvara, originally denoted thenasalization where the preceding vowel was changed into anasalised vowel, and hence is traditionally treated as a kind of vowel sign. In Malayalam, however, it simply represents a consonant/m/ after a vowel, though this/m/ may beassimilated to anothernasal consonant. It is a special consonant letter, different from a "normal" consonant letter, in that it is never followed by an inherent vowel or another vowel. In general, ananusvara at the end of a word in an Indian language is transliterated asṁ inISO 15919, but a Malayalamanusvara at the end of a word is transliterated asm without a dot.
| aḥ | അഃaḥ /ah/ | ഃḥ /h/ | പഃpaḥ /pah/ |
|---|
Avisargam (വിസർഗം,visargam), orvisarga, represents a consonant/h/ after a vowel, and is transliterated asḥ. Like theanusvara, it is a special symbol, and is never followed by an inherent vowel or another vowel.
The following tables show the basic consonant letters of the Malayalam script, withromanizations inISO 15919, transcriptions inIPA, and UnicodeCHARACTER NAMES. The character names used in the report of the Government of Kerala committee (2001) are shown inlowercase italics when different from Unicode character names.[25] Those alternative names are based on the traditional romanization used by theMalayali people. For example,tha in "Thiruvananthapuram" is neither ISOtha nor UnicodeTHA, buttha in this sense (ത). TheISCII (IS 13194:1991) character names are given in parentheses when different from the above.
| Voiceless | Voiced | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unaspirated | Aspirated | Unaspirated | Aspirated | Nasal | |
| Velar | ക ka IPA:/ka/ KA | ഖ kha IPA:/kʰa/ KHA | ഗ ga IPA:/ɡa/ GA | ഘ gha IPA:/ɡʱa/ GHA | ങ ṅa IPA:/ŋa/ NGA |
| Postalveolar or Alveolo-palatal | ച ca IPA:/t͡ʃa/ CHA | ഛ cha IPA:/t͡ʃʰa/ CHHA | ജ ja IPA:/d͡ʒa/ JA | ഝ jha IPA:/d͡ʒʱa/ JHA | ഞ ña IPA:/ɲa/ NHA (nja) |
| Retroflex | ട ṭa IPA:/ʈa/ TTA (hard ta) | ഠ ṭha IPA:/ʈʰa/ TTHA (hard tha) | ഡ ḍa IPA:/ɖa/ DDA (hard da) | ഢ ḍha IPA:/ɖʱa/ DDHA (hard dha) | ണ ṇa IPA:/ɳa/ NNA (hard na) |
| Dental | ത ta IPA:/t̪a/ TA (soft ta) | ഥ tha IPA:/t̪ʰa/ THA (soft tha) | ദ da IPA:/d̪a/ DA (soft da) | ധ dha IPA:/d̪ʱa/ DHA (soft dha) | ന na IPA:/n̪a,na/ NA (soft na) |
| Labial | പ pa IPA:/pa/ PA | ഫ pha IPA:/pʰa/ PHA | ബ ba IPA:/ba/ BA | ഭ bha IPA:/bʱa/ BHA | മ ma IPA:/ma/ MA |
യ ya IPA:/ja/ YA | ര ra IPA:/ɾa/ RA | ല la IPA:/la/ LA | വ va IPA:/ʋa/ VA |
ശ śa IPA:/ɕa/ SHA | ഷ ṣa IPA:/ʂa/ SSA | സ sa IPA:/sa/ SA | ഹ ha IPA:/ha/[4] HA |
ള ḷa IPA:/ɭa/ LLA | ഴ ḻa IPA:/ɻa/ LLLA | റ ṟa IPA:/ra,ta/ RRA[note 1] | ഩ ṉa IPA:/na/ NNNA[note 2] | ഺ ṯa IPA:/ta/ TTTA[note 3] |
Achillu, or achillaksharam (ചില്ലക്ഷരം,cillakṣaram), is a special consonant letter that represents a pure consonant independently, without help of avirama. Unlike a consonant represented by an ordinary consonant letter, this consonant is never followed by an inherent vowel.Anusvara andvisarga fit this definition but are not usually included. ISCII and Unicode 5.0 treat achillu as a glyph variant of a normal ("base") consonant letter.[28] In Unicode 5.1 and later, however,chillu letters are treated as independent characters, encoded atomically.[29]
