The National Film Award for Best Screenplay is one of the categories in the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in India. It is one of several awards presented for feature films and awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus). The award is announced for films produced in a year across the. Aug 05, 2018 Alphonse Puthren is an Indian film director, actor, editor, writer, and commercial ad maker. He made his directional debut with the critically acclaimed Tamil-Malayalam bilingual suspense-thriller Neram (2013). His second film was the blockbuster coming-of-age romantic film Premam (2015). More All Alphonse Puthren scripts Alphonse Puthren. Malayalam script used by the Malayali, Havyaka Brahmins and Tulu Brahmin people, but was originally only applied to write Sanskrit. This script split into two scripts: Tigalari and Malayalam. While Malayalam script was extended and modified to write the vernacular Malayalam language, Tigalari was used for Sanskrit only. In Malabar, this.
Updated 9 December, 2020
This page gathers basic information about the Malayalam script and its use for the Malayalam language. It aims (generally) to provide an overview of the orthography and typographic features, and (specifically) to advise how to write Malayalam using Unicode.
See also the companion document, Malayalam character notes, for detailed information about specific Unicode characters.
Phonetic transcriptions on this page should be treated as an approximate guide, only. Many are more phonemic than phonetic, and there may be variations depending on the source of the transcription.
More about using this pageRelated pages.Other script summaries.Sample (Malayalam)
Select part of this sample text to show a list of characters, with links to more details.
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വകുപ്പ്‌ 1. മനുഷ്യരെല്ലാവരും തുല്യാവകാശങ്ങളോടും അന്തസ്സോടും സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തോടുംകൂടി ജനിച്ചിട്ടുള്ളവരാണ്‌. അന്യോന്യം ഭ്രാതൃഭാവത്തോടെ പെരുമാറുവാനാണ്‌ മനുഷ്യന്നു വിവേകബുദ്ധിയും മനസ്സാക്ഷിയും സിദ്ധമായിരിക്കുന്നത്‌.
വകുപ്പ്‌ 2. ജാതി, മതം, നിറം, ഭാഷ, സ്ത്രീപുരുഷഭേദം, രാഷ്ട്രീയാഭിപ്രായം സ്വത്ത്‌, കുലം എന്നിവയെ കണക്കാക്കാതെ ഈ പ്രഖ്യാപനത്തില്‍ പറയുന്ന അവകാശങ്ങള്‍ക്കും സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തിനും സര്‍വ്വജനങ്ങളും അര്‍ഹരാണ്‌. രാഷ്ട്രീയ സ്ഥിതിയെ അടിസ്ഥാനമാക്കി (സ്വതന്ത്രമോ, പരിമിത ഭരണാധികാരത്തോടു കൂടിയതോ ഏതായാലും വേണ്ടതില്ല) ഈ പ്രഖ്യാപനത്തിലെ അവകാശങ്ങളെ സംബന്ധിച്ചേടത്തോളം യാതൊരു വ്യത്യാസവും യാതൊരാളോടും കാണിക്കാന്‍ പാടുള്ളതല്ല.
Usage & history
Malayalam script is used to write the Malayalam language of Kerala state, and spoken by 35 million people including the diaspora, and the script is used for another 10 minority languages, according to the Ethnologue. It is also widely used for writing Sanskrit texts in Kerala.
Name: മലയാളലിപിmlyāɭlipimələjɑːɭə lɪpɪ Malayalam script
Originally descended from Bhrami, the Malayalam script is a Vatteluttu alphabet extended with symbols from the Grantha alphabet to represent Indo-Aryan loanwords. Throughout its history, it has absorbed words from Tamil, Sanskrit, Arabic, and English.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Malayalam underwent orthographic reform due to printing difficulties. A significant change involved the introduction of a visible virama (chandrakkala) rather than conjunct forms, and simplification of a number of forms, including consonant plus -u/-uu combinations.
Sources: The Unicode Standard, Wikipedia.
Basic features
The script is an abugida. Consonants carry an inherent vowel which can be modified by appending vowel-signs to the consonant. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern Malayalam orthography.
The Malayalam script was significantly simplified at the beginning of the 1970s. Prior to the orthographic reform there were many more ligated forms. In particular, the vowels u/ū and r in 2nd position in a consonant were reduced from ligated forms to simple, unchanging glyphs alongside a consonant.
The number of characters between spaces can be quite high as sometimes spaces are used to indicate phonological pauses, rather than lexical boundaries.
Malayalam uses 36 basic consonant letters.
Consonant clusters are typically indicated in modern Malayalam using the visible chandrakkala mark (virama), which indicates that no vowel follows a consonant. Conjunct forms are also expressed using stacked consonants, and conjoined consonants, where the chandrakkala is still used but hidden, and special chillu shapes.
As part of a cluster, RA has special forms. As a medial consonant in the modern orthography it appears as a simple glyph to the left of the letters spoken before it. When initial in the cluster its glyph includes a cillu hook at the top right. There are also special rules involving clusters of multiple RA letters.
