At the start of the millennium, Malayalam cinema had reached the nadir of mediocrity, with directors and filmmakers pandering to the superstar cult.
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Malayalam Script Writing PDF-File PDF Converter to Convert PDFs 3.0 (pdf-file.com) PDF - FilePDF converter is a PDF software to convert PDF files to Word documents. The PDF converter is a PDF. The earliest script used to write Malayalam was the, and later the, which derived from it. The current is based on the Vatteluttu script, which was extended with letters to adopt loanwords. With a total of 52 letters, the Malayalam script has the largest number of letters among the orthographies. Malayalam Film Script Writing Format Pdf. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. It is standard practice to sign-off a film script with THE END centred on the page, preceded by FADE OUT. Only ever appears at the end of a feature-length screenplay, or an act in a television script. If you want to indicate a FADE OUT. And a FADE IN: within the body of the script, then the correct transitional term is FADE TO: as above. It’s also a great screenplay to read to learn how to write that essential element in a modern comedy movie: the set piece. Karen McCullah who co-wrote Legally Blonde (which is coming up) and 10 Things I Hate About You (which isn’t) was brought in specifically to help write the big set pieces in the script.
FlixMollywoodTuesday, December 31, 2019 - 14:34
In a career spanning over four decades and 400 films, Mammootty – one half of the big two Ms of Mollywood – has donned the khaki on the silver screen several times. But his latest cop avatar as SI Mani in Khalid Rahman's Unda sprung more than a few surprises. With a slight paunch and gentle mannerisms, SI Mani – fondly called Mani Sir by his colleagues – is anything but the flamboyant macho cop that we see so often in Malayalam movies.
Tasked with leading a bunch of rookie Kerala policemen from Kerala on election duty in the Naxal hotbed of Bastar, SI Mani is a man full of insecurities and vulnerabilities. When the naxalites open fire unexpectedly at their camp, in the middle of the night, SI Mani doesn't take charge. In fact, he goes numb and stays back, silently watching his subordinates struggling to retaliate.
The biggest coup pulled off by director Khalid Rahman is his decision to cast a superstar as an ordinary cop. And by doing so, the director has made a bold statement: content and not stardom is the new king in Kerala's film industry. A few years ago, to do anything of this sort would have been unimaginable, almost sacrilegious in an industry that literally worshipped its superstars. Khaild Rahman in Unda boldly denies Mammootty the grand entry that was almost a ritual at one point of time. He directly pans the camera to the actor's face without any loud background score, deflating any hopes of a dramatic introduction.
The shift
At the onset of this millennium, Malayalam cinema was plagued by its worst crisis and things didn't improve in the first decade either. Only 15 of the 75-odd movies released in 2009 managed to break even or make profits at the box office. On the quality front too, Malayalam cinema had reached the nadir of mediocrity, with directors and filmmakers refusing to come up with fresh ideas and pandering to the superstar cult.
Moustache twirling hypermasculine protagonists beating a dozen baddies to pulp single-handedly, oozing with misogyny in films driven by insane levels of testosterone meant that the audiences could no longer connect to the characters or the story being told on the screen. So, while Mohanlal was seen playing the alpha male Induchoodan in Narasimham, Mammootty was content playing the irreverent, hot-headed, foul-mouthed IAS officer in Renji Panicker's The King. In Narasimham, Mohanlal's character says he wants a woman whom he can kick around after being sloshed and who can also deliver and take care of his babies. On the other hand, in one of the most blatantly chauvinistic scenes, Mammootty's IAS Alex in The King, ends an argument with a junior IAS officer by saying 'you are just a woman'.
On 7 January, 2011, Rajesh Pillai's Traffic hit the screens. The film, which went on to win critical acclaim and achieve box office success, breathed fresh life into the near dead industry. Drawing inspiration from a series of real life incidents that unfolded in Chennai, Traffic is an emotional thriller, scripted by the duo Bobby-Sanjay and directed by Rajesh Pillai. A seminal movie, Traffic dealt with the sensitive issue of organ donation, and followed a hyperlink narrative format linking the lives of its different characters together: a journalist on the deathbed, a traffic cop, a movie superstar full of hubris and a leading cardiac surgeon.
Traffic was one of the first films in Malayalam and Indian regional cinema that incorporated multiple narratives hyperlinked with each other, similar to foreign films.The film rewrote the set formulae and rules of storytelling; it simply narrated the events leading to the tragedy, linking four distinctive families and realistic characters through a coincidence, with no unpredictable twists or turns in the plot. The cinematic rebirth marked the arrival of films that were no longer subservient to the superstar cult and did not portray larger than life characters but had characters that looked and behaved in a manner to which the ordinary people watching the film could relate.
Director Aashiq Abu rightly remarked thus about the changing tastes and expectations of the Malayali audiences in a panel discussion after the screening of the movie Virus: 'People (in Kerala) do not look at the star, they look at the writer and director and the content. You cannot get away with shit now.'
