Malayalam script
Brahmic script used commonly to write the Malayalam language
Malayalam script (Malayāḷa lipi; IPA: [mələjaːɭə lipi] / Malayalam: മലയാളലിപി) is a Brahmic abugida used to write Malayalam, the principal language of Kerala, India, spoken by 45 million people. Malayalam is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of the official scripts of India.
The Malayalam script resembles Tulu script and Tigalari script, used to write the Tulu language, spoken in coastal Karnataka (Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts) and the northernmost Kasargod district of Kerala. 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 a Vatteluttu alphabet extended with symbols from the Grantha alphabet to represent Indo-Aryan loanwords.
The script is also used to write several minority languages such as Paniya, Betta Kurumba, and Ravula. The Malayalam language itself has been historically written in several different scripts.
History
Malayalam was first written in Vattezhuthu script, an ancient script of Tamil and Malayalam languages.
The public source identifies “Malayalam script” as brahmic script used commonly to write the Malayalam language. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Malayalam, script and Brahmic.
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This entry incorporates text from “Malayalam script” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.