Syllable-final consonant sounds may be represented by 2 dedicated combining marks (anusvara & visarga), but are generally ordinary consonants with chandrakkala, or 6 chillu forms. The word-final virama sometimes represents a half-u sound, rather than completely killing the inherent vowel. Because of this, Malayalam uses a set of syllable-final consonants called chillus that have no vowel sound associated with them.
The Malayalam orthography has an inherent vowel, and represents other vowels using 12 vowel-signs, including 3 prescripts and 3 circumgraphs. All circumgraphs can be decomposed. All vowel-signs are combining marks, and are stored after the base character. Also a word-final half-u sound is written in modern Malayalam using ് [U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA] (candrakkala).
There are 12 independent vowels, one for each vowel sound, including the inherent vowel, and these are used to write all standalone vowel sounds.
The only composite vowels are those created by decomposition of the circumgraphs, and involve 2 glyphs, one on each side of the base consonant(s).
There is also a set of vocalics.
There is an archaic set of numbers that include digits beyond the normal 0-9 range, and include a number of fractional symbols.
Character index
This section lists non-ASCII characters used for modern Malayalam, and other characters in the Malayalam script block not used by modern Malayalam. For descriptions of usage, click on ↓.
Letters
Basic consonants
Vowels
Vocalics
Finals
Not used for modern Malayalam
Combining marks
Vowels
Vocalics
Finals
Other
Not used for modern Malayalam
Numbers
Not used for modern Malayalam
Punctuation
Symbols
Not used for modern Malayalam
Vowels
Vowel sounds
Click on the sound groups to see where else in the document each of the sounds are referred to.
Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.
Plain vowels
Diphthongs
Inherent vowel
The inherent vowel is usually transcribed and pronounced a. So ക [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA] is pronounced ka.
Vowel absence & half-u
Malayalam uses ് [U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA] (in Malayalam called ചന്ദ്രക്കലcn͓d͓rk͓kl (candrakkala)ʧand̪r̪akkala) to kill the inherent vowel after a consonant, eg. ക്k͓ explicitly represents just the sound k.
However, in modern text, at the end of a word the combination ക്k͓ may also represent the sound kə̆ or kɨ̆ (depending on dialect). The transcription for this is usually ŭ, and it is called half-u.
In older documents the half-u was typically written with a u vowel-sign plus chandrakkala, which is not ambiguous, eg. പാലു്.
The Unicode Standard provides examples of half-u occurring in positions that are not word-final (that is, not immediately before a space), eg. ഐശീല്ം. In another example, the chandrakkala is attached to an independent vowel letter, and overrides the sound of that letter, eg. എ്ന്നാ
The chandrakkala is always written after any vowel-sign and before any final consonant (such as anusvara).
See also clusters, where the chandrakkala can be hidden between consonant clusters, and finals.
Vowel-signs
Non-inherent vowel sounds that follow a consonant are represented using vowel-signs, eg. കി [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+0D3F MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN I] is pronounced ki.
Vowel-signs may also be attached to digits, eg. 355ാം.u,505
Malayalam vowel-signs are all combining characters. In principle a single Unicode character is used per base consonant, even if the vowel-signs appear on both sides of the base consonant, but 3 vowel signs decompose to more than one character. See also circumgraphs. All vowel-signs are typed and stored after the base consonant, and the font puts them in the correct place for display.
All of the vowel-signs are spacing marks, meaning that they consume horizontal space when added to a base consonant.
See also vocalics.
Prescript vowel-signs
Three vowel-signs appear to the left of the base consonant letter or cluster, eg. കെkeke.
Malayalam Film Script Writing Format Pdf Online
These are combining marks that are always stored after the base consonant. The font places the glyph before the base consonant.
These vowel-signs are placed before the start of the syllable. This means that a word with a consonant cluster at the start separates the prescript vowel from any postscript vowels by more than one consonant character.
Circumgraphs
Three vowels are produced by a single combining character with visually separate parts, that appear on opposite sides of the consonant onset eg. കൊkeākoː.
In modern text, ൗ [U+0D57 MALAYALAM AU LENGTH MARK] has become a dominant way to write the vowel au̯, rather than ൌ [U+0D4C MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AU].
Encoding. All of these circumgraphs can be written as a single character, or as two.
- ൊ [U+0D4A MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN O]
ൊ [U+0D46 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN E + U+0D3E MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AA] - ോ [U+0D4B MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN OO]
ോ [U+0D47 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN EE + U+0D3E MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AA] - ൌ [U+0D4C MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AU]
ൌ [U+0D46 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN E + U+0D57 MALAYALAM AU LENGTH MARK]
The single code point per vowel-sign is required by the Unicode Standard u,501, however the parts are separated in Unicode Normalisation Form D (NFD).
Whichever approach is used, the vowel-signs must be typed and stored after the consonant characters they surround, and in left to right order. In the case of decomposed vowel-signs, the order is also important and must be as shown above.
