The Simplified Malayalam Script

The Simplified Malayalam Script An Adaptation from the Pacha Malayalam Project for Malayalam language. October 2021 Arish V. [email protected] credits to Jeffin Joesph Cherian Abstract The Malayalam language is spoken by 38 million people as their mother tongue and is the official language of Kerala and the Lakshadweep Islands. It has a significant number of speakers across the Middle-East. The script used for writing Malayalam is known as the Malayalam script, which is a Southern Brahmic script. The writing system underwent various reforms over the years and became the tool of literacy in Kerala. However, challenges exist with the current setup, which requires attention from scholars and the government. This paper attempts to adopt a simplified version of the Malayalam script which is prevalent in the Pacha Malayalam Movement, adjusting it to the needs of Modern Malayalam language. 1. Introduction Malayalam is a Dravidian language belonging to the South Dravidian I branch. Various scripts were used for writing Malayalam, such as the Dravida-Brahmi (Tamili/Tamil Brahmi), Vatteluttu, Koleluttu, Malayanma, Arya eluttu, Arabic script, and Syriac script. The Tamili script is an antediluvian script that developed in Southern India, and gave rise to Vatteluttu, Koleluttu (indirectly), and Arya eluttu (indirectly). The current Malayalam script germinated from the Arya eluttu, with the addition of Vatteluttu letters for Dravidian retroflexes and trill. Meanwhile, the Vatteluttu functioned as the main script for Malayalam language until the early-modern era. It was eventually replaced during the Sanskritisation of Malayalam language. The Arya eluttu, a Grantha derivative predominantly used to write Sanskrit was later ratified to write the Malayalam language. 2. The Malayalam script The Malayalam script is an alphasyllabary consisting of 51 letters plus other characters including diacritic marks, and is one of the largest writing systems in India. Vowels Malayalam IPA Malayalam IPA അ a എ e ആ aː ഏ eː ഇ i ഐ ai ഈ iː ഒ o ഉ u ഓ oː ഊ uː ഔ au ഋ r̩ അം am അഃ ah Consonants Labial Affricate Plain Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal പ ബ ത ദ റ്റ ന്റ ട ഡ ച ജ /p/ /b/ /t ̪/ /d̪/ /t/ /d/ /ʈ/ /ɖ/ /ʧ͡ / / Velar ക Glottal ഗ /k/ /ɡ/ d͡ʒ/ Affricate aspirated ഫ ഭ ഥ ധ /pʰ/ /bʱ/ /t ̪h/ /d̪ɦ/ ഠ ഢ ഛ ഝ /ʈh/ / /ʧ͡ʰ/ / ɖɦ/ Nasals Fricative Approx ഖ ഘ /kʰ/ /ɡʱ/ d͡ʒʱ/ മ ന ന ണ ഞ ങ /m/ /n̪/ /n/ /ɳ/ /ɲ/ /ŋ/ ഫ സ ഷ ശ ഹ /f/ /s/ /ʂ/ /ʃ/ /h/ ഴ യ വ central Approx lateral Tap ല ള /l/ /ɭ/ ര /ɾ/ Trill റ /r/ Chillu letters common: ൺ ൻ ർ ൽ ൾ ൿ others: ൔ ൕ ൖ Numerals ൧൨൩൪൫൬൭൮൯൰ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 100 1000 ൦ - zero (later adaptation) In addition to these, some archaic letters and mathematical symbols exist in Malayalam. 3. Charateristic of the Script A syllable in the Malayalam script is defined as a consonant and an inherent vowel. Similar to other Brahmic scripts, the Malayalam consonants carry an inherent a (schwa) vowel, which can be impeded with a virama (chandrakkala) or can be changed to another sound by using one of the vowel diacritical marks. For example, the consonant ക (ka) is ക് + അ (k +a), which can be altered to produce sounds such as കി(ki) ക + ഇ; കെക (ke) ക+ എ and so on. Hence, there exists independent vowel letters or initials and diacritics. In vulgate Malayalam, a syllable can be a maximum of a combination of two consonants and a vowel. In Sanskritised Malayalam, this number can increase, and such combinations are called conjunct consonants ( കൂകെKഴുത്തുകൾ) . A usual syllable can be represented as CV, whereas a conjunct can be CCV or CCCV. Vowel-vowel combinations are not allowed in Malayalam. Another important class of letters are the chillu letters ( ചികെNഴുത്തുകൾ ). These are standalone pure consonant sounds that do not carry an inherent vowel. This innovation is not generally found across the vast Brahmic family of scripts. In addition to these, complex conjunct consonants such as ക്ഷ, ണ്മ, ണ്ഡ exist in the writing system which are rendered by using the Virama rule. The Virama/Chandrakkala has three functions; 1. It acts as a marker to suppress the inherent vowel sound as mentioned above. 