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Malayalam is one of the 23 official languages of India. Native
to Kerala it is widely spoken in southern coastal region
including Lakshadweep, Mahé (Mayyazhi), Kodagu (Coorg) and
areas of Tamil Nadu bordering Kerala with about 35 million
speakers of the language. A native speaker of Malayalam is
known as 'Malayali'. Malayam is commonly use in government,
commerce, and in mass communication of Malayalam speaking
region. It is also spoken outside India in the countries like,
Bahrain, Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore, Israel, Qatar, United Arab
Emirates, and the United Kingdom by approximately 400,000
speakers. Thus, it has nearly 36 million worldwide speakers.
Malayalam is known by a number of alternate
names/pronunciations also like, Alealum, Malayalani, Malayali,
Malean, Maliyadi, and Mopla. Malayalam is most closely related
to Tamil from which it separated about the 10th century AD.
Other related languages of Malayalam are Aranadan, Kadar, and
Ravula. Kerala is the state with 100% literacy rate hence,
Malayalam boasts to have highest literate speakers than any
other language speakers in India. |
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Malayalam is a Dravidian language that belongs to the Southern
subfamily of the language. It is closely related to Tamil from
which it separated in 10th century AD. The earliest
literary composition in the language is from the 13th century.
Like other major Dravidian languages, Malayalam has a number
of regional and social dialects that marked distinctions in
formal and informal usage of the language. The main dialects
are, Malabar, Nagari, South Kerala, Central Kerala, North
Kerala, Kayavar, Namboodiri, Moplah, Pulaya, Nasrani and Nayar.
Malayalam has its own writing script known as Vatteluttu,
which is a combination of Sanskrit alphabets and special
Dravidian letters.
It is a symboilc script
written from left to right on horizo
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