New wave cinema
Often called 'new generation' or 'new wave' films, these films by a young crop of filmmakers and actors have been experimenting heavily, slaying stereotypes. With a string of movies failing to click, Malayalam cinema had started to lose its audiences to Bollywood and Tamil films. This mass exodus coincided with the entry of a fresh crop of filmmakers who made movies inspired by global cinema, yet rooted in the Malayali life and ethos, maintaining the local flavour. Realistic, contemporary, slice of life stories about ordinary men and women replaced the over the top stories about larger than life characters.
A coming of age story about the camaraderie among three cousins (Bangalore Days), a photographer in a sleepy village who vows to not wear chappals till he has taken revenge for a petty fight (Maheshinte Prathikaaram), an aspiring pilot’s struggles after an acid attack by her ex boyfriend (Uyare), a nerdy software engineer's struggles with OCD (North 24 Kaatham) and an out of favour cop's battles with alcoholism while trying to nab a serial killer (Memories); these are the offbeat and unconventional plotlines of some recent Malayalam movies that have won accolades from all quarters.
While a lot of time and words have been devoted to the less star focussed and content driven nature, offbeat plots and unconventional storytelling techniques of new generation movies, there is yet another feature that deserves attention: progressive ethos.
In a much discussed scene from Kumbalangi Nights, the clean-shaven but thickly moustached Shammi, superbly portrayed by Fahadh Faasil, looks admiringly at himself into a bathroom mirror and proudly proclaims, 'Raymond, the complete man.' Shammi is the prototype Malayali macho male that we have seen so often in our movies. He shouts at children who play football near his house, he pokes fun at men who cook, commenting that such tasks are only meant for women, he loves twirling his thick walrus moustache and is proud about his role as the patriarch of his family.
What distinguishes Kumbalangi Nights from all the other older Malayalam movies that are guilty of normalising, vindicating and even glorifying characters like Shammi, is that Madhu C Narayanan’s movie doesn't celebrate but destroys Shammi's notions of toxic masculinity. Shammi is the caricature of the alpha male seen so often on celluloid.
Several Malayalam movies in the past have portrayed women as chattel and normalised sexual assault in the name of love. In Meesha Madhavan (2002), actor Dileep mutters to himself if he should rape the heroine who is sleeping, in a scene that is supposed to be 'funny.' As against this, the 2018 thriller Varathan, engages with subjects like sexual assault and the lecherous male gaze in a serious manner.
Women in the lead
In many ways, with their progressive ethos and outlook, new generation movies are rebelling against and correcting the wrongs of the previous generation of Malayalam movies. While Bollywood and even some older Malayalam movies have exploited the idea of an intense relationship turning toxic to the hilt for box office success, by glorifying the man’s solitude, his alcoholism and even violence, the new generation movies have remarkably rebelled against the norm.
Contrast a movie like Kabir Singh/ Arjun Reddy with the 2019 Parvathy starrer Uyare. While the former celebrates, glorfies and even justifies the actions of a toxic jilted lover, the latter makes no attempt to deify the assaulter but portrays him as an utterly despicable character. When Kabir Singh was shattering box office records, another small budget Malayalam movie bereft of a star cast, Thamaasha, was educating the audience on the perils of body shaming without being too preachy. A remake of the 2017 Kannada film Ondu Motteya Kathe, the makers of Thamaasha dealt with the topic of body shaming with a lot of sensitivity, which the original failed to do as it makes it characters look like cinematic caricatures towards the end.
Several Malayalam movies in the past had pigeonholed women characters - suffering mothers and submissive wives were a common sight. Recent releases have broken that norm - women characters are no longer written to help ‘him’ achieve ‘his dreams’ and to tell ‘his story’, but for showing stories of strong women fighting against all odds, overcoming fears to fulfill their dreams and aspirations.
In Aashiq Abu’s 22 Female Kottayam, Rima Kallingal plays Tessa, a naive nurse living in Bengaluru, who has ambitions of flying out of the country for a job overseas. But all her dreams are dashed when she is raped and locked up for a crime she has not even committed. With everything falling apart, Tessa chooses to assert her agency, exacting revenge on her culprits. Manju Warrier’s portrayal of Nirupama in How Old Are You, as an ordinary government employee who fights against all odds to become an entrepreneur without any support from her husband and while dealing with her teenage daughter’s mood swings, has to feature in the list of Malayalam cinema’s greatest performances ever - what makes it even more special is that this was her return to films after a 14-year long sabbatical.
A shift in sensibilities has led to slow, subtle yet significant evolution of the female lead and actors like Parvathy (Uyare), Aishwarya Lekshmi (Mayaanadhi), Rajisha Vijayan (June) and more recently Anna Ben (Helen) have been leading the change.
Politics within the industry
Interestingly, many big names like Parvathy, Rima Kallingal, Geetu Mohandas, Dileesh Pothen, Rajiv Ravi, Amal Neerad, Anwar Rasheed, Aashiq Abu, Anjali Menon and Shyju Kahild, who are associated with the new-wave/new generation movies that are slaying stereotypes and propagating progressive ethos, have also been actively involved in the sweeping changes taking place in the Malayalam film industry.