Other vowel-signs
The following combining marks are also used to indicate vowel sounds.
Vowel ligatures & orthographic reforms
Like Tamil, in the traditional version of the script Malayalam consonants combining with ു [U+0D41 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN U] and ൂ [U+0D42 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN UU] tend to produce ligated forms, as shown in fig_u_ligatures.
During orthographic reforms in the 1970s and 1980s a simpler approached was introduced, to make printing easier. Both vowels were represented by an unchanging, postscript vowel-sign as shown below. No change is needed to the underlying code points in Unicode, this is purely a font difference.
Standalone vowels
Malayalam represents standalone vowels using a set of independent vowel letters. The set includes a character to represent the inherent vowel sound.
Vocalics
ഋ [U+0D0B MALAYALAM LETTER VOCALIC R] and ൃ [U+0D43 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC R] are most common in the modern orthography.
The items in the list below are rare and used only to write Sanskrit in Malayalam.u,501
Consonants
Consonant sounds
Click on the sounds to see where else in the document they are referred to.
Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.
| labial | dental | alveolar | post- alveolar | retroflex | palatal | velar | glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stop | pb pʰbʰ | td tʰdʰ | t | ʈɖ ʈʰɖʰ | kɡ kʰɡʰ | ||
| affricate | t͡ʃd͡ʒ t͡ʃʰd͡ʒʰ | ||||||
| fricative | f | s | ɕ | ʂ | h | ||
| nasal | m | n̪ | n | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | |
| approximant | ʋ | l | ɻɭ | j | |||
| trill/flap | ɾ | ɽ |
Basic consonants
Stops
Affricates
Fricatives
Nasals
Liquids
Other consonants
The conjunct ക്ഷk͓ʂ is conventionally regarded as an additional letter.d,420
Two other letters, ഩ [U+0D29 MALAYALAM LETTER NNNA] and ഺ [U+0D3A MALAYALAM LETTER TTTA] are historic and used rarely in scholarly texts to represent alveolar sounds. In ordinary texts, ന [U+0D28 MALAYALAM LETTER NA and റ [U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA] are used instead.ws
Syllable-final consonants
Chillus
Words ending with chandrakkala may be pronounced with a half-u sound after. In order to indicate a consonant with no following vowel sound at all the following chillu (or cillakṣaram) characters can be used, eg. വില്ലൻ.
ൿ [U+0D7F MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU K] is relatively rare.u,505
Unicode v9 introduced 3 more chillu letters, ൔ [U+0D54 MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU M], ൕ [U+0D55 MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU Y], and ൖ [U+0D56 MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU LLL], which are not included in CLDR.
In older Unicode text the first 5 chillus in the list above were written using the combination consonant+VIRAMA+ZWJ, but since the introduction of the chillu characters in Unicode v5.1 these precomposed characters are recommended.
Anusvara & visarga
Malayalam also uses the anusvara and visarga as syllable-final characters, eg. ദുഃഖം.
The anusvara normally represents the sound m, but may be assimilated to another nasal consonant. It can be used multiple times after a vowel, eg. ഈംംംംị̄m̽m̽m̽m̽.u,504
Consonant clusters
The absence of a vowel sound between two or more consonants is visually indicated in one of the following ways.
- A visible chandrakkala character above the top right of the initial consonant.
- Stacked consonants, where the non-initial consonant appears below the initial, usually with a reduced or ligated form.
- Conjoined consonants, where consonants sit side-by-side but with some ligation or different forms than usual.
- Special 'chillu' shapes for the initial consonant (a special case of the preceding bullet point).
- A syllable-final consonant diacritic followed by a regular consonant.
In Unicode, the stacking and conjoining behaviour is achieved by adding ് [U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA] between the consonants. The font hides the glyph automatically.
Traditional fonts have more ligatures than modern ones. There doesn't appear to much in the way of a systematicapproach to shaping. With a few exceptions, the conjuncts are specific to particular pairs of characters.
You can see conjunct forms in the conjunct map table. This shows all combinations of two consonants and allows you to observe the effect of changing the font. Images of the table with conjuncts highlighted by coloured dots are available for the Noto Serif Malayalam and Thoolika Traditional Unicode fonts.
Sequences involving more than two consonants in a cluster can combine a variety of methods. The example in to_india shows 3 conjoined consonants in the middle, and a conjoined cluster stacked below another letter at the end.
ര [U+0D30 MALAYALAM LETTER RA] when non-initial in a cluster is displayed to the left of the other consonant(s) in the reformed orthography, eg. ക്രk͓r. This transposition is done by the font – the typed and stored order remains the same as the spoken order.
When RA follows more than one consonant, it is displayed to the left of the cluster, not just to the left of the preceding consonant, eg. ന്ദ്രn͓d͓r in ചന്ദ്രക്കലcn͓d͓rk͓klʧand̪r̪akkala.
Visible chandrakkala
This is a common option, and was promoted as the default by the orthogrpahic reforms of the 1970s. It is also the fallback if the font doesn't contain conjunct forms for a particular cluster of consonants.