Six independent chillu letters (0D7A..0D7F) had been encoded in Unicode 5.1.,[29] three additional chillu letters (0D54..0D56) were encoded with the publication of Unicode 9.0.[30]
| Letter | Unicode name | Base | Remarks | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ൺ | CHILLU NN | ṇaണ | കൂൺ (kūṇ, "mushroom") | |
| ൻ | CHILLU N | ṉaഩ | Chillu of alveolar nasalṉa. | അവൻ (avaṉ, "he") |
| ർ | CHILLU RR | ṟaറ | Historically stood forraര, notṟaറ. | അവർ (avar̠, "they") |
| ൽ | CHILLU L | laല | In Sanskrit texts, this stands for finaltaത. | ഒടുവിൽ (oṭuvil, "finally"),തൽ (tat, Sanskrit "that") |
| ൾ | CHILLU LL | ḷaള | അവൾ (avaḷ, "she") | |
| ൿ | CHILLU K | kaക | Not in modern use | വാൿചാതുരി (vākcāturi, "fluency"),പൃഥൿ, (pr̥thak, Sanskrit "each") |
| ൔ | CHILLU M | maമ | Not in modern use | |
| ൕ | CHILLU Y | yaയ | Not in modern use | |
| ൖ | CHILLU LLL | ḻaഴ | Not in modern use |
The virama in Malayalam is called candrakkala (chandrakkala), it has two functions:[31][32][a]
Chandrakkala ് (ചന്ദ്രക്കല,candrakkala) is a diacritic attached to a consonant letter to show that the consonant is not followed by an inherent vowel or any other vowel (for example,കka →ക്k). This kind of diacritic is common in Indic scripts, generically calledvirama in Sanskrit, orhalant in Hindi.
At the end of a word, the same symbol sometimes represents a very short vowel, known as "half-u", or "samvruthokaram" (സംവൃതോകാരം,saṁvr̥tōkāram), orkuṟṟiyal ukaram (കുറ്റിയൽ ഉകരം).[34] The exact pronunciation of this vowel varies from dialect to dialect, but it is approximately[ɯ̽][35] or[ɨ], and transliterated asŭ (for example,നna →ന്nŭ). Optionally, a vowel signu is inserted, as inനു് (=ന + ു + ്). According to one author, this alternative form is historically more correct, though the simplified form without a vowel signu is common nowadays.[36] This means that the same spellingന് may represent eithern ornŭ depending on the context. Generally, it isnŭ at the end of a word, andn elsewhere;നു് always representsnŭ.
Thevirama ofTigalari script behave similarly to Malayalam. Virama has three functions: to suppress the inherent vowel (as the halant of Devanagari); to form conjunct consonants; to represent the half-u.[37][38]Devanagari supports half-u for Kashmiri; for exampleനു് is written asनॖ.
Like in otherIndic scripts, avirama is used in the Malayalam script to cancel—or "kill"—theinherent vowel of a consonant letter and represent a consonant without a vowel, so-called a "dead" consonant. For example,
If thisnന് is further followed by another consonant letter, for example,maമ, the result may look likeന്മ, which representsnma asna + virama +ma. In this case, two elementsnന് andmaമ are simply placed one by one, side by side. Alternatively,nma can be also written as aligatureന്മ.