2. It represents a half-u sound. 3. It combines conjunct consonants. The Malayalam numerals and other symbols became obsolete. 4. The Reformed Writing System The Malayalam script used to be much complex in the past until it underwent through a reformation in 1971. The committee appointed by the Government of Kerala, introduced a much simplified script and reduced the number of glyphs required for Malayalam printing from around 1000 to around 250. The reformed script is known as the putiya lipi (new script) and the traditional one is known as pazhaya lipi (old script). Even though, the putiya lipi is used in formal documents, the pazhaya lipi has become more popular with the emergence of digitilastion. Most of the freely available Unicode fonts are in pazhaya lipi. 5. Analysis of the current writing system The Malayalam writing system is not phonetically consistent as it is anticipated to be. The strict spelling rules of Malayalam propagated by scholars do not render much logic at all. Even after the reformation, much of the complexities remain unchanged. The intricacies that arise out of the current script are more about the phonemic aspects and the usage. Malayalam writing is maladaptive and even native speakers of the language make many mistakes while writing. Unlike the Latin script, a Brahmic script is expected to show a level of consistency with the pronunciation. Although the diglossia in Malayalam is not as serious as in Tamil and Kannada, it still presents complexities. The argument of "Phonetic consistency" can be easily countered with simple examples such as the words like നന്ദി (gratitude) which is written as nandi and pronounced as nanni (whereas the root of നന്നി is Dravidian and of നന്ദി is Sanskrit). In Tamil, the word is நன்றி /nanri/, where the corresponding alveolar n and tap r combination should be a double dental /n̪n̪/ (ന്ന) in Malayalam as in words (பன்றி )/panri/ - (പന്നി) pan̪n̪i. This is an identified linguistic distinction between Tamil and Malayalam as the alveolar /d/ shifted to /n̪n̪/ in later stages of the language. Although, the word നന്നി /nan̪n̪i/ is a lexical term, the standard language uses the Sanskritised version with the incorrect phonetic representation. The complexity in learning Malayalam writing introduces some challenges that fall under linguistic psychology. The aspirates which make no distinction in spoken Malayalam, are quite challenging for youngsters who are accustomed to the Latin script from an early age. A general research reveals that the Latin script is used more in social media platforms and messaging apps to write Malayalam instead of the actual Malayalam script, mainly due to the large character set and the inconvenient keyboard layouts. With the extensive characters comes another challenge with the technology. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) programmes become much complex and their reliability will diminish. The same goes for speech recognition, which is a much more challenging area. The major issue with the current script is the unwanted aspirated consonants. These letters are the prime problem makers with Malayalam writing. It is quite common for Dravidian language speakers not to distinguish between aspirated sounds and non-aspirated sounds, as they are not native to most of the Dravidian languages. Spelling errors usually occur in Malayalam words with aspirated consonants. Pronunciation of aspirated sounds: Take the word ഭാര്യ (bhārya); this word is usually pronounced as ബാര്യ (bārya) [Northern-Central Kerala], and ഫാര്യ (fārya) in Southern Kerala (Kollam mostly ; fāratam, faraṇam, faraṇi). Accurate pronunciation of aspirated sounds is quite challenging for a native Malayalam speaker in normal speech. Moving to the vowels, the ഋ (Vocalic R) is a rarely occurring initial vowel. In spoken Malayalam distinction between ക്രിഷി kriṣi(not the actual spelling) and കൃഷി kr̥ṣi is not always clear and the in absence of such a distinction the sense of the word does not change. The visargam 'അഃ' is yet another unwanted vowel, which is not pronounced with accuracy in Malayalam. This