Much before the #MeToo movement rocked the Indian entertainment industries and knocked off several assaulters posing as infallible heroes from their pedestals, the Malayalam industry was sharply divided when the all powerful cine artist’s body Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) decided to revoke its ban and reinstate actor-producer Dileep, who is accused of being the mastermind behind the abduction and sexual assault of a leading woman actor from the industry in February 2017.
While the old guard of the industry firmly rooted for Dileep, the new crop of filmmakers and actors rebelled against AMMA - Rima Kallingal, Parvathy, Remya Nambeesan, director Geethu Mohandas (key members of the Women in Cinema Collective) quit in protest. Filmmakers Rajiv Ravi (Kamattipaadam), Aashiq Abu (Virus, Salt ‘N’ Pepper, 22 Female Kottayam) and Dileesh Pothan (Maheshinte Prathikaram, Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum) lashed out at AMMA, not even sparing the two Big Ms of the industry.
Conversation on making film units/ sets safer for women were started and filmmakers like Aashiq Abu have walked the talk - his production house, Originals Pixels in Motion, became the first in this industry to announce that an Internal Complaints Committee would be part of every set it creates.
For filmmaker Fazil's 1998 movie Harikrishnans, a love triangle among Mohanlal, Mammootty and Juhi Chawla, two climaxes were shot. While one climax meant for the southern part of the state had Juhi Chawla choose Mohanlal, in other parts of the state, it was Mammootty who was the lucky one. The decision to have two climaxes for different regions was purely driven by the need to appeal to the ardent fan bases of the two superstars.
15 years later, Fazil’s son, Fahadh Faasil, a superstar in his own right, commanding a massive fan base, played a small time thief in Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (2017). Despite being the biggest name in the cast, he doesn't get a heroine or a duet. Leave that, he doesn't have a name of his own or an identity! At no point does the film pander to his stardom and the story mostly revolves around the newlywed couple played by Suraj Venjaramoodu and Nimisha Sajayan.
In the 2016 film Kammattipaadam, it was the turn of Mammootty's son, Dulquer Salmaan, another superstar with a massive fan following, to play second fiddle to actor Vinayakan. Interestingly, Fahadh won the National Award for Best Supporting Actor (and not Best Actor) while Vinayakan was nominated for Best Actor (and not Best Supporting Actor) for the National Awards.
Suraj Venjaramoodu and Vinayakan are not the biggest names in the star cast of Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum or Kammattipaadam. And yet their characters get more screen time than Fahadh or Dulquer’s characters. Kammattipaadam and Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum are not aberrations - several Malayalam movies in the last few years have had actors who usually played character/supporting roles emerge as central protagonists. Soubin Sahir, an accidental actor who always wanted to be a director, became a household name with his roles in Premam (2015) and Maheshinte Prathikaaram (2016). And suddenly, he was playing the lead in movies like Sudani from Nigeria and Kumbalangi Nights. His co-actor from Premam, the FTII Pune graduate Vinay Forrt, was the unlikely lead in Thamaasha. All these movies not only received critical acclaim but also did remarkably well at the box office, busting the myth that commercial success without crowd-pulling stars is impossible.
From scripts being tweaked to exploit the demi-god like status of superstars to new generation superstars happily playing second fiddle, Kerala’s film industry in this decade, has undergone a sea change that has not only led to its emergence as the country’s best industry in terms of content but has also won it several awards and praise globally.
Cutting across the commercial, art-house/parallel cinema and linguistic divides, movies like Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Jallikattu and Geethu Mohandas’s Moothon that have themes and narrative styles firmly rooted in Malayali life and culture but are set in a language that also appeals to the wider non-Malayali audience, have been winning big at several international film festivals and also gaining popularity on OTT platforms. With Malayalam movies hogging more and more of the limelight, the new-gen stars like Nivin Pauly, Dulquer Salmaan, Parvathy, Fahadh Fassil and Tovino Thomas are also attracting offers from other film industries.
A man who surely knew more than a few things about filmmaking, once famously remarked, 'To make a great film you need three things- the script, the script and the script'. Many moons later, Kerala's cinema industry seems to be religiously following the advice of a certain Mr. Alfred Hitchcock.
This decade has surely belonged to Malayalam cinema that has come of age.
Omkar can be found chasing cats when he isn't fanboying over Anurag Kashyap, drooling over Dulquer Salman, or involved in a heated exchange on Indian politics. He has previously written for The Wire, The Quint, Arré and DailyO.
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Updated 9 December, 2020
This page gathers basic information about the Malayalam script and its use for the Malayalam language. It aims (generally) to provide an overview of the orthography and typographic features, and (specifically) to advise how to write Malayalam using Unicode.
See also the companion document, Malayalam character notes, for detailed information about specific Unicode characters.
Phonetic transcriptions on this page should be treated as an approximate guide, only. Many are more phonemic than phonetic, and there may be variations depending on the source of the transcription.
More about using this page
Related pages.
Other script summaries.
Sample (Malayalam)
Select part of this sample text to show a list of characters, with links to more details.
