Writing system.........

Main article: Malayalam script

A public notice board in Malayalam written using Malayalam script. Malayalam language possesses official recognition in the state of Kerala, Lakshadweep and Puducherry

Historically, several scripts were used to write Malayalam. Among these scripts were Vattezhuthu, Kolezhuthu and Malayanma scripts. But it was the Grantha script, another Southern Brahmi variation, which gave rise to the modern Malayalam script. It is syllabic in the sense that the sequence of graphic elements means that syllables have to be read as units, though in this system the elements representing individual vowels and consonants are for the most part readily identifiable. In the 1960s Malayalam dispensed with many special letters representing less frequent conjunct consonants and combinations of the vowel /u/ with different consonants.
Malayalam language script consists of 53 letters including 16 vowels and 37 consonants.^[29] The earlier style of writing is now substituted with a new style from 1981. This new script reduces the different letters for typeset from 900 to fewer than 90. This was mainly done to include Malayalam in the keyboards of typewriters and computers.
In 1999 a group named "Rachana Akshara Vedi", produced a set of free fonts containing the entire character repertoire of more than 900 glyphs. This was announced and released along with a text editor in the same year at Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala. In 2004, the fonts were released under the GNU GPL license by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation at the Cochin University of Science and Technology in Kochi, Kerala.
Though not popular, Malayalam has been written in other scripts like Roman and Arabic scripts; Arabic script particularly were taught in Madrassas in the Lakshadweep Islands.^[30][31]

[edit] Dialects and external influences

Variations in intonation patterns, vocabulary, and distribution of grammatical and phonological elements are observable along the parameters of region, religion, community, occupation, social stratum, style and register. Influence of Sanskrit is very prominent in formal Malayalam used in literature. Malayalam has a substantially high amount of Sanskrit loan words.^[32] Loan words and influences also from Hebrew, Syriac and Ladino abound in the Jewish Malayalam dialects, as well as English, Portuguese, Syriac and Greek in the Christian dialects, while Arabic and Persian elements predominate in the Muslim dialects. This Muslim dialect known as Mappila Malayalam is used in the Malabar region of Kerala. Another Muslim dialect called Beary bashe is used in the extreme northern part of Kerala.
The regional dialects of Malayalam can be divided into thirteen dialect areas.^[33] They are as follows:

South Travancore	Central Travancore	West Vempanad
North Travancore	Kochi (Cochin)	South Malabar
South Eastern Palghat	North Western Palghat	Central Malabar
Wayanad	North Malabar	Kasaragod
	Lakshadweep

The Central Travancore dialect is called "Achadi malayalam" since it has the closest resemblence to written malayalam.

[edit] Words adopted from Sanskrit

When words are adopted from Sanskrit, their endings are usually changed to conform to Malayalam norms:

[edit] Nouns

1. Masculine Sanskrit nouns ending in a short "a" in the nominative singular change their ending to "an". For example, Kr̥ṣṇa -> Kr̥ṣṇan. The "an" reverts to an "a" before masculine surnames, honorifics, or titles ending in "an" and beginning with a consonant other than "n" - e.g. Krishna Menon, Krishna Kaniyaan etc., but Krishnan Ezhutthachan. Surnames ending with "ar" or "aL" (where these are plural forms of "an" denoting respect) are treated similarly - Krishna Pothuval, Krishna Chakyar, but Krishnan Nair, Krishnan Nambiar. "an" also reverts to "a" before Sanskrit surnames like "Varma(n)", "Sarma(n)", or "Gupta(n)" (rare) - e.g. Krishna Varma, Krishna Sharman.^{[citation needed]} If a name is a compound of multiple names, only the last name in the compound undergoes this transformation - e.g. Krishnadevan.
2. Feminine words ending in a long "ā" or "ī" are changed so that they now end in a short "a" or "i", for example Sītā -> Sīta and Lakṣmī -> Lakṣmi. However, the long vowel still appears in compound words like Sītādēvi or Lakṣmīdēvi. Some vocative case forms of both Sanskrit and native Malayalam words end in ā or ī, and there are also a small number of nominative ī endings that have not been shortened - a prominent example being the word Śrī,
3. Masculine words ending in a long "ā" in the nominative singular have a "vŭ" added to them, for example Brahmā -> Brahmāvŭ. This is again omitted when forming compounds.^{[citation needed]}
4. Words whose roots are different from their nominative singular forms - for example, the Sanskrit root of "Karma" is actually "Karman"- are also changed. The original root is ignored and "Karma" (the form in Malayalam being "Karmam" because it ends in a short "a") is taken as the basic form of the noun when declining.^[34]
5. Sanskrit words describing things or animals rather than people which end in a short "a" take an additional "m" in Malayalam. For example, Rāmāyaṇa -> Rāmāyaṇam. "Things and animals" and "people" are not always differentiated based on whether or not they are sentient beings - for example Narasimha becomes Narasimham and not Narasimhan whilst Ananta becomes Anantan even though both are sentient. This can be explained by saying that "Ananta" can also be a man's name and does not necessarily have to refer to the Hindu serpent-god, whereas "Simha" actually means lion and therefore must be of the neuter gender.^{[citation needed]}
6. Nouns ending in short vowels like "Viṣṇu", "Prajāpati" etc. stay the same.^{[citation needed]}
7. Along with these tatsama borrowings, there are also many tadbhava words in common use. These were borrowed into Malayalam before it became distinct from Tamil. As the language did not then accommodate Sanskrit phonology as it now does, words were changed to conform to the Old Tamil phonological system. For example: Kr̥ṣṇa -> Kaṇṇan.^[35]

Malayalam also has been influenced by Portuguese, as is evident from the use of words like mesa for a small table, janala for window, varaanda for an open porch, and alamaara for cupboard.^[36]
For a comprehensive list of loan words, see Loan words in Malayalam.