The Malayalam script (Malayalam: മലയാളലിപി, Malayāḷalipi, ) is a Brahmic script used commonly to write the Malayalam language—which is the principal language of the Indian state of Kerala, spoken by 35 million people in the world. Like many other Indic scripts, it is an abugida, or a writing system that is partially “alphabetic” and partially syllable-based. The modern Malayalam alphabet has 13 vowel letters, 36 consonant letters, and a few other symbols. The Malayalam script is a Vattezhuttu script, which had been extended with Grantha script symbols to represent Indo-Aryan loanwords. The script is also used to write several minority languages such as Paniya, Betta Kurumba, and Ravula. The Malayalam language itself was historically written in several different scripts.
Famous quotes containing the word script:
“Take what the old-church
found in Mithra’s tomb,
candle and script and bell,
take what the new-church spat upon
and broke and shattered.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)