Generally, when a dead consonant letter C1 and another consonant letter C2 are conjoined, the result may be either:
If the result is fully or half-conjoined, the (conceptual) virama which made C1 dead becomes invisible, only logically existing in acharacter encoding scheme such as Unicode. If the result is non-ligated, a virama is visible, attached to C1. The glyphs fornma has a visible virama if not ligated (ന്മ), but if ligated, the virama disappears (ന്മ). Usually the difference between those forms is superficial and both are semantically identical, just like the meaning of the English wordpalaeography does not change even if it is spelledpalæography, with the ligatureæ.
Several consonant-consonant ligatures are used commonly even in the new orthography.
| kka | ṅka | ṅṅa | cca | ñca | ñña | ṭṭa | ṇṭa | ṇṇa | tta | nta | nna | ppa | mpa | mma | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-ligated | ക്ക | ങ്ക | ങ്ങ | ച്ച | ഞ്ച | ഞ്ഞ | ട്ട | ണ്ട | ണ്ണ | ത്ത | ന്ത | ന്ന | പ്പ | മ്പ | മ്മ |
| Ligated | ക്ക | ങ്ക | ങ്ങ | ച്ച | ഞ്ച | ഞ്ഞ | ട്ട | ണ്ട | ണ്ണ | ത്ത | ന്ത | ന്ന | പ്പ | മ്പ | മ്മ |
The ligaturempaമ്പ was historically derived fromnpaന്പ. The ligaturescca,bba,yya, andvva are special in that a doubled consonant is denoted by a triangle sign below a consonant letter.
| cca | bba | yya | vva | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-ligated | ച്ച | ബ്ബ | യ്യ | വ്വ |
| Ligated | ച്ച | ബ്ബ | യ്യ | വ്വ |
Inkyaക്യ, a variant form ofya (്യ) is placed after the full form ofkaക, just likekiകി is writtenkaക followed by the vowel signiി. In other words, the variant form ofya (്യ) used after a consonant letter can be considered as a diacritic. Since it is placed after the base character, it is sometimes referred to as apost-base form. An exception isyyaയ്യ (see above).
An exception isvvaവ്വ (see above).
The ligaturenṯa is written asnന് +ṟaറ and pronounced/nda/. The ligatureṯṯa is written asṟറ് +ṟaറ.
| nṯa | ṯṯa | |
|---|---|---|
| Non-ligated | ന്റ | റ്റ |
| Ligated | ന്റ | റ്റ |
| Digraph | ൻറ | ററ |
In those two ligatures, a smallṟaറ is written below the first letter (chillu-n if it is a deadn). Alternatively, the letterṟa is sometimes written to the right of the first letter, making adigraph (just likeωι used instead ofῳ in Greek). The spellingൻറ is therefore read eithernṟa (two separate letters) ornṯa (digraph) depending on the word like inഎൻറോൾ (en̠r̠ōḷ) 'enroll' orഹെൻറി (hen̠r̠i) 'Henry' butന്റ is always readnṯa. Similarly,ററ is read eitherṟaṟa orṯṯa.[29]
In the traditional orthography, a dead consonantr before a consonant sometimes takes an above-base form, known as adot reph, which looks like a short vertical line or a dot. Generally, achillu-r is used instead of a dot reph in the reformed orthography.
In the pre-1971 orthography, consonant + the vowels u, ū, r̥ were written as ligatures, post-1971 they are written with symbols after the letter. They can be still seen in old signs and used by people who learned to write before 1971.
r̥̄ l̥ l̥̄ (which are not part of modern orthography) were also written as ligatures but there were not any words with l̥̄ even in Sanskrit; r̥̄ was only used grammatically instead of r̥ in Sanskrit so it was not used either; there is only one root with l̥ in Sanskritकॢप्त which was loaned into Malayalam asകൢപ്തം.
Although there are consonant-consonant ligatures used even now likeന്ത andണ്ട almost all clusters were written as ligatures before 1971, most of the time the second consonant was written to the bottom right of the first consonant, in consonant + r clusters the്ര was attached to the main consonant, now its detached and placed to the left.
ഺ was made byA. R. Raja Raja Varma and it was not used as a single letter, in his orthographyറ്റ (ṯṯ) was written asഺ്ഺ andന്റ (ṉḏ) asഩ്ഺ.