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വകുപ്പ് 1. മനുഷ്യരെല്ലാവരും തുല്യാവകാശങ്ങളോടും അന്തസ്സോടും സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തോടുംകൂടി ജനിച്ചിട്ടുള്ളവരാണ്. അന്യോന്യം ഭ്രാതൃഭാവത്തോടെ പെരുമാറുവാനാണ് മനുഷ്യന്നു വിവേകബുദ്ധിയും മനസ്സാക്ഷിയും സിദ്ധമായിരിക്കുന്നത്.
വകുപ്പ് 2. ജാതി, മതം, നിറം, ഭാഷ, സ്ത്രീപുരുഷഭേദം, രാഷ്ട്രീയാഭിപ്രായം സ്വത്ത്, കുലം എന്നിവയെ കണക്കാക്കാതെ ഈ പ്രഖ്യാപനത്തില് പറയുന്ന അവകാശങ്ങള്ക്കും സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തിനും സര്വ്വജനങ്ങളും അര്ഹരാണ്. രാഷ്ട്രീയ സ്ഥിതിയെ അടിസ്ഥാനമാക്കി (സ്വതന്ത്രമോ, പരിമിത ഭരണാധികാരത്തോടു കൂടിയതോ ഏതായാലും വേണ്ടതില്ല) ഈ പ്രഖ്യാപനത്തിലെ അവകാശങ്ങളെ സംബന്ധിച്ചേടത്തോളം യാതൊരു വ്യത്യാസവും യാതൊരാളോടും കാണിക്കാന് പാടുള്ളതല്ല.
Usage & history
Malayalam script is used to write the Malayalam language of Kerala state, and spoken by 35 million people including the diaspora, and the script is used for another 10 minority languages, according to the Ethnologue. It is also widely used for writing Sanskrit texts in Kerala.
Name: മലയാളലിപിmlyāɭlipimələjɑːɭə lɪpɪ Malayalam script
Originally descended from Bhrami, the Malayalam script is a Vatteluttu alphabet extended with symbols from the Grantha alphabet to represent Indo-Aryan loanwords. Throughout its history, it has absorbed words from Tamil, Sanskrit, Arabic, and English.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Malayalam underwent orthographic reform due to printing difficulties. A significant change involved the introduction of a visible virama (chandrakkala) rather than conjunct forms, and simplification of a number of forms, including consonant plus -u/-uu combinations.
Sources: The Unicode Standard, Wikipedia.
Basic features
The script is an abugida. Consonants carry an inherent vowel which can be modified by appending vowel-signs to the consonant. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern Malayalam orthography.
The Malayalam script was significantly simplified at the beginning of the 1970s. Prior to the orthographic reform there were many more ligated forms. In particular, the vowels u/ū and r in 2nd position in a consonant were reduced from ligated forms to simple, unchanging glyphs alongside a consonant.
The number of characters between spaces can be quite high as sometimes spaces are used to indicate phonological pauses, rather than lexical boundaries.
Malayalam uses 36 basic consonant letters.
Consonant clusters are typically indicated in modern Malayalam using the visible chandrakkala mark (virama), which indicates that no vowel follows a consonant. Conjunct forms are also expressed using stacked consonants, and conjoined consonants, where the chandrakkala is still used but hidden, and special chillu shapes.
As part of a cluster, RA has special forms. As a medial consonant in the modern orthography it appears as a simple glyph to the left of the letters spoken before it. When initial in the cluster its glyph includes a cillu hook at the top right. There are also special rules involving clusters of multiple RA letters.
Syllable-final consonant sounds may be represented by 2 dedicated combining marks (anusvara & visarga), but are generally ordinary consonants with chandrakkala, or 6 chillu forms. The word-final virama sometimes represents a half-u sound, rather than completely killing the inherent vowel. Because of this, Malayalam uses a set of syllable-final consonants called chillus that have no vowel sound associated with them.
The Malayalam orthography has an inherent vowel, and represents other vowels using 12 vowel-signs, including 3 prescripts and 3 circumgraphs. All circumgraphs can be decomposed. All vowel-signs are combining marks, and are stored after the base character. Also a word-final half-u sound is written in modern Malayalam using ് [U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA] (candrakkala).
There are 12 independent vowels, one for each vowel sound, including the inherent vowel, and these are used to write all standalone vowel sounds.
The only composite vowels are those created by decomposition of the circumgraphs, and involve 2 glyphs, one on each side of the base consonant(s).
There is also a set of vocalics.
There is an archaic set of numbers that include digits beyond the normal 0-9 range, and include a number of fractional symbols.
Character index
This section lists non-ASCII characters used for modern Malayalam, and other characters in the Malayalam script block not used by modern Malayalam. For descriptions of usage, click on ↓.
Letters
Basic consonants
Vowels
Vocalics
Finals
Not used for modern Malayalam
Combining marks
Vowels
Vocalics
Finals
Other
Not used for modern Malayalam
Numbers
Not used for modern Malayalam
Punctuation
Symbols
Not used for modern Malayalam
Vowels
Vowel sounds
Click on the sound groups to see where else in the document each of the sounds are referred to.
Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.
Plain vowels
Diphthongs
Inherent vowel
The inherent vowel is usually transcribed and pronounced a. So ക [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA] is pronounced ka.
Vowel absence & half-u
Malayalam uses ് [U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA] (in Malayalam called ചന്ദ്രക്കലcn͓d͓rk͓kl (candrakkala)ʧand̪r̪akkala) to kill the inherent vowel after a consonant, eg. ക്k͓ explicitly represents just the sound k.
However, in modern text, at the end of a word the combination ക്k͓ may also represent the sound kə̆ or kɨ̆ (depending on dialect). The transcription for this is usually ŭ, and it is called half-u.
In older documents the half-u was typically written with a u vowel-sign plus chandrakkala, which is not ambiguous, eg. പാലു്.
The Unicode Standard provides examples of half-u occurring in positions that are not word-final (that is, not immediately before a space), eg. ഐശീല്ം. In another example, the chandrakkala is attached to an independent vowel letter, and overrides the sound of that letter, eg. എ്ന്നാ
The chandrakkala is always written after any vowel-sign and before any final consonant (such as anusvara).
See also clusters, where the chandrakkala can be hidden between consonant clusters, and finals.
Vowel-signs
Non-inherent vowel sounds that follow a consonant are represented using vowel-signs, eg. കി [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+0D3F MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN I] is pronounced ki.
Vowel-signs may also be attached to digits, eg. 355ാം.u,505
Malayalam vowel-signs are all combining characters. In principle a single Unicode character is used per base consonant, even if the vowel-signs appear on both sides of the base consonant, but 3 vowel signs decompose to more than one character. See also circumgraphs. All vowel-signs are typed and stored after the base consonant, and the font puts them in the correct place for display.
All of the vowel-signs are spacing marks, meaning that they consume horizontal space when added to a base consonant.
See also vocalics.
Prescript vowel-signs
Three vowel-signs appear to the left of the base consonant letter or cluster, eg. കെkeke.
These are combining marks that are always stored after the base consonant. The font places the glyph before the base consonant.
These vowel-signs are placed before the start of the syllable. This means that a word with a consonant cluster at the start separates the prescript vowel from any postscript vowels by more than one consonant character.
Circumgraphs
Three vowels are produced by a single combining character with visually separate parts, that appear on opposite sides of the consonant onset eg. കൊkeākoː.
In modern text, ൗ [U+0D57 MALAYALAM AU LENGTH MARK] has become a dominant way to write the vowel au̯, rather than ൌ [U+0D4C MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AU].
Encoding. All of these circumgraphs can be written as a single character, or as two.
- ൊ [U+0D4A MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN O]
ൊ [U+0D46 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN E + U+0D3E MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AA] - ോ [U+0D4B MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN OO]
ോ [U+0D47 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN EE + U+0D3E MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AA] - ൌ [U+0D4C MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN AU]
ൌ [U+0D46 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN E + U+0D57 MALAYALAM AU LENGTH MARK]
The single code point per vowel-sign is required by the Unicode Standard u,501, however the parts are separated in Unicode Normalisation Form D (NFD).
Whichever approach is used, the vowel-signs must be typed and stored after the consonant characters they surround, and in left to right order. In the case of decomposed vowel-signs, the order is also important and must be as shown above.
Other vowel-signs
The following combining marks are also used to indicate vowel sounds.
Vowel ligatures & orthographic reforms
Like Tamil, in the traditional version of the script Malayalam consonants combining with ു [U+0D41 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN U] and ൂ [U+0D42 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN UU] tend to produce ligated forms, as shown in fig_u_ligatures.
During orthographic reforms in the 1970s and 1980s a simpler approached was introduced, to make printing easier. Both vowels were represented by an unchanging, postscript vowel-sign as shown below. No change is needed to the underlying code points in Unicode, this is purely a font difference.
Standalone vowels
Malayalam represents standalone vowels using a set of independent vowel letters. The set includes a character to represent the inherent vowel sound.
Vocalics
ഋ [U+0D0B MALAYALAM LETTER VOCALIC R] and ൃ [U+0D43 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC R] are most common in the modern orthography.
The items in the list below are rare and used only to write Sanskrit in Malayalam.u,501
Consonants
Consonant sounds
Click on the sounds to see where else in the document they are referred to.
Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.
labial | dental | alveolar | post- alveolar | retroflex | palatal | velar | glottal |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
stop | pb pʰbʰ | td tʰdʰ | t | ʈɖ ʈʰɖʰ | kɡ kʰɡʰ | ||
affricate | t͡ʃd͡ʒ t͡ʃʰd͡ʒʰ | ||||||
fricative | f | s | ɕ | ʂ | h | ||
nasal | m | n̪ | n | ɳ | ɲ | ŋ | |
approximant | ʋ | l | ɻɭ | j | |||
trill/flap | ɾ | ɽ |
Basic consonants
Stops
Affricates
Fricatives
Nasals
Liquids
Other consonants
The conjunct ക്ഷk͓ʂ is conventionally regarded as an additional letter.d,420
Two other letters, ഩ [U+0D29 MALAYALAM LETTER NNNA] and ഺ [U+0D3A MALAYALAM LETTER TTTA] are historic and used rarely in scholarly texts to represent alveolar sounds. In ordinary texts, ന [U+0D28 MALAYALAM LETTER NA and റ [U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA] are used instead.ws
Syllable-final consonants
Chillus
Words ending with chandrakkala may be pronounced with a half-u sound after. In order to indicate a consonant with no following vowel sound at all the following chillu (or cillakṣaram) characters can be used, eg. വില്ലൻ.