Examples include ട്ഛʈ͓cʰ and ക്റk͓ṙ.
Stacking
The non-initial consonant is drawn below the initial consonant, and with a slightly different shape.
The following list shows stacked conjuncts in the Noto Serif Malayalam font (unless you changed the font for examples on this page).
Stacks tend to be particularly common for geminated consonants, even when those consonants don't participate in other conjunct pairings. In 3 such cases, the second consonant is often represented by a small triangle.
Otherwise, the subjoined consonant may be a reduced version of the original, or may be ligated. War of the chosen review. Note that LA has a very different shape from normal when in subjoined position.
Conjoined consonants
Conjuncts where the consonants remain side-by-side typically merge the shapes of the consonants.
However, 3 consonants have very standardised glyphs when they appear in non-initial position, and those glyphs don't merge with the other consonant. They are യ [U+0D2F MALAYALAM LETTER YA], റ [U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA], and വ [U+0D35 MALAYALAM LETTER VA]. The list below shows them combined with the letter KA.
Exceptions to the above are യ്യy͓y and വ്വʋ͓ʋ.
The isolated, prescript shape for RA was introduced by the reformed orthography. In the old orthography RA as the second element in a conjunct was represented by a ligated swash below the initial consonant.
The following list shows conjoined conjuncts in the Noto Serif Malayalam font (unless you changed the font for examples on this page). To see the original shapes, click on the conjunct.
Chillu-style initials
In some fonts the initial consonant in a cluster may take a chillu shape, followed by an ordinary glyph for the second character.
In the Thoolika Traditional Unicode font this applies to the following consonants in initial position. The examples all use SHA in the second position. Note that the chillu code points are not used here – this is just font styling on normal consonants.
conjunct_chillus shows the same sequence of characters in the Thoolika Traditional Unicode font. Note how the shape of the second consonant remains the same as normal - there is no ligation or repositioning.
Initial ര (RA)
Cluster-initial ര [U+0D30 MALAYALAM LETTER RA] is only used before യ [U+0D2F MALAYALAM LETTER YA] in standard Malayalam.u,505 Since the orthographic reform, this has been written as ർയr͓y.
Before the 1970s, however, a dot or small vertical stroke was used over the following consonant, in a similar way to the repha in other indic scripts, eg. ൎയ. The character ൎ [U+0D4E MALAYALAM LETTER DOT REPH] is used to reproduce this.
This character is not a combining character. It is typed and stored in the same place as you would expect to find the RA + VIRAMA, and then the font needs to position the glyph over the following consonant.
Clusters with റ (RRA)
The conjunct റ്റ [U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA] is always pronounced tta, eg. പാറ്റ.
The same word could be spelled പാററpāṙṙ, and until the 1960s, when the stacked version began to appear, it would have been spelled that way, but this would be ambiguous, cf. ടെംപററി.u,506 It would be particularly ambiguous when there are more than 2 RRA characters side by side, eg. compare കിലോമീറ്ററുകൾ with കിലോമീറററുകൾkilōmīṙṙṙukɭ̽.
If a word with the sound tt is spelled using an unstacked pair of these characters, the pair acts as a single unit with prescript vowels, eg. മാറെറാലി. To achieve the correct positioning of vowel-signs here, however, it is necessary to use the decomposed forms of the vowel (see the transcription). Otherwise you would end up with മാററൊലിmāṙṙoli, where the prescript part of the vowel is in the wrong place.
Similarly, ൻ്റn͓̽ṙ is always pronounced nta, eg. ആൻ്റോ.
According to the Unicode Standard, an alternative spelling exists without the stack, ie. ആൻേറാận̽ēṙāaːntoː (note that again we had to split the vowel), but this can also lead to ambiguity.u,506
Using ZWJ & ZWNJ
Assuming that you have fonts that produce the expected behaviours, the Unicode Standard describes the use of the joiner characters as follows:u,505
- U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER (ZWNJ) placed after the chandrakkala can be used to force the production of a visible virama, rather than a conjunct form. For example, ക്ക [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER + U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA] produces ക്ക, rather than ക്ക.
- Uniquely to Malayalam, placing the ZWNJ before the chandrakkala is supposed to produce the modern 'open' form of the conjunct in fonts that would otherwise produce a traditional conjunct, eg. ക്ര [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+0D30 MALAYALAM LETTER RA] should produce the form ക്ര.
- U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER (ZWJ) can be used before the chandrakkala to produce a traditional conjunct form in fonts that produce the open form by default but have the glyphs for the traditional forms too.
- ZWJ used after the chandrakkala may produce a chillu form (eg. ക് [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER]), but this approach is now deprecated in favour of using the chillu codepoints. See finals.
Other letters
The Unicode Malayalam block also contains the following characters with the general property of letter.
Symbols
The Malayalam Unicode block contains 2 characters with the symbol property. ൏ [U+0D4F MALAYALAM SIGN PARA] was used historically to measure rice.