Before chandrakkala was made, there were two other viramas used simultaneously, the vertical bar virama഻ and circular virama഼. The vertical bar virama was used exclusively for loanwords and circular virama just for native words. Before the vertical bar virama used to cut through the main consonant and it led to the creation of the chillu letters. It was sometimes confused with the dot rephൎ since they look similar but both of them are used for different purposes (see above for dot reph).[40]
ഁ was like the chandrabindu from other scripts and was used to nasalise the vowel; it was only used for writing Sanskrit and Prakrits. It is archaic.[41]
ഄ was used like the Devanagariꣳ and contrasts with the normal anusvara.[42]ഀ was not really used in Malayalam but was used in the Grantha script, in it the normal anusvaraം represents gemination of the next consonant and this anusvara represents an actual linguistic anusvara. Both are archaic.[43]
Malayalamnumeral system is archaic and no longer commonly used. Instead, the commonHindu-Arabic numeral system is followed.
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 100 | 1000 | 1⁄4 | 1⁄2 | 3⁄4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ൦ | ൧ | ൨ | ൩ | ൪ | ൫ | ൬ | ൭ | ൮ | ൯ | ൰ | ൱ | ൲ | ൳ | ൴ | ൵ |
Number "11" is written as "൰൧" and not "൧൧". "32" is written as "൩൰൨" similar to theTamil numeral system.
| 11 | 20 | 21 | 30 | 110 | 10,099 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ൰൧ | ൨൰ | ൨൰൧ | ൩൰ | ൱൰ | ൰൲൯൰൯ |
Suppose the number is "2013". It is read in Malayalam as "രണ്ടായിരത്തി പതിമൂന്ന്" (raṇḍāyiratti padimūnnu). It is split into :
Combine them together to get the Malayalam number "൨൲൰൩".[44]
| Praslesham | ഽ | Corresponds toDevanagariavagraha, used when a Sanskrit phrase containing anavagraha is written in Malayalam script. The symbol indicates theelision of the word-initial vowela after a word that ends inā,ē, orō, and is transliterated as an apostrophe (’), or sometimes as a colon + an apostrophe (:’). (Malayalam: പ്രശ്ലേഷം,praślēṣam) |
|---|---|---|
| Malayalam date mark | ൹ | Used in an abbreviation of a date. |
| Danda | । | Archaic punctuation marks used as full stops or for delimitingverses. |
| Double danda | ॥ |
The following text is Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
മനുഷ്യരെല്ലാവരും തുല്യാവകാശങ്ങളോടും അന്തസ്സോടും സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തോടും കൂടി ജനിച്ചിട്ടുള്ളവരാണ്. അന്യോന്യം ഭ്രാതൃഭാവത്തോടെ പെരുമാറുവാനാണ് മനുഷ്യന് വിവേകബുദ്ധിയും മനസാക്ഷിയും സിദ്ധമായിരിക്കുന്നത്.
man̠uṣyarellāvaruṁ tulyāvakāśaṅṅaḷōṭuṁ antassōṭuṁ svātantryattōṭuṅkūṭi jan̠icciṭṭuḷḷavarāṇŭ. an̠yōn̠yaṁ bhrātr̥bhāvattōṭe perumāṟuvān̠āṇŭ man̠uṣyan̠ŭ vivēkabuddhiyuṁ man̠asākṣiyuṁ siddhamāyirikkunnatŭ.
/manuʂjaɾelːaːʋaɾum t̪uljaːʋakaːʃaŋːaɭoːʈum an̪t̪asːoːʈum sʋaːt̪an̪tɾjat̪ːoːʈuŋkuːʈi d͡ʒanit͡ʃːiʈːuɭːaʋaɾaːɳɨ̆ ǁ anjoːnjam bʱraːt̪rɨ̆bʱaːʋat̪ːoːʈe peɾumaːruʋaːnaːɳɨ̆ manuʂjanɨ̆ ʋiʋeːkabud̪ːʱijum manasaːkʂijum sid̪ːʱamaːjiɾikːun̪ːat̪ɨ̆ ǁ/
Malayalam script was added to theUnicode Standard in October, 1991 with the release of version 1.0.
