Malayalam language
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Malayalam is the major language of the state of Kerala, in southern India. It is one of the 17 official languages of India, spoken by around 30 million people. A person who speaks Malayalam is called a "Malayali".
| Malayalam (മലയാളം) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | India |
| Region: | Kerala, Laccadive Islands, and neighboring states |
| Total speakers: | 35.7 million |
| Ranking: | 29 |
| Genetic classification: | Dravidian Southern |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | India |
| Regulated by: | -- |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | ml |
| ISO 639-2 | mal |
| SIL | MJS |
It belongs to the family of Dravidian languages. Both the language and its writing system are closely related to Tamil, although Malayalam has a signficantly larger phoneme inventory. Malayalam has a script of its own.
Malayalam is the only language whose name, when spelled in English, is a palindrome.
See also:
- Kerala
- Malayalam alphabet
- Malayalam calendar
- Malayalam literature
- Malayalam cinema
- Demographics of India for a list of the official languages of India.
External links
- Ethnologue report for Malayalam
- Information on Malayalam language at Department of Public Relations, Government of Kerala
- Unicode Code Chart for Malayalam (PDF Format)
Not to be confused with the Malay language, spoken in Malaysia.
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Malayalam_language" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayalam_language, used under the GNU Free Documentation License
