Malayalam script

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Malayalam script
Script type	Abugida
Time period	c. 830 – present[1][2]
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	Malayalam Sanskrit Tulu Jeseri Konkani Paniya Betta Kurumba Ravula and other minor languages
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Brahmi script Tamil-Brahmi Pallava script Grantha script (with Vattezhuthu influence) Malayalam script
Sister systems	Tigalari script Thirke script Dhives Akuru Saurashtra script
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Mlym (347), ​Malayalam
Unicode
Unicode alias	Malayalam
Unicode range	U+0D00–U+0D7F
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

Malayalam is written in a non-Latin script. Malayalam text used in this article is transliterated into the Latin script according to the ISO 15919 standard.

Malayalam script (Malayāḷa lipi; IPA: [mɐlɐjaːɭɐ liβ̞i]^[3][4] / Malayalam: മലയാളമെഴുത്ത്) is a Brahmic script used commonly to write Malayalam, which is the principal language of Kerala, India, spoken by 45 million people in the world. It is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic.^[5][6] Malayalam script is also widely used for writing Sanskrit texts in Kerala.

The Malayalam script bears high similarity with Tulu Script and 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.^[7] Like many other Indic scripts, it is an alphasyllabary (abugida), a writing system that is partially "alphabetic" and partially syllable-based. The modern Malayalam alphabet has 15 vowel letters, 42 consonant letters, and a few other symbols. The Malayalam script is a Vatteluttu alphabet extended with symbols from the Grantha alphabet to represent Indo-Aryan loanwords.^[8] The script is also used to write several minority languages such as Paniya, Betta Kurumba, and Ravula.^[9] The Malayalam language itself was historically written in several different scripts.