The second item is the date mark, described in the next section
Numbers, dates, currency, etc
However, in modern text, at the end of a word the combination ക്k͓ may also represent the sound kə̆ or kɨ̆ (depending on dialect). The transcription for this is usually ŭ, and it is called half-u.
In older documents the half-u was typically written with a u vowel-sign plus chandrakkala, which is not ambiguous, eg. പാലു്.
The Unicode Standard provides examples of half-u occurring in positions that are not word-final (that is, not immediately before a space), eg. ഐശീല്ം. In another example, the chandrakkala is attached to an independent vowel letter, and overrides the sound of that letter, eg. എ്ന്നാ
The chandrakkala is always written after any vowel-sign and before any final consonant (such as anusvara).
See also clusters, where the chandrakkala can be hidden between consonant clusters, and finals.
Vowel-signs
Non-inherent vowel sounds that follow a consonant are represented using vowel-signs, eg. കി [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+0D3F MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN I] is pronounced ki.
Vowel-signs may also be attached to digits, eg. 355ാം.u,505
Malayalam vowel-signs are all combining characters. In principle a single Unicode character is used per base consonant, even if the vowel-signs appear on both sides of the base consonant, but 3 vowel signs decompose to more than one character. See also circumgraphs. All vowel-signs are typed and stored after the base consonant, and the font puts them in the correct place for display.
All of the vowel-signs are spacing marks, meaning that they consume horizontal space when added to a base consonant.
See also vocalics.
Prescript vowel-signs
Three vowel-signs appear to the left of the base consonant letter or cluster, eg. കെkeke.
Malayalam Film Script Writing Format Pdf Online
These are combining marks that are always stored after the base consonant. The font places the glyph before the base consonant.
These vowel-signs are placed before the start of the syllable. This means that a word with a consonant cluster at the start separates the prescript vowel from any postscript vowels by more than one consonant character.
Circumgraphs
Three vowels are produced by a single combining character with visually separate parts, that appear on opposite sides of the consonant onset eg. കൊkeākoː.
In modern text, ൗ [U+0D57 MALAYALAM AU LENGTH MARK] has become a dominant way to write the vowel au̯, rather than ൌ [U+0D4C MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AU].
Encoding. All of these circumgraphs can be written as a single character, or as two.
- ൊ [U+0D4A MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN O]
ൊ [U+0D46 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN E + U+0D3E MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AA] - ോ [U+0D4B MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN OO]
ോ [U+0D47 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN EE + U+0D3E MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AA] - ൌ [U+0D4C MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AU]
ൌ [U+0D46 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN E + U+0D57 MALAYALAM AU LENGTH MARK]
The single code point per vowel-sign is required by the Unicode Standard u,501, however the parts are separated in Unicode Normalisation Form D (NFD).
Whichever approach is used, the vowel-signs must be typed and stored after the consonant characters they surround, and in left to right order. In the case of decomposed vowel-signs, the order is also important and must be as shown above.
Other vowel-signs
The following combining marks are also used to indicate vowel sounds.
Vowel ligatures & orthographic reforms
Like Tamil, in the traditional version of the script Malayalam consonants combining with ു [U+0D41 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN U] and ൂ [U+0D42 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN UU] tend to produce ligated forms, as shown in fig_u_ligatures.
During orthographic reforms in the 1970s and 1980s a simpler approached was introduced, to make printing easier. Both vowels were represented by an unchanging, postscript vowel-sign as shown below. No change is needed to the underlying code points in Unicode, this is purely a font difference.
Standalone vowels
Malayalam represents standalone vowels using a set of independent vowel letters. The set includes a character to represent the inherent vowel sound.
Vocalics
ഋ [U+0D0B MALAYALAM LETTER VOCALIC R] and ൃ [U+0D43 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC R] are most common in the modern orthography.
The items in the list below are rare and used only to write Sanskrit in Malayalam.u,501
Consonants
Consonant sounds
Click on the sounds to see where else in the document they are referred to.
Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.
| labial | dental | alveolar | post- alveolar | retroflex | palatal | velar | glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stop | pb pʰbʰ | td tʰdʰ | t | ʈɖ ʈʰɖʰ | kɡ kʰɡʰ | ||
| affricate | t͡ʃd͡ʒ t͡ʃʰd͡ʒʰ | ||||||
| fricative | f | s | ɕ | ʂ | h | ||
| nasal | m | n̪ | n | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | |
| approximant | ʋ | l | ɻɭ | j | |||
| trill/flap | ɾ | ɽ |
Basic consonants
Stops
Affricates
Fricatives
Nasals
Liquids
Other consonants
The conjunct ക്ഷk͓ʂ is conventionally regarded as an additional letter.d,420
Two other letters, ഩ [U+0D29 MALAYALAM LETTER NNNA] and ഺ [U+0D3A MALAYALAM LETTER TTTA] are historic and used rarely in scholarly texts to represent alveolar sounds. In ordinary texts, ന [U+0D28 MALAYALAM LETTER NA and റ [U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA] are used instead.ws
Syllable-final consonants
Chillus
Words ending with chandrakkala may be pronounced with a half-u sound after. In order to indicate a consonant with no following vowel sound at all the following chillu (or cillakṣaram) characters can be used, eg. വില്ലൻ.
