Knowra Malayalam Malayalam Malayalam is a Dravidian language spoken chiefly in Kerala, Lakshadweep, and parts of Puducherry. Its literary tradition and script developed alongside, but distinctly from, Tamil.
Malayalam script : The writing system used for Malayalam, descended from the ancient Brahmi script through the Grantha tradition. Its rounded letters and distinctive vowel signs give written Malayalam its recognizable form.
Old Malayalam : An early historical form of Malayalam attested in inscriptions and texts from around the ninth century onward. Its inscriptions document Malayalam’s emergence as a distinct language.
Malayalam literature : Literary writing in Malayalam, spanning poetry, drama, fiction, and criticism. Its works preserve and continually reshape the language’s expressive range.
Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan : A sixteenth-century Malayalam poet traditionally regarded as a major shaper of the language’s literary tradition. His devotional poems helped establish a durable literary style and scriptural vocabulary.
Kerala : A state on India’s southwestern coast, where Malayalam is the principal language. Kerala is the language’s main center of speakers, institutions, and publishing.
Malayalam grammar : The system of sounds, word formation, and sentence structure governing Malayalam. Agglutinative suffixes and subject–object–verb order shape how Malayalam expresses relationships.
Tamil-Malayalam languages : A proposed South Dravidian subgroup encompassing Tamil, Malayalam, and closely related historical varieties. The subgroup captures the close historical relationship from which Malayalam separated.
Malayalam cinema : The film industry and body of films produced primarily in Malayalam. Cinema makes Malayalam audible across genres and beyond Kerala.
Kunchan Nambiar : An eighteenth-century Malayalam poet known for developing the satirical performance genre Thullal. His accessible verse brought colloquial Malayalam into a celebrated literary form.
Lakshadweep : An Indian union territory of islands in the Arabian Sea, where Malayalam is widely spoken. Malayalam is used across most of the territory, alongside distinctive local varieties.
Show all 26