ൿ [U+0D7F MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU K] is relatively rare.u,505
Unicode v9 introduced 3 more chillu letters, ൔ [U+0D54 MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU M], ൕ [U+0D55 MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU Y], and ൖ [U+0D56 MALAYALAM LETTER CHILLU LLL], which are not included in CLDR.
In older Unicode text the first 5 chillus in the list above were written using the combination consonant+VIRAMA+ZWJ, but since the introduction of the chillu characters in Unicode v5.1 these precomposed characters are recommended.
Anusvara & visarga
![Film Film](/uploads/1/1/9/4/119420874/471420287.gif)
Malayalam also uses the anusvara and visarga as syllable-final characters, eg. ദുഃഖം.
The anusvara normally represents the sound m, but may be assimilated to another nasal consonant. It can be used multiple times after a vowel, eg. ഈംംംംị̄m̽m̽m̽m̽.u,504
Consonant clusters
The absence of a vowel sound between two or more consonants is visually indicated in one of the following ways.
- A visible chandrakkala character above the top right of the initial consonant.
- Stacked consonants, where the non-initial consonant appears below the initial, usually with a reduced or ligated form.
- Conjoined consonants, where consonants sit side-by-side but with some ligation or different forms than usual.
- Special 'chillu' shapes for the initial consonant (a special case of the preceding bullet point).
- A syllable-final consonant diacritic followed by a regular consonant.
In Unicode, the stacking and conjoining behaviour is achieved by adding ് [U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA] between the consonants. The font hides the glyph automatically.
Traditional fonts have more ligatures than modern ones. There doesn't appear to much in the way of a systematicapproach to shaping. With a few exceptions, the conjuncts are specific to particular pairs of characters.
You can see conjunct forms in the conjunct map table. This shows all combinations of two consonants and allows you to observe the effect of changing the font. Images of the table with conjuncts highlighted by coloured dots are available for the Noto Serif Malayalam and Thoolika Traditional Unicode fonts.
Sequences involving more than two consonants in a cluster can combine a variety of methods. The example in to_india shows 3 conjoined consonants in the middle, and a conjoined cluster stacked below another letter at the end.
ര [U+0D30 MALAYALAM LETTER RA] when non-initial in a cluster is displayed to the left of the other consonant(s) in the reformed orthography, eg. ക്രk͓r. This transposition is done by the font – the typed and stored order remains the same as the spoken order.
When RA follows more than one consonant, it is displayed to the left of the cluster, not just to the left of the preceding consonant, eg. ന്ദ്രn͓d͓r in ചന്ദ്രക്കലcn͓d͓rk͓klʧand̪r̪akkala.
Visible chandrakkala
This is a common option, and was promoted as the default by the orthogrpahic reforms of the 1970s. It is also the fallback if the font doesn't contain conjunct forms for a particular cluster of consonants.
Examples include ട്ഛʈ͓cʰ and ക്റk͓ṙ.
Stacking
The non-initial consonant is drawn below the initial consonant, and with a slightly different shape.
The following list shows stacked conjuncts in the Noto Serif Malayalam font (unless you changed the font for examples on this page).
Stacks tend to be particularly common for geminated consonants, even when those consonants don't participate in other conjunct pairings. In 3 such cases, the second consonant is often represented by a small triangle.
Otherwise, the subjoined consonant may be a reduced version of the original, or may be ligated. Note that LA has a very different shape from normal when in subjoined position.
Conjoined consonants
Conjuncts where the consonants remain side-by-side typically merge the shapes of the consonants.
However, 3 consonants have very standardised glyphs when they appear in non-initial position, and those glyphs don't merge with the other consonant. They are യ [U+0D2F MALAYALAM LETTER YA], റ [U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA], and വ [U+0D35 MALAYALAM LETTER VA]. The list below shows them combined with the letter KA.
Writing A Script Template Pdf
Exceptions to the above are യ്യy͓y and വ്വʋ͓ʋ.
The isolated, prescript shape for RA was introduced by the reformed orthography. In the old orthography RA as the second element in a conjunct was represented by a ligated swash below the initial consonant.
The following list shows conjoined conjuncts in the Noto Serif Malayalam font (unless you changed the font for examples on this page). To see the original shapes, click on the conjunct.
Chillu-style initials
In some fonts the initial consonant in a cluster may take a chillu shape, followed by an ordinary glyph for the second character.
