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Malayalam

Malayalam

1 8.6
A language people in Kerala and nearby areas speak
  • noun
  • /məˈlɑːjəˌlʌm/
: malayalam
  • But this is Malayalam.

Examples

  • The film was originally made in Malayalam and later dubbed into several other languages.

  • Their first languages included Arabic (two), Farsi (one), Haitian Creole (two), Estonian (one), Georgian (two), Italian (one), Korean (one), Malayalam (two), Russian (19), Spanish (eight), and Ukrainian (two).

    Academic text (2012)
  • I could understand Malayalam, but I wasn't comfortable speaking it.

    Fiction book (2002)
  • As above, plus check urine color, eat well in English, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam.

    Academic text (2011)
  • I speak like very little of many South Indian languages like Malayalam, Tamil, Encarada and a bit of Hindi.

  • In Tamil and Malayalam, the sound often written in English as ZH (pronounced somewhat like an American R in words like card or barn) is difficult for non-Tamils.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • As it happens, in the areas in which I work—the Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam cultures of southern India—there is no dearth of such threatened treasures.

    Blog text (12)
  • During her trip to Kerala, she learned a few phrases in Malayalam to communicate with the locals.

  • He can read and write Malayalam, which is essential for his work in the region.

Surface Forms

Malayalam singular
Malayalams plural

Etymology

Malayalam comes from local words mala ('hill') and āḷam ('place' or 'region'), so it originally meant the land and people of the hill area and became the name of their language. A helpful way to remember Malayalam is that it is a palindrome, because it reads the same forwards and backwards, which makes the name itself easy to recall.