Malayalam phonology comprises the sound system of the Malayalam. It is characterized by a large consonant inventory, including true subapical retroflexes and a phonemic distinction in vowel length. The language also maintains clear contrasts among dental, alveolar, and retroflex places of articulation.
For the consonants and vowels, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbol is given, followed by the Malayalam character and the ISO 15919 transliteration. The current Malayalam script bears high similarity with Tigalari script, which was used for writing the Tulu language, spoken in coastal Karnataka (Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts) and the northernmost Kasargod district of Kerala. Tigalari script was also used for writing Sanskrit in Malabar region.
Vowels
Short Long Front Central Back Front Central Back Close Mid ് Open
⟨⟩ [ə̆~ɤ̈̆] formed from word final short /u/'s but now there are /u/'s finally as well, mostly in loanwords but also natively like in , , and native , there are minimal pairs as well: "water", a given name, "plant! (imperative)", "middle"; It is also added to the end of loanwords ending in some consonants, e.g. Sanskrit manas, āpad, Malayalam , , English current Ml. . In declensions the short u is deleted while the full u isnt, eg. naṭŭ-illa, naṭu-illa > naṭilla, naṭuvilla. It is the , an epenthentic vowel in Malayalam. Therefore, it has no independent vowel letter (because it never occurs at the beginning of words) but, when it comes after a consonant, there are various ways of representing it. In medieval times, it was just represented with the symbol for ⟨⟩, but later on it was just completely omitted (that is, written as an inherent vowel ⟨⟩, thus, ⟨⟩ "name" was once written as ⟨⟩ which means "guava"). In modern times, it is written in two different ways – the Northern style, in which a chandrakkala is used ⟨⟩, and the Southern or Travancore style, in which the diacritic for a is attached to the preceding consonant and a chandrakkala is written above ⟨⟩. According to one author, this alternative form ⟨⟩ is historically more correct, though the simplified form without a vowel sign u is common nowadays. (phonetically central: ) is represented as basic or the "default" vowel in the abugida script.
Malayalam has also borrowed the Sanskrit diphthongs of (represented in Malayalam as , ai) and (represented in Malayalam as , au) although these mostly occur only in Sanskrit loanwords. Traditionally (as in Sanskrit), four vocalic consonants (usually pronounced in Malayalam as consonants followed by the , which is not officially a vowel, and not as actual vocalic consonants) have been classified as vowels: vocalic r (, , r̥), long vocalic r (, , r̥̄), vocalic l (, , l̥) and long vocalic l (, , l̥̄). Except for the first, the other three have been omitted from the current script used in Kerala as there are no words in current Malayalam that use them.
Some authors say that Malayalam has no diphthongs and are clusters of V+glide j/ʋ while others consider all V+glide clusters to be diphthongs as in and
Vowel length is phonemic and all of the vowels have minimal pairs; for example "thickness", "showed", "tapped", "twisted, stick, marble", "throw", "lots"
Vowels tend to be fronted around palatalized consonants and backed around velarized consonants.
Some speakers also have from English loanwords; e.g. "bank" but most speakers replace it with or ; or and or .
Consonants LabialDentalAlveolarRetroflexPostalveolar/PalatalVelarGlottalNasal / , () Plosive/Affricate voiceless ~ , () aspirated ~ voiced () ~ breathy ~ Fricative , () ~ Approx. Tap Trill
As in other Dravidian languages, the retroflex series are true subapical consonants, in which the underside of the tongue contacts the roof. All of the alveolars except /s/ are apical. /, , , , / can either be postalveolar or alveolo-palatal depending upon the speaker and dialect; the postalveolar and alveolo-palatal realizations are in free variation. The alveolar nasal once had a separate character ⟨ഩ⟩ that is now obsolete and the sound is now almost always represented by the symbol that was originally used only for the dental nasal. However, both sounds are extensively used in current colloquial and official Malayalam, and although they were allophones in Old Malayalam, they now occasionally contrast in gemination – for example, ('by me', first person singular pronoun in the instrumental case) and ('if that is so'), which are both written (എന്നാൽ) and "eat!", "ate". The unaspirated alveolar stop also had a separate character ⟨ഺ⟩ but it has become obsolete, as the sound only occurs in geminate form (when geminated it is written with a below another ⟨റ്റ⟩) or immediately following other consonants (in these cases, or are usually written in small size underneath the first consonant). The proto Dravidian alveolar stop *ṯ developed into an alveolar trill in many of the Dravidian languages and *ṉṯ became in Malayalam while *ṯṯ remained. Currently Malayalam only has in the genitive case ending and a word formed with it ; Malayalam regained it from the older genitive case ending > > > , Malayalam still retains both forms in words like and though the former is dated, a similar process happened in some Sri Lankan Tamil dialects. is pronounced as but can be pronounced as or ; doesn't occur natively but it occurs in loans like () 'enroll' or () 'Henry'.The Unicode Standard Version 13.0 – Core Specification, South and Central Asia-I, Official Scripts of India pg. 514 All non-geminated voiceless stops and affricate become voiced intervocalically and after a nasal as in Tamil. The geminated velars and are sometimes palatalized word medially after like in the words vs and vs. , their distribution is unpredictable e.g. it doesn't palatalize in but does in . If the palatalization is from it is sometimes deleted e.g. can be or , as or . Some of the northern dialects might pronounce them without palatalization. The letter represents both , a phoneme occurring in Sanskrit loanwords, and , which is mostly found in comparatively recent borrowings from European languages. Though nowadays most people (especially youngsters) pronounce as like in the word . Medial can be or according to the speaker, eg. or In the Jesari dialect the native word-initial is also spirantized to . are unreleased word finally. Words will never begin or end with a geminated consonant. All consonants appear word medially. The plain stops, affricates, nasals, laterals, the fricatives other than and and approximants other than can be geminated and gemination can sometimes change the meaning of the word, e.g. 