The Malayalam Thread

[Vijay]

Inspired by the Māori Thread and encouraged by another board member, I've decided to start a thread for Malayalam as well. Malayalam is very closely related to Tamil, and with some exposure, some native speakers can understand Tamil fairly well (much better than they will claim at times).

Phonology
The phonology of Malayalam is broadly the same as Tamil but with a lot of consonants that have been introduced into the language through Sanskrit and some allophonic variation that I've at least been told doesn't seem to exist in Tamil.

Vowels

There are five short vowels and five long ones plus two diphthongs, all phonemic. In the Malayalam alphabet, they are listed in this order:

/a aː i iː u uː e eː aj o oː aw/

/a/ may be phonetically realized in various ways; when transcribing things, I oversimplify this by using [a] word-finally and [ə] elsewhere.

Front vowels in Malayalam are commonly preceded by [j] when not immediately preceded by a consonant. /i u e o/ can all be phonetically realized as either lax or tense, but /iː uː eː oː/ are always realized as tense. Many speakers (of both Malayalam and Tamil) phonetically realize /i u/ as mid vowels, especially when the next vowel is /a/.

/u/ is often phonetically realized as an unrounded vowel, which I tend to transcribe as [ɯ]. It is found at the end of words, particularly at the end of past participles and at the end of words or morphemes that would otherwise end in a consonant that's not permitted as a coda (or, in compound words, result in an impermissible consonant cluster). Native speakers AFAICT don't notice the difference between this and [ u ].

The vowel in both /aj/ and /aw/ is always phonetically realized as a short vowel.

I think I'll try writing another lesson on consonants later, especially since I've probably forgotten to say some other things about vowels, too.

[Vardelm]

I had the opportunity to travel to Kerala in 1999. I swear the Keralites must hold the record for syllables per minute! I also got to hear a Malayalam speaker & a Tamil speaker hold an entire conversation together in their own languages, even though neither could speak the other one. That was when I was just waking up to language. Mind blown.

[Vijay]

I swear the Keralites must hold the record for syllables per minute!

It's always funny for me to see comments like this from non-Malayalees because I at least used to be under the impression that Tamils speak much faster than Malayalees do. Of course, the reality for both Malayalam and Tamil is that sometimes people talk really fast in both languages, and sometimes they talk more slowly in both languages.

I also got to hear a Malayalam speaker & a Tamil speaker hold an entire conversation together in their own languages, even though neither could speak the other one. That was when I was just waking up to language. Mind blown.

Yeah, bilingual conversations where all the participants understand each other perfectly despite speaking different languages are very common especially in border areas (i.e. near state borders). I'd like to try doing this sort of thing, too (although I do know a little bit of Tamil already and it can be hard to find someone who's game).

[Pabappa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6GPOGSuv9Q <--- i found this funny. at one point i had memorized the entire routine even though I had no one to tell it to that would get the joke. Some languages adapt better than others to a high syllable-per-minute rate of speech ... Mandarin Chinese would be one of the worst because it not only has tones, but those tones vary in length. German, english, etc tend to be in the middle because even though they have rich consonant clusters, most syllables still average out to be somewhat close to CVC.

[Vijay]

The differences between Sri Lankan Tamils and whatever kind of Indians Russell Peters is thinking of are somewhat overstated (big surprise, I know!). North Indians talk pretty fast in English sometimes, too, just like South Indians and Sri Lankans (and honestly, probably all kinds of people). There are people all over South Asia who look more or less dark (like this Pashtun guy from Peshawar). Stephen Colbert also once did a routine on long-ass place names in Kerala that I'm not sure I can still find a working video of anymore (he joked that the sign for one station ends where the one for the next begins ).

EDIT: Lol, I can't write a single sentence without including a parenthetical note anymore (including this one!).

[Vardelm]

EDIT: Lol, I can't write a single sentence without including a parenthetical note anymore (including this one!).

That's funny (since I tend to do the same (in this post too))!

[Vijay]

I forgot to clarify something about the vowels earlier: /i u e o/ can all be lax before a consonant. I don't think they can be word-finally. None of these can occur directly before another vowel. [j] always separates /i e/ from any vowel occurring immediately after it (and any vowel other than /u o/ occurring immediately before it), and [ʋ] separates /u o/ from any vowel occurring immediately after it. (I think. I may be saying that too hastily).

EDIT: Another thing I forgot: /a/ is phonetically realized as [ɛ] before syllable-final /n/.