The Unicode block for Malayalam is U+0D00–U+0D7F:
| Malayalam[1][2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| U+0D0x | ഀ | ഁ | ം | ഃ | ഄ | അ | ആ | ഇ | ഈ | ഉ | ഊ | ഋ | ഌ | എ | ഏ | |
| U+0D1x | ഐ | ഒ | ഓ | ഔ | ക | ഖ | ഗ | ഘ | ങ | ച | ഛ | ജ | ഝ | ഞ | ട | |
| U+0D2x | ഠ | ഡ | ഢ | ണ | ത | ഥ | ദ | ധ | ന | ഩ | പ | ഫ | ബ | ഭ | മ | യ |
| U+0D3x | ര | റ | ല | ള | ഴ | വ | ശ | ഷ | സ | ഹ | ഺ | ഻ | ഼ | ഽ | ാ | ി |
| U+0D4x | ീ | ു | ൂ | ൃ | ൄ | െ | േ | ൈ | ൊ | ോ | ൌ | ് | ൎ | ൏ | ||
| U+0D5x | ൔ | ൕ | ൖ | ൗ | ൘ | ൙ | ൚ | ൛ | ൜ | ൝ | ൞ | ൟ | ||||
| U+0D6x | ൠ | ൡ | ൢ | ൣ | ൦ | ൧ | ൨ | ൩ | ൪ | ൫ | ൬ | ൭ | ൮ | ൯ | ||
| U+0D7x | ൰ | ൱ | ൲ | ൳ | ൴ | ൵ | ൶ | ൷ | ൸ | ൹ | ൺ | ൻ | ർ | ൽ | ൾ | ൿ |
| Notes | ||||||||||||||||
For example,avanഅവൻ ("he") is written asaഅ +vaവ +chillu-nൻ, wherechillu-n represents then sound without a vowel. In other Indic scripts, the same word would be possibly written asa +va +na + virama. However, in Malayalam script, that sequence represents a different word,avanŭഅവന് ("to him"), and is not interchangeable withavan.[45] This is because in modern Malayalam script, the sign for a virama also works as the sign for avowelŭ at the end of a word, and is not able to cleanly "kill" the inherent vowel in this case.[35]
To differentiate a pure consonant (chillu) and a consonant withŭ,zero-width joiner (ZWJ) andzero-width non-joiner (ZWNJ) were used before Unicode 5.1.[28] However, this system was problematic. Among other things, glyph variants specified by ZWJ or ZWNJ are supposed to be non-semantic, whereas achillu (expressed as letter + virama + ZWJ) and the same consonant followed by aŭ (expressed as letter + virama + ZWNJ) are oftensemantically different. After a long debate,[35][36] Ninechillu letters now have their owncode points since Unicode 9.0 (though only 5 of them are used in modern Malayalam), though applications should also be prepared to handle data in the representation specified in Unicode 5.0.[29] This means, fonts should display chillus in both sequences; while an input method should output standard chillus.
The ligaturenṯaന്റ is very common and supported by most Malayalam fonts in one way or another, but exactly how it should be encoded was not clear in Unicode 5.0 and earlier, and two incompatible implementations are currently in use.[46] In Unicode 5.1 (2008), the sequence to represent it was explicitly redefined aschillu-n + virama +ṟa (ൻ്റ).[29]ന്റ ligature is often considered to be the correct form to represent n̠d̠ asൻറ can also represent n̠r̠ but in many computers it is only shown withൻ +് +റ even though a chandrakkala cannot be after a chillu letter, other computers show it withന +് +റ. Some computers displayൻ്റ (ൻ +് +റ) andന്റ (ന +് +റ) differently.
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