is because, unlike Sanskrit, Malayalam is not strict in the pronunciation of such non-native phonemic values. The large number of Sanskrit loan words are unnecessary in a much developed and rich language like Malayalam. Previously unknown words should be derived form easier and more natural Dravidian(Malayalam) roots than hard to pronounce and unnatural Sanskrit compounds. This view has been supported by scholars in Kannada and Telugu as well, and the Tamil language is much more strict on using Pure Tamil words when it comes to word derivation. The native speakers usually discard new derivations based on Sanskrit roots, and continue to stick with English loans. However, the academy is not considering this as a serious issue. The identity of Malayalam language should not be displayed under an unrelated language like Sanskrit, which belongs to an unrelated language family. 6. The Simplified Malayalam script This script was initially used for the Pacha Malayalam project (Pure Malayalam project) which is the continuation of historically substantial work to reduce the amount of Sanskrit loans in Malayalam uplift the integrity and identity of the Malayalam language. The Simplified Malayalam script ( version) is the extended script for Pacha Malayalam. Considering the possibility of common foreign loans to be represented with much more accuracy, additions were made. 6.1 The simplification process 1. Removal of ഋ, അം and അഃ from the vowels list and seggregation of ംം as an indicator rather than an independent vowel. 2. Removal of aspirated consonants; ഖ, ഘ, ഛ, ഝ, ഠ, ഢ, ഥ, ധ, ഭ. Note that pha (ഫ) is currently treated as a 'fa' in Malayalam, and is used to write loan words such as France, Fisheries etc. Therfore, it is required for that purpose. 3. Reduction of conjuncts to just native Malayalam ones; ങ്ക, ഞ്ച, ണ്ട, ന്ത, മ്പ. 4. It is a well known factor that sound changes occur with the position of letters in both Malayalam and Tamil. Like അകം is pronounced as an അഗം (agam) in both spoken Malayalam and Tamil (some variations include ɣ), hence it is not necessary to include conjunct letters for loan sounds. The conjunct letters ഞ്ച is mostly pronounced as a ñja, although its pronunciation should be ñca, and such factors purely depend on the region and speaker. The same applies to other conjunct letters, which carry more than one pronunciation. This change can reduce the complexity of the script. 8. Reintroduction of ഩ (alveolar n). Unlike Sanskrit which lacks a similar letter, Malayalam requires it because the Malayalam speakers accurately distinguish between dental na and alveolar na. Seperate letters existed in Tamili, Vatteluttu and Koleluttu. This is necessarry to graphically represent words from dialect and to avoid the perplexity for Malayalam language learners. Simplified Malayalam Script Table Short vowels അ ഇ ഉ എ ഒ Long vowels ആ ഈ ഊ ഏ ഓ Diphthongs ഐ/അയ് ഔ/അവു (loan) The diphthongs are not necessary as the semi-vowels can be used as substitute letters. Primary Consonants കങചഞടണതനഩപബമയരലവളഴറശ Secondary Consonants (Loans) ഗജഡദഫസഷഹ Chillu letters ൺൻർൽൾൿ Primary conjunct letters ങ്ക ഞ്ച ണ്ട ന്ത മ്പ ന്റ Vowel Diacritics ംാ ംി ംa ംb ംc കെം േം കെംാ േംാ ൈം / അയ് (കയ് ), ംf (loan words) Other Markers ം് (chandrakkala/virama) ംം (anuswara) ക്ര > ക് + ര ക്ല > ക് + ല ക്യ > ക് + യ 7. Advantages of the Simplified Script 1. Reduces the complexity of the script, and decreases the total number of characters down to just the necessary ones. 2. Loan letters are only necessary when representation of foreign loan words or names occur. Hence, the number of base letters in Malayalam can be reduced to 30. 3. Reduction in the number of conjunct letters. 4. This reformation does not demand any changes to the existing resources available for Malayalam language, nor does it create any issues to those resources. 5. The reformation proposes deletion of Sanskrit loans with aspirates and other complexities; this does not require changing their spelling. Instead, native Malayalam words or Tadbhavas will replace them. 6. Simplified script will be helpful for language learners (both native and non-native), and increase literacy in the language. 