"Malayalam" As A Palindrome
The word "Malayalam" is spelled as a palindrome in English. However, it is not a palindrome in its own script, for three reasons: the third "a" is long and should properly be transliterated "aa" or "ā" (an "a" with a macron), while the other "a"’s are short; the two "l" consonants represent different sounds, the first "l" being dental ("", Malayalam "ല", Roman "l") (although the consonant chart below lists that sound as alveolar) and the second retroflex ("", Malayalam "ള", Roman "ḷ"); and the final "m" is written as an anusvara, which denotes the same phoneme "/m/" as in the initial "m" in this case, but the two "m"’s are spelled differently (the first "m" is a normal "maമ" with an inherent vowel "a", while the last "m ം" is a pure consonant).
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