Land of the palindrome “Malayalam”

The people of Kerala speak Malayalam. But then, there are a handful of other languages that’s spoken in the state like English, Tamil, Hindi and Kannada. Malayalam itself has many variants—according to region: Malabar, Travancore, coastal and Southern. Depending on the area and the communities there, the language takes shape.

As a result of the huge number of communities who have made Kerala their home, we have language communities from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bengal and even Tibet! Malayalam is one of the 22 official languages of India, and is spoken by over 36 million people.

Malayalam is also widely spoken in Lakshadweep, Mahé, Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu and southern districts of Karnataka. Not to mention those Malayalis in the US, the Gulf, the UK and other countries. A large part of the language’s vocabulary comes from Sanskrit, Arabic, Portuguese, Syriac, and English.

Difference and variance in tones, vocabulary, grammar and phonological elements are evident on these lines—region, community, occupation, religion, social strata, style and register.

The word “Malayalam” is the longest palindrome in English which stays a palindrome in another language, too, like when it is written in the Devanagiri script. Also, note the placement of ‘a’ after every other consonant.

And an interesting fact—the first Malayalam dictionary was compiled by German missionary Hermann Gundert.