7. The simplified script will reduce the complexity involved in language technology, and thus increase usage and reliability of such resources. 8. Sanskrit is a complex and refined language which belongs to a totally unrelated language family. Unlike a live language such as Malayalam, Sanskrit fell out of usage and the strict rules of the language are not conditioned for a natural language. Sanskrit words becoming Tadbhavas are inevitable due to the language's hardwired pronunciation constructs. Writing Sanskrit with Malayalam script needs to remain seperate from writing Malayalam with the Malayalam script. Universal acceptance for simplicity is growing and languages like Malayalam should be quick to adapt, thus by not compromising its popularity among language learners and not failing to native speakers. Hence, the simplified script is to encourage native Malayalam words to be used more often. 9. A simplified writing system increases the usability of the script on all platforms. With this reform, keyboard layouts will become much more user-friendly and will drastically increase its popularity among the youth who are accustomed to the ease of using Latin-based keyboard layouts. 10. The use of language in computers will increase with simplified script, as it reduces the complexity of glyph rendering and long, hard-to-pronounce derivations for computer terminology. 11. The simplified script will turn out to be beneficial for producing and translating huge databases for the Malayalam language and hence increasing its resource availability. This will assist in accurate and rapid computer-aided translations and Optical Character Recognition technologies to be effectively implemented for resource development. 8. Possible difficulties with Simplification The simplification may present some initial challenges. 1. Writing Sanskritised names of people and institutions. This result is one of the major difficulties with the simplified script. Solutions: a) Continue the usage of aspirated letters for existing databases, that is, government registries and other official documents. However, while registering new names, the simplified script can be used. b) In digital databases, programmes can be implemented to change these names in bulk. Simple find and replace functions will aid such process. 2. Transliteration of alveolar n and dental n. For most of the part, the existing resources do not require transliteration, but for the dental n and alveolar n, it arises as a difficulty. Solution: In such cases, a simple rule-based program can be implemented as an outer layer to do the transliteration before the final output is rendered. (for translation programmes and others). Compared to the dental n, the alveolar n usually occurs at the middle and end of words. Hence, it makes the process of finding and replacing the dental n much easier. 3. This will eventually create a diglossia with the Sanskritised Malayalam. But, it has occurred in the past as well with Manipravalam literature, which was considered the standard/elite language in the past. Conclusion The Malayalam language is facing degradation due to many factors, one being the disinterest to adapt to changes. Possible language learners as well as native speakers are discouraged because of the outdated Sanskritisation process and the complexity in writing systems it produces. The current alternative proposed by the academy is to borrow as much English words in usage as Malayalam, but in the long run this will affect the integrity and identity of the language, thus dismantling its antiquity and literary tradition. Most native speakers are accustomed to the Latin script and English loan words. Therefore, a radical change is necessary to uplift the Malayalam language. References 1. Pracheena Lipi Patanam, M.R. Raghava Varrier, Sahithya Pravarthaka Co-operative Society Ltd., May 2019 2. The Unicode Standard, Version 14.0, Malayalam. 3. Malayalam Orthographic Reforms: Impact on Language and Popular Culture, Kavya Manohar, Santhosh Thottingal, June 8, 2018. 4. Delibrations On Reformation of Writing System of Kannada Language, M.V. Srinivasa.