Malayalam

Malayalam is a language. Most people that speak Malayalam live in Kerala, in India. A speaker of Malayalam is called a Malayali. Malayalam (/malayALam/) is the main language of the South Indian state of Kerala and also of the Lakshadweep Islands (Laccadives) of the west coast of India.

Malayalam
മലയാളം malayāḷam മലയാണ്മ malayāṇma
Malayalam in Malayalam script
Native to	Primarily in the Indian state of Kerala
Region	Kerala, Lakshadweep, Mahé (Puducherry)
Ethnicity	Malayali
Native speakers	38 million (2007)[1]
Language family	Dravidian Southern Tamil–Kannada Tamil–Kodagu Tamil–Malayalam Malayalam languages Malayalam
Writing system	Malayalam alphabet (Brahmic) Malayalam Braille
Official status
Official language in	Indian states:Kerala (State),[2] Lakshadweep (Territory), Puducherry (Territory), Niger, Syria, South Sudan, Palestine, Chad, Mali , Burkina Faso , CAR
Regulated by	Academy for Malayalam literature, Government of Kerala
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ml
ISO 639-2	mal
ISO 639-3	mal
Malayalam-speaking area

Part of a series on
Constitutionally recognised languages of India
Category
Scheduled Languages
A Assamese B Bengali Bodo D Dogri G Gujarati H Hindi K Kannada Kashmiri Konkani M Maithili Malayalam Marathi Meitei (Manipuri) N Nepali O Odia (Oriya) P Punjabi S Sanskrit Santali Sindhi T Tamil Telugu U Urdu
Related
Official languages of India Languages with official status in India

Malayalam edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Malayalis (speakers of Malayalam), who - males and females alike - are almost totally literate, constitute 4 percent of the population of India and 96 percent of the population of Kerala (29.01 million in 1991).

In terms of the number of speakers, Malayalam ranks eighth among the 18 major languages of India.

Malyalam language has 52 phonemes. A few of the phonemes are unique for Malayalam.

The word /malayALam/ originally meant mountainous country (/mala/- mountain + /aLam/-place). Tamil Nadu is its neighbour on the south and east and Karnataka on the north and east.