In the Thoolika Traditional Unicode font this applies to the following consonants in initial position. The examples all use SHA in the second position. Note that the chillu code points are not used here – this is just font styling on normal consonants.
conjunct_chillus shows the same sequence of characters in the Thoolika Traditional Unicode font. Note how the shape of the second consonant remains the same as normal - there is no ligation or repositioning.
Initial ര (RA)
Cluster-initial ര [U+0D30 MALAYALAM LETTER RA] is only used before യ [U+0D2F MALAYALAM LETTER YA] in standard Malayalam.u,505 Since the orthographic reform, this has been written as ർയr͓y.
Before the 1970s, however, a dot or small vertical stroke was used over the following consonant, in a similar way to the repha in other indic scripts, eg. ൎയ. The character ൎ [U+0D4E MALAYALAM LETTER DOT REPH] is used to reproduce this.
This character is not a combining character. It is typed and stored in the same place as you would expect to find the RA + VIRAMA, and then the font needs to position the glyph over the following consonant.
Clusters with റ (RRA)
The conjunct റ്റ [U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+0D31 MALAYALAM LETTER RRA] is always pronounced tta, eg. പാറ്റ.
The same word could be spelled പാററpāṙṙ, and until the 1960s, when the stacked version began to appear, it would have been spelled that way, but this would be ambiguous, cf. ടെംപററി.u,506 It would be particularly ambiguous when there are more than 2 RRA characters side by side, eg. compare കിലോമീറ്ററുകൾ with കിലോമീറററുകൾkilōmīṙṙṙukɭ̽.
If a word with the sound tt is spelled using an unstacked pair of these characters, the pair acts as a single unit with prescript vowels, eg. മാറെറാലി. To achieve the correct positioning of vowel-signs here, however, it is necessary to use the decomposed forms of the vowel (see the transcription). Otherwise you would end up with മാററൊലിmāṙṙoli, where the prescript part of the vowel is in the wrong place.
Similarly, ൻ്റn͓̽ṙ is always pronounced nta, eg. ആൻ്റോ.
According to the Unicode Standard, an alternative spelling exists without the stack, ie. ആൻേറാận̽ēṙāaːntoː (note that again we had to split the vowel), but this can also lead to ambiguity.u,506
Using ZWJ & ZWNJ
Assuming that you have fonts that produce the expected behaviours, the Unicode Standard describes the use of the joiner characters as follows:u,505
- U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER (ZWNJ) placed after the chandrakkala can be used to force the production of a visible virama, rather than a conjunct form. For example, ക്ക [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER + U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA] produces ക്ക, rather than ക്ക.
- Uniquely to Malayalam, placing the ZWNJ before the chandrakkala is supposed to produce the modern 'open' form of the conjunct in fonts that would otherwise produce a traditional conjunct, eg. ക്ര [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+0D30 MALAYALAM LETTER RA] should produce the form ക്ര.
- U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER (ZWJ) can be used before the chandrakkala to produce a traditional conjunct form in fonts that produce the open form by default but have the glyphs for the traditional forms too.
- ZWJ used after the chandrakkala may produce a chillu form (eg. ക് [U+0D15 MALAYALAM LETTER KA + U+0D4D MALAYALAM SIGN VIRAMA + U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER]), but this approach is now deprecated in favour of using the chillu codepoints. See finals.
Other letters
The Unicode Malayalam block also contains the following characters with the general property of letter.
Symbols
The Malayalam Unicode block contains 2 characters with the symbol property. ൏ [U+0D4F MALAYALAM SIGN PARA] was used historically to measure rice.
The second item is the date mark, described in the next section
Numbers, dates, currency, etc
Digits
There is a set of Malayalam digits, but they are not use for modern texts.
Older texts also used the following additional numeric characters.
According to the Unicode Standard, Malayalam also used the following characters in the Common Indic Number Forms block.u,507
Dates
൹ [U+0D79 MALAYALAM DATE MARK] can be used like the 'th' in English dates, but it use is fading in modern text. u,507
Text direction
Malayalam text runs left to right in horizontal lines.
Glyph shaping & positioning
This section brings together information about the following topics:writing styles; cursive text;context-based shaping;context-based positioning;baselines, line height, etc.;font styles;case & other character transforms.
You can experiment with examples using the Malayalam character app.
The orthography has no case distinction, and no special transforms are needed to convert between characters.
Context-based shaping
Malayalam is not cursive, but d isplay technology needs to provide shaping for conjunct formation.
Malayalam Film Script Writing Format Pdf Download
Context-based positioning
Display technology must correctly position prescript vowels to the left of the consonant or consonant cluster, and place the separate glyphs of 2-part vowels around those also.
It must do a similar thing for display of RA using the orthographic reforms.
Font styles
tbd
Structural boundaries & markers
Grapheme boundaries
tbd
Word boundaries
Spaces are often used between words, but it is not uncommon for writers to use spacing to indicate phonological pauses, rather than lexical boundaries.s
Sequences of characters between spaces are often quite long in Malayalam, eg. അറിയപ്പെടുന്നുവെങ്കിലുംạ̄ṙiyp͓peʈun͓nuʋeŋ͓kilum̽.