ൿ [U+0D7F MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU K] is relatively rare.u,505
Unicode v9 introduced 3 more chillu letters, ൔ [U+0D54 MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU M], ൕ [U+0D55 MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU Y], and ൖ [U+0D56 MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU LLL], which are not included in CLDR.
In older Unicode text the first 5 chillus in the list above were written using the combination consonant+VIRAMA+ZWJ, but since the introduction of the chillu characters in Unicode v5.1 these precomposed characters are recommended.
Anusvara & visarga
Malayalam also uses the anusvara and visarga as syllable-final characters, eg. ദുഃഖം.
The anusvara normally represents the sound m, but may be assimilated to another nasal consonant. It can be used multiple times after a vowel, eg. ഈംംംംị̄m̽m̽m̽m̽.u,504
Consonant clusters
The absence of a vowel sound between two or more consonants is visually indicated in one of the following ways.
- A visible chandrakkala character above the top right of the initial consonant.
- Stacked consonants, where the non-initial consonant appears below the initial, usually with a reduced or ligated form.
- Conjoined consonants, where consonants sit side-by-side but with some ligation or different forms than usual.
- Special 'chillu' shapes for the initial consonant (a special case of the preceding bullet point).
- A syllable-final consonant diacritic followed by a regular consonant.
In Unicode, the stacking and conjoining behaviour is achieved by adding ് [U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA] between the consonants. The font hides the glyph automatically.
Traditional fonts have more ligatures than modern ones. There doesn't appear to much in the way of a systematicapproach to shaping. With a few exceptions, the conjuncts are specific to particular pairs of characters.
You can see conjunct forms in the conjunct map table. This shows all combinations of two consonants and allows you to observe the effect of changing the font. Images of the table with conjuncts highlighted by coloured dots are available for the Noto Serif Malayalam and Thoolika Traditional Unicode fonts.
Sequences involving more than two consonants in a cluster can combine a variety of methods. The example in to_india shows 3 conjoined consonants in the middle, and a conjoined cluster stacked below another letter at the end.
ര [U+0D30 MALAYALAM LETTER RA] when non-initial in a cluster is displayed to the left of the other consonant(s) in the reformed orthography, eg. ക്രk͓r. This transposition is done by the font – the typed and stored order remains the same as the spoken order.
When RA follows more than one consonant, it is displayed to the left of the cluster, not just to the left of the preceding consonant, eg. ന്ദ്രn͓d͓r in ചന്ദ്രക്കലcn͓d͓rk͓klʧand̪r̪akkala.
Visible chandrakkala
This is a common option, and was promoted as the default by the orthogrpahic reforms of the 1970s. It is also the fallback if the font doesn't contain conjunct forms for a particular cluster of consonants.
Examples include ട്ഛʈ͓cʰ and ക്റk͓ṙ.
Stacking
The non-initial consonant is drawn below the initial consonant, and with a slightly different shape.
The following list shows stacked conjuncts in the Noto Serif Malayalam font (unless you changed the font for examples on this page).
Stacks tend to be particularly common for geminated consonants, even when those consonants don't participate in other conjunct pairings. In 3 such cases, the second consonant is often represented by a small triangle.
Otherwise, the subjoined consonant may be a reduced version of the original, or may be ligated. War of the chosen review. Note that LA has a very different shape from normal when in subjoined position.
Conjoined consonants
Conjuncts where the consonants remain side-by-side typically merge the shapes of the consonants.
However, 3 consonants have very standardised glyphs when they appear in non-initial position, and those glyphs don't merge with the other consonant. They are യ [U+0D2F MALAYALAM LETTER YA], റ [U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA], and വ [U+0D35 MALAYALAM LETTER VA]. The list below shows them combined with the letter KA.
Exceptions to the above are യ്യy͓y and വ്വʋ͓ʋ.
The isolated, prescript shape for RA was introduced by the reformed orthography. In the old orthography RA as the second element in a conjunct was represented by a ligated swash below the initial consonant.
The following list shows conjoined conjuncts in the Noto Serif Malayalam font (unless you changed the font for examples on this page). To see the original shapes, click on the conjunct.
Chillu-style initials
In some fonts the initial consonant in a cluster may take a chillu shape, followed by an ordinary glyph for the second character.
In the Thoolika Traditional Unicode font this applies to the following consonants in initial position. The examples all use SHA in the second position. Note that the chillu code points are not used here – this is just font styling on normal consonants.
conjunct_chillus shows the same sequence of characters in the Thoolika Traditional Unicode font. Note how the shape of the second consonant remains the same as normal - there is no ligation or repositioning.
