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Malayalam alphabets
Aksharamala – alphabets of malayalam language
Until around 18th century, malayalam used vattezhuthu as the script. Then two forms of scripts derived from vattezhuthu - kolezhuthu, which was used in Cochin and Malabar and malayanma, which was used in Travancore. The original script with over 900 glyphs was simpified during the 1970’s to ease printing and typesetting. But the modern script is a combination of both traditional and simplified malayalam scripts. In the present form malayalam has 53 characters, 37 consonants and 16 vowels.
സ്വരങ്ങള്
അ ആ ഇ ഈ ഉ ഊ ഋ എ ഏ ഐ ഒ ഓ ഔ
വ്യഞ്ജനങ്ങള്
ക ഖ ഗ ഘ ങ
ച ഛ ജ ഝ ഞ
ട ഠ ഡ ഢ ണ
ത ഥ ദ ധ ന
പ ഫ ബ ഭ മ
യ ര ല വ ശ
ഷ സ ഹ ള ഴ റ
ചിഹ്നങ്ങള്
് ഃ ഌ
അക്കങ്ങള്
൦ ൧ ൨ ൩ ൪ ൫ ൬ ൭ ൮ ൯
Dr. Mammen Chundamannil writes:
“It was in 1821 that Benjamin Bailey, a Jesuit priest, designed the first Malayalam metal types for the printing machine. From the basic 56 characters, he forged around 600 conjuncts in beautiful metal type. These letters were in use for hundreds of years in Malayalam script. Later Herman Gundert designed and added several conjuncts. And the Malayalam language came to possess about 900 unique and rich type characters. These two pioneers were also authorities on comparative linguistics of Indian languages. Thereby the design of Malayalam characters and types naturally encompassed pan Indian and local specificities.”
Related Links
Evolution of malayalam script
Origin of malayalam script and its transformations
Malayalam unicode information
Unicode information about malayalam
Alan's unicode page on malayalam
Alan's unicode page on malayalam
Unicode chart in pdf format
Unicode information about malayalam