How Many Letters in Malayalam

Introduction

The modern malayalam alphabet has 56 letters and the alphabets are broken down into vowels and consonant letters such as 15 vowels and 42 consonant letters. The first part of the malayalam i.e. “mala” may refer to a hill and the last “alam” to the depth of the ocean. So the word ‘malayalam’ may refer to the land lying between the western ghats and the Arabian sea. At present malayalam is the official language of the Indian state of Kerala, union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry. It is also commonly spoken in Karnataka and Tamilnadu. The modern malayalam letter evolved from grantha and vattezhuthu alphabet both of which independently evolved from the tamil brahmi script.

Differentiation of Vowel Letters

Malayalam vowels also called swaraksharangal can be classified into independent and dependent vowels.

1. Independent vowels

Independent vowels are used at the beginning of a syllable.

2. Dependent vowels

Dependent vowels are used when the vowel follows a consonant.

Consonant Letters of Malayalam

Malayalam consonants are also known as vyanjanam.

History

The modern Malayalam script has its roots in the ancient Tamil-Brahmi script, which was used to write both Tamil and Malayalam languages. Over time, it evolved from the Grantha alphabet and Vattezhuthu, both of which also originated from the Tamil Brahmi script. In the Tamil region, the modern Tamil script replaced Vattezhuthu by the 11th century, but it continued to be widely used in the Malabar region up until the 17th century.

Vattezhuthu was primarily used to write Tamil and did not have letters for voiced or aspirated consonants commonly used in Sanskrit, but not in Tamil. This limitation led to the use of a mixed script, known as Manipravalam, which combined elements of Vattezhuthu and Grantha.

Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, a poet from around the 16th century, is credited with the development of the modern Malayalam script. He accomplished this by merging and modifying the previous scripts of Vattezhuthu, Kolezhuthu and Grantha, which were used to write inscriptions and literary works in old and middle Malayalam. He also eliminated excessive and unnecessary letters from the script. Hence, he is known as the father of modern Malayalam. Ezhuthachan also utilized the Arya-Eluru script to write his Malayalam poems, based on classical Sanskrit literature, for a few letters missing in Arya-Eluru to write Malayalam. However, Grantha script did not have distinctions between "e" and "ē" and between "o" and "ō" as it was an alphabet to write the Sanskrit language.

Recommendations by The Committees

1. Use non-ligating vowel sign for u, ū, and r̥

In the traditional orthography that had been taught in the primary education till that time, any consonant or consonant literature followed by a cursive consonant vowel ligature by the vowel of u, ū, and r̥are represented by a cursive consonant vowel literature. As per that a vowel sign or the consonants sign will be always have a disconnected symbol that does not fuse with the base consonant

Examples:

• ku: → കു

• kū: → കൂ

• kr̥: → കൃ

• nu: → നു

• śu: → ശു

2. Use non-ligating sign for conjoining ra

Any consonant ligature or consonant followed by the conjoining ra is represented by a cursive tail attached to the consonant-ligature or the consonant In the reformed script, this consonant sign will be disconnected from the base and represented as a left-bracket like symbol placed on the left side of the cluster.

Example:

• kra:ക‍്ര → ക‌്ര

• kru: ക‍്ര‍ു → ക‌്ര‌ു

3. Split uncommon conjuncts with Chandrakkala

Most of the traditional consonant-consonant ligatures, especially the less common ones only used to write words of Sanskrit origin, were split with explicit chandrakkala into non-ligated.

Examples:

• ഗ് gda = gda: -> ഗ്‌ദ

• ല്‌ l + ത ta = lta: -> ല്‌ത

• ശ് ś + ന na = śna: -> ശ്ന

• ശ് ś + മ ma = śma: -> ശ്മ

Unicode of Malayalam

Malayalam script was added to the Unicode Standard in October, with the release of version 1.0 in 1991.

Malayalam Vs English Sound

Notes

• Malayalam is spoken by over 34 million people around the world.

• The Malayalam language has a complex spoken and written grammar besides it differs a lot from English and other languages. That’s why we can say that Malayalam is the toughest language to learn.

• Malayalam script consists of a total of 578 characters. The script contains 52 letters including 16 vowels and 36 consonants which form 576 syllables

• Telugu has more letters in its alphabet than any other Indian language. There are 56 letters [18 vowels and 38 consonants, out of which 2 vowels & 2 consonants are removed].

The following are 52 core letters.

1. Achchulu అచ్చులు (vowels)

అ ఆ ఇ ఈ ఉ ఊ ఋ ౠ ఎ ఏ ఐ ఒ ఓ ఔ అం అః

2. Hallulu హల్లులు (consonants)

క ఖ గ ఘ ఙ

చ ఛ జ ఝ ఞ

ట ఠ డ ఢ ణ

త థ ద ధ న

ప ఫ బ భ మ

య ర ల వ శ

ష స హ ళ క్ష ఱ

Letters are removed as some words are lost (due to the influence of Sanskrit, then Urdu & now English) and our linguists currently don’t re-collect any words which use those letters.