Malayalam

Malayalam
malayāḷaṁ
മലയാളം
Malayalam in Malayalam script
Native to	India
Region	Kerala, Lakshadweep, Mahé (Puducherry)
Ethnicity	Malayali
Native speakers	38 million (2011)[1][2][3][4]
Language family	Dravidian Southern Dravidian[5] Tamil–Kannada Tamil–Kodagu Malayalam
Writing system	Malayalam script (Brahmic) Malayalam Braille
Official status
Official language in	India Kerala[6] Puducherry (Mahé) Lakshadweep
Regulated by	Academy for Malayalam literature, Government of Kerala
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ml
ISO 639-2	mal
ISO 639-3	mal
Glottolog	mala1464
Linguasphere	49-EBE-ba
Malayalam-speaking area

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Constitutionally recognised languages of India
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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
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Malayalam edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

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.

1. ↑ "Census of India Website : Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India". Archived from the original on 15 August 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
2. ↑ Johnson, Todd M.; Grim, Brian J. (2013). "Chapter 1. Global Religious Populations, 1910–2010". The World's Religions in Figures: An Introduction to International Religious Demography (PDF) (1st ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 October 2013. Retrieved 2022-01-08.
3. ↑ Malayalam at Ethnologue (22nd ed., 2019)
4. ↑ Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2011". www.censusindia.gov.in. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. [1] Archived 14 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine
5. ↑ "Dravidian". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 16 April 2017.
6. ↑ Official languages, UNESCO, archived from the original on 28 September 2005, retrieved 10 May 2007