Initial ര (RA)
Cluster-initial ര [U+0D30 MALAYALAM LETTER RA] is only used before യ [U+0D2F MALAYALAM LETTER YA] in standard Malayalam.u,505 Since the orthographic reform, this has been written as ർയr͓y.
Before the 1970s, however, a dot or small vertical stroke was used over the following consonant, in a similar way to the repha in other indic scripts, eg. ൎയ. The character ൎ [U+0D4E MALAYALAM LETTER DOT REPH] is used to reproduce this.
This character is not a combining character. It is typed and stored in the same place as you would expect to find the RA + VIRAMA, and then the font needs to position the glyph over the following consonant.
Clusters with റ (RRA)
The conjunct റ്റ [U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA] is always pronounced tta, eg. പാറ്റ.
The same word could be spelled പാററpāṙṙ, and until the 1960s, when the stacked version began to appear, it would have been spelled that way, but this would be ambiguous, cf. ടെംപററി.u,506 It would be particularly ambiguous when there are more than 2 RRA characters side by side, eg. compare കിലോമീറ്ററുകൾ with കിലോമീറററുകൾkilōmīṙṙṙukɭ̽.
If a word with the sound tt is spelled using an unstacked pair of these characters, the pair acts as a single unit with prescript vowels, eg. മാറെറാലി. To achieve the correct positioning of vowel-signs here, however, it is necessary to use the decomposed forms of the vowel (see the transcription). Otherwise you would end up with മാററൊലിmāṙṙoli, where the prescript part of the vowel is in the wrong place.
Similarly, ൻ്റn͓̽ṙ is always pronounced nta, eg. ആൻ്റോ.
According to the Unicode Standard, an alternative spelling exists without the stack, ie. ആൻേറാận̽ēṙāaːntoː (note that again we had to split the vowel), but this can also lead to ambiguity.u,506
Using ZWJ & ZWNJ
Assuming that you have fonts that produce the expected behaviours, the Unicode Standard describes the use of the joiner characters as follows:u,505
- U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER (ZWNJ) placed after the chandrakkala can be used to force the production of a visible virama, rather than a conjunct form. For example, ക്ക [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER + U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA] produces ക്ക, rather than ക്ക.
- Uniquely to Malayalam, placing the ZWNJ before the chandrakkala is supposed to produce the modern 'open' form of the conjunct in fonts that would otherwise produce a traditional conjunct, eg. ക്ര [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+0D30 MALAYALAM LETTER RA] should produce the form ക്ര.
- U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER (ZWJ) can be used before the chandrakkala to produce a traditional conjunct form in fonts that produce the open form by default but have the glyphs for the traditional forms too.
- ZWJ used after the chandrakkala may produce a chillu form (eg. ക് [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER]), but this approach is now deprecated in favour of using the chillu codepoints. See finals.
Other letters
The Unicode Malayalam block also contains the following characters with the general property of letter.
Symbols
The Malayalam Unicode block contains 2 characters with the symbol property. ൏ [U+0D4F MALAYALAM SIGN PARA] was used historically to measure rice.
The second item is the date mark, described in the next section
Numbers, dates, currency, etc
Digits
There is a set of Malayalam digits, but they are not use for modern texts.
Older texts also used the following additional numeric characters.
According to the Unicode Standard, Malayalam also used the following characters in the Common Indic Number Forms block.u,507
Dates
൹ [U+0D79 MALAYALAM DATE MARK] can be used like the 'th' in English dates, but it use is fading in modern text. u,507
Text direction
Malayalam text runs left to right in horizontal lines.
Glyph shaping & positioning
This section brings together information about the following topics:writing styles; cursive text;context-based shaping;context-based positioning;baselines, line height, etc.;font styles;case & other character transforms.
You can experiment with examples using the Malayalam character app.
The orthography has no case distinction, and no special transforms are needed to convert between characters.
Malayalam Film Script Writing Format Pdf File
Context-based shaping
Malayalam is not cursive, but d isplay technology needs to provide shaping for conjunct formation.
Context-based positioning
Display technology must correctly position prescript vowels to the left of the consonant or consonant cluster, and place the separate glyphs of 2-part vowels around those also.
It must do a similar thing for display of RA using the orthographic reforms.
Font styles
tbd
Structural boundaries & markers
Grapheme boundaries
tbd
Word boundaries
Spaces are often used between words, but it is not uncommon for writers to use spacing to indicate phonological pauses, rather than lexical boundaries.s
Sequences of characters between spaces are often quite long in Malayalam, eg. അറിയപ്പെടുന്നുവെങ്കിലുംạ̄ṙiyp͓peʈun͓nuʋeŋ͓kilum̽.
Phrase & section boundaries
| phrase | , [U+002C COMMA] ; [U+003B SEMICOLON] : [U+003A COLON] । [U+0964 DEVANAGARI DANDA] |
|---|---|
| sentence | . [U+002E FULL STOP] ? [U+003F QUESTION MARK] ! [U+0021 EXCLAMATION MARK] ॥ [U+0965 DEVANAGARI DOUBLE DANDA] |
Malayalam uses western punctuation.
