Malayalam script

Vowel letters and vowel signs

The following tables show the independent vowel letters and the corresponding dependent vowel signs (diacritics) of the Malayalam script, with romanizations in ISO 15919, transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

r̥, r̥̄, l̥, l̥̄, used to write Sanskrit words, are treated as vowels. They are called semi-vowels and are phonetically closer to vowels in Malayalam and in Classical Sanskrit where Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian, groups them with vowel sounds in his sutras. (see Proto-Indo-European language and Vedic Sanskrit). The letters and signs for r̥̄, l̥, l̥̄ are very rare, and are not considered as part of the modern orthography.^[25]

The vowel signs ā, i, ī are placed to the right of a consonant letter to which it is attached. The vowel signs e, ē, ai are placed to the left of a consonant letter. The vowel signs o and ō 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 signs u, ū, r̥ are simply placed to the right of the consonant letter, while they often make consonant-vowel ligatures in the traditional orthography.

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]

Visargam

A visargam (വിസർഗം, visargam), or visarga, represents a consonant /h/ after a vowel, and is transliterated as ḥ. Like the anusvara, it is a special symbol, and is never followed by an inherent vowel or another vowel.

Basic consonant letters

The following tables show the basic consonant letters of the Malayalam script, with romanizations in ISO 15919, transcriptions in IPA, and Unicode CHARACTER NAMES. The character names used in the report of the Government of Kerala committee (2001) are shown in lowercase italics when different from Unicode character names.^[25] Those alternative names are based on the traditional romanization used by the Malayali people. For example, tha in "Thiruvananthapuram" is neither ISO tha nor Unicode THA, but tha in this sense (ത). The ISCII (IS 13194:1991) character names are given in parentheses when different from the above.

As virama

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, ക ka → ക് k). This kind of diacritic is common in Indic scripts, generically called virama in Sanskrit, or halant in Hindi.

Half-u

At the end of a word, the same symbol sometimes represents a very short vowel, known as "half-u", or "samvruthokaram" (സംവൃതോകാരം, saṁvr̥tōkāram), or kuṯṯiyal 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 as ŭ (for example, ന na → ന് nŭ). Optionally, a vowel sign u is inserted, as in നു് (= ന +  ു +  ്). According to one author, this alternative form is historically more correct, though the simplified form without a vowel sign u is common nowadays.^[36] This means that the same spelling ന് may represent either n or nŭ depending on the context. Generally, it is nŭ at the end of a word, and n elsewhere; നു് always represents nŭ.

The virama of Tigalari 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 example നു് is written as नॖ.

Consonant ligatures

Like in other Indic scripts, a virama is used in the Malayalam script to cancel—or "kill"—the inherent vowel of a consonant letter and represent a consonant without a vowel, so-called a "dead" consonant. For example,

1. ന is a consonant letter na,
2. ് is a virama; therefore,
3. ന്‌ (na + virama) represents a dead consonant n.

If this n ന്‌ is further followed by another consonant letter, for example, ma മ, the result may look like ന്‌മ, which represents nma as na + virama + ma. In this case, two elements n ന്‌ and ma മ are simply placed one by one, side by side. Alternatively, nma can be also written as a ligature ന്മ.

Generally, when a dead consonant letter C₁ and another consonant letter C₂ are conjoined, the result may be either:

1. A fully conjoined ligature of C₁+C₂;
2. Half-conjoined—
   • C₁-conjoining: a modified form (half form) of C₁ attached to the original form (full form) of C₂
   • C₂-conjoining: a modified form of C₂ attached to the full form of C₁; or
3. Non-ligated: full forms of C₁ and C₂ with a visible virama.^[39]

If the result is fully or half-conjoined, the (conceptual) virama which made C₁ dead becomes invisible, only logically existing in a character encoding scheme such as Unicode. If the result is non-ligated, a virama is visible, attached to C₁. The glyphs for nma 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 word palaeography does not change even if it is spelled palæography, with the ligature æ.

Dot reph

In the traditional orthography, a dead consonant r before a consonant sometimes takes an above-base form, known as a dot reph, which looks like a short vertical line or a dot. Generally, a chillu-r is used instead of a dot reph in the reformed orthography.

• r ര് + ga ഗ = rga ൎഗ (Reformed: ർഗ)
• r ര് + ja ജ = rja ൎജ (Reformed: ർജ)

Consonant-vowel ligatures

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 Sanskrit कॢप्त which was loaned into Malayalam as കൢപ്തം.

Consonant-consonant ligatures

Although there are consonant-consonant ligatures used even now like ന്ത and ണ്ട 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 the ്ര was attached to the main consonant, now its detached and placed to the left.

Archaic viramas

Before chandrakkala was made, there were two other viramas used simultaneously, the vertical bar virama ഻ and circular virama ഼. 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 reph ൎ since they look similar but both of them are used for different purposes (see above for dot reph).^[40]

Chandrabindu

ഁ 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]

Other Anusvaras

ഄ was used like the Devanagari ꣳ and contrasts with the normal anusvara.^[42] ഀ was not really used in Malayalam but was used in the Grantha script, in it the normal anusvara ം represents gemination of the next consonant and this anusvara represents an actual linguistic anusvara. Both are archaic.^[43]