|
Glyph
Repertoire | Font
Samples
Font: Malayalam
Belonging to the group of Southern Indic scripts, Malayalam
script is derived from Grantha script, a descendant of the ancient
Brahmi script. Closely related to Tamil, Malayalam script is used in
writing the Malayalam language, as well as some minority languages,
in the Indian state of Kerala. Malayalam belongs to the Dravidian
group of languages which includes Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. Similar
to other Brahmi-derived Indic scripts, Malayalam demonstrates the
major features of that model.1 It is a syllabic alphabet
whose basic unit is the consonant-based syllable with an inherent
[a] vowel.
Malayalam is written horizontally from left to right and its
basic set of symbols consists of 37 consonants and 13 vowels. In
contrast to Tamil which uses a reduced repertoire of consonants
suited to its phonology, Malayalam follows the full Brahmic model.
At the beginning of a word, vowels appear in initial form. When used
to replace the inherent vowel of a consonantal syllable, vowels
appear in diacritic (or 'satellite') form before, after, above,
below or surrounding the modified syllable. Many consonant-vowel
combinations require special ligature forms. Consonant clusters,
adjoining consonants without intervening vowels, are written in one
of three methods. In the first method, the secondary component is
attached as a diacritic to the primary consonant. In the second
method, the secondary component is written as a subscript to the
primary consonant. Finally, in the third method, the components are
written as a fused form of the component symbols. Known as
anusvaram, the nasal marker indicates [m] in syllable-final
position. Although Malayalam has a native set of symbols for
numerals, today Arabic numbers are often used.
During the 1970s and 1980s, simplifications of the Malayalam
script were introduced. The reform aimed to reduce the complexity of
two particular aspects of Malayalam. First, it recommended the
replacement of irregular ligatures by a predictable sequence of
invarying components. Second, it recommended the formation of
consonant clusters out of invarying 'letter fragments' or by using
the vowel suppressor on all but the final part of a concatenated
sequence. While it has had some effect on daily practice, this
reform has only partially changed the well-established traditional
approach.
1 For a fuller description of the features of
Brahmi-derived scripts, see 'Devanagari'.
|