Consonants

Most consonants in the Malayalam alphabet are organized by place of articulation and voicing/phonation type, as is typical of Indian scripts. They begin at the velum and proceed steadily forward to the lips. At each point of articulation, the plain voiceless, aspirated, plain voiced, and breathy voiced/voiced aspirate plosives/oral stops are listed in that order and followed by a nasal.

In other words, they are:
[k kʰ g gʱ ŋ
t͡ʃ t͡ʃʰ d͡ʒ d͡ʒʱ ɲ
ʈ ʈʰ ɖ ɖʱ ɳ
t̪ t̪ʰ d̪ d̪ʱ n̪ n
p pʰ b bʱ m]

Then there are...

Four sonorants shared with a bunch of other Indian languages, also listed from back to front (but with the central approximant listed before the lateral at the same POA): [j ɾ l ʋ]
Four fricatives: [ɕ ʃ s h]
Aaand three more sonorants that basically only some varieties of Tamil and Malayalam have: [ɭ ɻ r].
(After all that, we also have symbols specifically for [ɳ n r l ɭ] when not followed by an inherent vowel since all of these can appear syllable-finally).

Malayalam also has [t] ~ [ tt ] ~ [d], which is supposed to be the geminated form of [r]. All geminates, or really just all consonants analyzed as geminates, occur only intervocalically in Malayalam as far as I'm aware. That includes [t].

How many of these are phonemic? To what extent do these sounds contrast, and to what extent do speakers think of these as different sounds?

Well, it's a little tricky as far as phonation type is concerned. From what I can recall based on my own experience, I would say most speakers pronounce the breathy voiced stops/plosives or voiced aspirates as voiceless aspirates and thus merge them. However, I also have found that not all speakers produce a phonemic voicing distinction at all, which suggests that the phonemic inventory is very much like Tamil, something like: /k ŋ t͡ʃ ɲ ʈ ɳ t n t̪ n̪ p m j ɾ l ʋ ɕ ʃ s h ɭ ɻ r/. (The only differences I can think of between this and Tamil are that Tamil has neither phonemic fricatives nor a phonemic distinction between dentals and alveolars).

Kerala's high literacy rate (90%+) complicates the situation even further so that a lot of people who don't produce a voicing distinction nevertheless perceive one because the writing system distinguishes them and are seemingly unaware they're unable to produce the distinction. I remember one time when my grandmother's driver was trying to make me say [gʱəɖiˈgaːɾəm] 'clock' by saying (in Malayalam), "Not [kəɖiˈgaːɾəm], [kəɖiˈgaːɾəm]!"

Not only does the writing system possibly introduce distinctions that were never there for most speakers, but also it ignores ones that are there for (AFAIK) all speakers. In particular, Malayalam makes a phonemic distinction between at least dental and alveolar geminates. Malayalam has /t̪ n̪ t n/, but there is no distinction between /n̪/ and /n/ in the orthography, nor is there one between /n̪n̪/ and /nn/. /t/ is represented by a combination of two /r/'s (a reference to its role as the geminated form of /r/. Compare റ [ra] and റ്റ [ta] ~ [tta]. The latter theoretically is pronounced [tta], but I'm pretty sure speakers out in the real world generally just pronounce it [ta]. റ [ra] can also be combined with ൻ [n] to make ന്റ [nda]).

Singleton voiceless plosives are phonetically realized as voiced ones between vowels, and their geminate counterparts are phonetically realized as voiceless.

[n̪] in Malayalam can occur only before another dental, as part of the geminate [n̪n̪] that occurs only intervocalically, or at the beginning of a morpheme. [n] occurs elsewhere. However, [n̪n̪] and [nn] can occur in the same environments, and it is possible (though difficult) to find at least one minimal pair between them.

I've also noticed my mom using [h] (or maybe [ɦ]?) where the orthography would suggest [kʰ] was the correct pronunciation (and I'm sure she thinks she's saying [kʰ], too).

Note that the distinction between /ɕ/ and /ʃ/ is phonemic in Malayalam ([ɕ] was the last sound I ever learned to produce in Malayalam when I was little and after I lost my Malayalam. My brother really had to train me to both notice and produce the distinction). Some people analyze the latter as /ʂ/ or something, but I've never pronounced or heard it pronounced [ʂ]. A certain Polish user who has apparently not been able to join the new forum once told me this exact same thing is also true of Polish.

[ɖʱ] occurs somewhat rarely in Malayalam, and [d͡ʒʱ] almost never occurs.

[Vijay]

Deixis and Interrogatives: This, That, What?