'cell', 'lie'. only occur in geminated form intervocalically. The approximant has both rhotic and lateral qualities, and is indeterminate between an approximant and a fricative. The articulation of changes part-way through, perhaps explaining why it behaves as both a rhotic and a lateral, both an approximant and a fricative, but the nature of the change is not understood.Scobbie, Punnoose & Khattab (2013) "Articulating five liquids: a single speaker ultrasound study of Malayalam". In Rhotics: New Data and Perspectives. BU Press, Bozen-Bolzano. are palatalized and have an advanced tongue root while are clear or velarized and have a retracted tongue root, particularly noticeable in geminates. /ɾ, r/ can vary between . may be realized as or . Around 75% of and 50% of and from Old Malayalam got assimilated to and , almost all of the merged with suggesting an earlier merger of some of the and (for e.g. the cognate of Tamil is spelt as (influenced by Sanskrit ) and pronounced ); and were unchanged, e.g. Tamil , but Malayalam Word final became unless the word is monosyllabic, e.g. Tamil but Malayalam . Final in monosyllabic words became e.g. Tamil , but Malayalam . Loanwords with are replaced with and not with like in Hindi or Telugu e.g. English "Brazil" unless it was loaned through Indo-Aryan then the Indo-Aryan pronunciation is taken e.g. Hi. Per. , other Perso-Arabic phonemes like are replaced with , sometimes are replaced with e.g. Arabic , became , . English loans with are replaced with ; the dentals do not clash with English loans with , which are replaced with or , though is rare because of the limited distribution natively e.g. "taxi" as or more commonly . The English is loaned as either or unpredictably, for e.g. 'current' got loaned as but 'maroon' got loaned as or but the cluster is loaned as other clusters are loaned as /rC/ or /ɾC/, only occurs in words with e.g. 'force' as . Speakers with non rhotic English accents don't have /ɹC/ clusters in English loans and pronounce it as . In Sanskrit, loans with /t̪C/ and /d̪C/ (unless C is a sonorant or a dental stop) sometimes the becomes especially in e.g. utsava > ulsavam, utpādana > ulpādaṉam, udghāṭana > ulghāḍaṉam. There are some native words with (urasŭ), (vīśŭ), (muṣiyuka), (apphan), (ēbhyan), some interjections with (ōhō, āhā) but rest of the fricatives (except in native words of Jesari) and aspirates are only found in loans. Rarely, some speakers pronounce the voiced aspirated consonants as voiceless so words like as , it is more commonly deaspirated so as and as , intervocalically the voiceless aspirate also becomes voiced so as .
Colloquial and dialectal language Source: , gets lowered to when before Ca, eg. > , this change is seen in 10th century inscriptions, instead of . Exceptions include > (south), in other dialects. The latter word and have seen such variation since old Malayalam of the south. can become sporadically in other dialects as with the previous word. Medial 's maybe pronounced as a in the north and center, in central it may even merge with a for some, eg. > , > , > . In center and north, can become when there is a non back vowel preceding it, eg. , , > , , . This change is also seen in the standard form. Sporadic cases of > , eg. > , but not in or . Cases of > , most commonly in the north and in some castelects, ef. > . A general feature is that the overall length of vowels decrease further north you go. In fast speech initial consonants may be dropped, eg. > > > > > > > > . dropped in coda, eg. (>), > . Northern and Southern dialects might hypercorrect the last and similar words to . Word finally it happens only if the next word starts with a consonant. Medial maybe lenited to a fricative or completely lost in center and north, eg. > SK. , NK. CK. ; > CK. . merged with in certain Mappila and castelects, eg. . Judeo-Malayalam used to made them Intervocalically and before another , there are also cases of hypercorrection like < , but they are only attested in writing and was not present during aliyah. This was also done by certain northern Thiyya speakers affirming the affinity of Judeo Malayalam and northern Malayalam. More cases of nasal assimilation, eg. > . In some dialects > . Loss of aspiration, eg. . > , sometimes too, eg. > . Merger of with farther north and sporadically in center, particularly among Mappila speech, e.g. > . In some areas like Malappuram it's merged with instead, so > .
Sample text The following text is Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
English All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Malayalam
Romanisation (ISO 15919) manuṣyarellāvaruṁ tulyāvakāśaṅṅaḷōṭuṁ antassōṭuṁ svātantryattōṭuṅkūṭi janicciṭṭuḷḷavarāṇŭ. anyōnyaṁ bhrātr̥bhāvattōṭe perumāṟuvānāṇŭ manuṣyanŭ vivēkabuddhiyuṁ manasākṣiyuṁ siddhamāyirikkunnatŭ.
IPA /manuʂjaɾellaːʋaɾum t̪uljaːʋakaːʃaŋŋaɭoːʈum an̪t̪assoːʈum sʋaːt̪an̪t̪rjat̪t̪oːʈuŋkuːʈi d͡ʒanit͡ʃt͡ʃiʈʈuɭɭaʋaɾaːɳɨ̆ ǁ anjoːnjam bʱraːt̪rɨ̆bʱaːʋat̪t̪oːʈe peɾumaːruʋaːnaːɳɨ̆ manuʂjanɨ̆ ʋiʋeːkabud̪d̪ʱijum manasaːkʂijum sid̪d̪ʱamaːjiɾikkun̪ːat̪ɨ̆ ǁ/
References
Citations
Works cited