Older texts used । [U+0964 DEVANAGARI DANDA] and ॥ [U+0965 DEVANAGARI DOUBLE DANDA] to separate phrases.
Parentheses & brackets
| start | end | |
|---|---|---|
| standard | ( [U+0028 LEFT PARENTHESIS] | ) [U+0029 RIGHT PARENTHESIS] |
Quotations
| start | end | |
|---|---|---|
| initial | ' [U+201C LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK] | ' [U+201D RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK] |
Emphasis
tbd
Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition
tbd
Inline notes & annotations
tbd
Other inline ranges
tbd
Other punctuation
tbd
Line & paragraph layout
Line breaking & hyphenation
Spaces provide the main line break opportunities.
Character properties
Characters used for the Malayalam language have the following assignments related to line-break properties.
| AL | 116 | അ ആ ഇ ഈ ഉ ഊ ഋ ഌ എ ഏ ഐ ഒ ഓ ഔ ക ഖ ഗ ഘ ങ ച ഛ ജ ഝ ഞ ട ഠ ഡ ഢ ണ ത ഥ ദ ധ ന പ ഫ ബ ഭ മ യ ര റ ല ള ഴ വ ശ ഷ സ ഹ ൠ ൡ ൺ ൻ ർ ൽ ൾ ൿ |
|---|---|---|
| BA | 4 | । ॥ |
| CM | 32 | ം ഃ ാ ി ീ ു ൂ ൃ െ േ ൈ ൊ ോ ൌ ് ൗ |
| NU | 20 | ൦ ൧ ൨ ൩ ൪ ൫ ൬ ൭ ൮ ൯ |
| PO | 2 | ൹ |
AL (ordinary alphabetic and symbol characters) requires other characters to provide break opportunities; otherwise, unless tailored rules are applied, no line breaks are allowed between pairs of them.
BA (break after) indicates that it is normal to break after that character.
CM (combining mark) takes on the behaviour of its base character.
CP (closing parenthesis) will not cause a break opportunity when appearing in contexts like '(s)he.' In all other respects the breaking behavior of CP and CL are the same.
NU (number) behaves like ordinary characters (AL) in the context of most characters but activate the prefix and postfix behavior of prefix and postfix characters.
PO (postfix numeric) usually follows a numerical expression and may not be separated from preceding numeric characters or preceding closing characters, even if one or more space characters intervene. For example, there is no break opportunity in '(12.00) %'. How to get rpg maker for mac.
Text alignment & justification
tbd
Letter spacing
tbd
Counters, lists, etc.
Ready-made Counter Styles lists one, numeric, counter style for use with Malayalam. You can experiment with this style using the Counter styles converter.
Numeric
The malayalam numeric style is decimal-based and uses the digits shown below.
Short Film Scripts Pdf
Styling initials
tbd
Page & book layout
This section is for any features that are specific to Malayalam and that relate to the following topics:general page layout & progression; grids & tables;notes, footnotes, etc;forms & user interaction;page numbering, running headers, etc.
Character lists
Version 12.0 of the Unicode Standard has the following blocks dedicated to the Malayalam script (numbers in lists are non-ASCII only):
- Malayalam66 letters, 23 marks, 26 numbers, 2 symbols : total 117
The modern Malayalam orthography described here uses characters from the following Unicode blocks.
| General Punctuation | 4 | ‘ ' ' ' |
|---|---|---|
| Malayalam | 74 | ം ഃ അ ആ ഇ ഈ ഉ ഊ ഋ ഌ എ ഏ ഐ ഒ ഓ ഔ ക ഖ ഗ ഘ ങ ച ഛ ജ ഝ ഞ ട ഠ ഡ ഢ ണ ത ഥ ദ ധ ന പ ഫ ബ ഭ മ യ ര റ ല ള ഴ വ ശ ഷ സ ഹ ാ ി ീ ു ൂ ൃ െ േ ൈ ൊ ോ ൌ ് ൗ ൠ ൡ ൺ ൻ ർ ൽ ൾ ൿ |
The infrequently used characters come from these blocks.
| Devanagari | 2 | । ॥ |
|---|---|---|
| Malayalam | 11 | ൦ ൧ ൨ ൩ ൪ ൫ ൬ ൭ ൮ ൯ ൹ |
See also the Character usage lookup page, and the Script Comparison Table.
Languages using the Malayalam script
According to ScriptSource, the Malayalam script is used for the following languages:
- Allar [all]
- Kurumba, Attapady [pkr]
- Kurumba, Betta [xub]
- Irula [iru]
- Kudiya [kfg]
- Kurichiya [kfh]
- Malayalam [mal]
- Mannan [mjv]
- Muduga [udg]
- Paniya [pcg]
- Ravula [yea]
References
Show stats| Main |
|---|
| Auxiliary |
| Archaic |
| Other |
| Deprecated |