Phrase & section boundaries
phrase | , [U+002C COMMA] ; [U+003B SEMICOLON] : [U+003A COLON] । [U+0964 DEVANAGARI DANDA] |
---|---|
sentence | . [U+002E FULL STOP] ? [U+003F QUESTION MARK] ! [U+0021 EXCLAMATION MARK] ॥ [U+0965 DEVANAGARI DOUBLE DANDA] |
Malayalam uses western punctuation.
Older texts used । [U+0964 DEVANAGARI DANDA] and ॥ [U+0965 DEVANAGARI DOUBLE DANDA] to separate phrases.
Parentheses & brackets
start | end | |
---|---|---|
standard | ( [U+0028 LEFT PARENTHESIS] | ) [U+0029 RIGHT PARENTHESIS] |
Quotations
start | end | |
---|---|---|
initial | “ [U+201C LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK] | ” [U+201D RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK] |
Emphasis
tbd
Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition
tbd
Inline notes & annotations
tbd
Other inline ranges
tbd
Other punctuation
tbd
Line & paragraph layout
Line breaking & hyphenation
Spaces provide the main line break opportunities.
Character properties
Characters used for the Malayalam language have the following assignments related to line-break properties.
AL | 116 | അ ആ ഇ ഈ ഉ ഊ ഋ ഌ എ ഏ ഐ ഒ ഓ ഔ 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 റ ല ള ഴ വ ശ ഷ സ ഹ ൠ ൡ ൺ ൻ ർ ൽ ൾ ൿ |
---|---|---|
BA | 4 | । ॥ |
CM | 32 | ം ഃ ാ ി ീ ു ൂ ൃ െ േ ൈ ൊ ോ ൌ ് ൗ |
NU | 20 | ൦ ൧ ൨ ൩ ൪ ൫ ൬ ൭ ൮ ൯ |
PO | 2 | ൹ |
AL (ordinary alphabetic and symbol characters) requires other characters to provide break opportunities; otherwise, unless tailored rules are applied, no line breaks are allowed between pairs of them.
BA (break after) indicates that it is normal to break after that character.
CM (combining mark) takes on the behaviour of its base character.
CP (closing parenthesis) will not cause a break opportunity when appearing in contexts like “(s)he.” In all other respects the breaking behavior of CP and CL are the same.
NU (number) behaves like ordinary characters (AL) in the context of most characters but activate the prefix and postfix behavior of prefix and postfix characters.
PO (postfix numeric) usually follows a numerical expression and may not be separated from preceding numeric characters or preceding closing characters, even if one or more space characters intervene. For example, there is no break opportunity in “(12.00) %”..
Text alignment & justification
tbd
Letter spacing
Script Writing
tbd
Malayalam Film Script Writing Format Pdf Free
Counters, lists, etc.
Malayalam Film Script Writing Format Pdf Editor
Ready-made Counter Styles lists one, numeric, counter style for use with Malayalam. You can experiment with this style using the Counter styles converter.
Numeric
The malayalam numeric style is decimal-based and uses the digits shown below.
Styling initials
tbd
Page & book layout
This section is for any features that are specific to Malayalam and that relate to the following topics:general page layout & progression; grids & tables;notes, footnotes, etc;forms & user interaction;page numbering, running headers, etc.
Character lists
Version 12.0 of the Unicode Standard has the following blocks dedicated to the Malayalam script (numbers in lists are non-ASCII only):
- Malayalam66 letters, 23 marks, 26 numbers, 2 symbols : total 117
The modern Malayalam orthography described here uses characters from the following Unicode blocks.
General Punctuation | 4 | ‘ ’ “ ” |
---|---|---|
Malayalam | 74 | ം ഃ അ ആ ഇ ഈ ഉ ഊ ഋ ഌ എ ഏ ഐ ഒ ഓ ഔ 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 റ ല ള ഴ വ ശ ഷ സ ഹ ാ ി ീ ു ൂ ൃ െ േ ൈ ൊ ോ ൌ ് ൗ ൠ ൡ ൺ ൻ ർ ൽ ൾ ൿ |
Malayalam Film Script Writing Format Pdf Software
The infrequently used characters come from these blocks.
Malayalam Film Script Writing Format Pdf Converter
Devanagari | 2 | । ॥ |
---|---|---|
Malayalam | 11 | ൦ ൧ ൨ ൩ ൪ ൫ ൬ ൭ ൮ ൯ ൹ |
See also the Character usage lookup page, and the Script Comparison Table.
Languages using the Malayalam script
According to ScriptSource, the Malayalam script is used for the following languages:
- Allar [all]
- Kurumba, Attapady [pkr]
- Kurumba, Betta [xub]
- Irula [iru]
- Kudiya [kfg]
- Kurichiya [kfh]
- Malayalam [mal]
- Mannan [mjv]
- Muduga [udg]
- Paniya [pcg]
- Ravula [yea]
References
Main |
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Auxiliary |
Archaic |
Other |
Deprecated |