I know this is an odd thing to jump into right after phonology, but I can't resist because it's just one of the neat things about Malayalam (and indeed, about a lot of Dravidian and even just Indian languages in general!): You can derive a bunch of words using certain prefixes that roughly mean 'this' (/i/-), 'that' (/a/-), or 'which' (/e/-).

/iː/ [jiː] in Malayalam means 'this' before a noun phrase (as in e.g. 'this mango').
/aː/ [aː] means 'that' before a noun phrase.

/it̪u/ [jiˈd̪ɯ] means 'this' as a pronoun (e.g. 'This is a book'). It can also be translated as 'it'.
/at̪u/ [əˈd̪ɯ] means 'that' (or 'it') as a pronoun.
/eːt̪u/ [ˈjeːd̪ɯ] can mean either 'which?' or 'which one?'. (It can even mean 'what?' sometimes, I think).
/en̪t̪u/ [ˈjɛn̪d̪ɯ] means 'what?'.
'Why' in Malayalam is simply the dative case form of 'what', i.e. /en̪t̪inu/ [ˈjɛn̪d̪inɯ].

/iʋan/ [jiˈʋɛn] is a pronoun often translated as 'he' but literally means something like 'this guy'. This and the next two pronouns are not very nice ways of referring to a boy or man; they imply that the male in question is somehow inferior to the speaker.
/aʋan/ [əˈʋɛn] is basically 'that guy' and is used more frequently as a 3SG pronoun than [iˈʋɛn].
It is also possible to say /eʋan/ [jɛˈʋɛn] meaning 'which guy?'.

The equivalents of these pronouns for women ('she', 'this woman', 'that woman', 'what woman?') would be: [jiˈʋəɭ], [əˈʋəɭ], and [ɛˈʋəɭ].

There are also gender-neutral, though equally informal/risky, third-person pronouns: [iˈjaːɭ] and [əˈjaːɭ] (there is no interrogative equivalent of this). [aːɭ] is a Dravidian word for 'person'; in modern Malayalam, it's a not-so-nice word for 'person' (about as nice as all the third-person pronouns I've mentioned here, as far as I can tell so far).

To refer to someone in the third person more politely, you have to use the following (also gender-neutral!) pronouns: [iˈʋər], [əˈʋər], and [ɛˈʋər].

An even more polite way to refer to someone in the third person is [id̪ˈd̪eːhəm] or [əd̪ˈd̪eːhəm] (there is no interrogative equivalent of these, either). [ˈd̪eːhəm] by itself is a Sanskrit loanword meaning 'body'.

The most common interrogative pronoun to refer to people is 'who', which is [ˈaːɾɯ].

[jiˈpoːɭ] means 'now' when referring to the present moment. (However, in reference to future actions, e.g. 'now we'll go to the store', you would probably use [iˈni] rather than [iˈpoːɭ]).
[əˈpoːɭ] means 'then' (or 'next', i.e. what happened/will happen after something else had/has already happened).
[jɛˈpoːɭ] means 'when?'.

[jɪˈʋɪɖe] 'here'
[əˈʋɪɖe] 'there'
[jɛˈʋɪɖe] 'where?'

[jɪˈŋɛne] 'like this'
[əˈŋɛne] 'like that'
[jɛˈŋɛne] 'how?'
There's a joke my dad has told me a few times where a teacher tells his students a part of some story from Hindu mythology, then says, "[jɛˈŋɛne]?" (i.e. how did this person do whatever they did?). Then the class replies, "[əˈŋɛne]!"

There are a lot of other sets of pronouns that follow the same pattern, but explaining them is a bit difficult since English doesn't really have words to distinguish all of them semantically, so I'll probably leave that for later.

[Vijay]

Kinship Terms

I'm writing a post about this at a point when I haven't even said much about Malayalam just because I use these terms a lot even in English, to the point where using the kinds of terms that English-speakers normally use feels awkward.

The truth is that every family has its own set of kinship terms AFAIK, so even for native speakers, understanding another native speaker using the terms they personally would use can be difficult and there's a lot of "oh you say this for this kind of relative? But for us that means this other kind of relative haha! And what do you say for this kind?" etc. So I'm just going to explain the terms that I'm familiar with for my own family.

I call my mom Amma [əmˈma] ("Amma" is how I spell that when writing in English). I've been told that this is very common all over India, and of course it's common in many other parts of the world, too. My dad is Appa [əˈpa]. However, anyone else's dad is their [əˈpɛn]; for me to refer to them as their *[əˈpa] is grammatically incorrect. I am Amma and Appa's son; the word for 'son' (that I'm aware of, at any rate) is [məˈgɛn], but lots of speakers, including my parents, contract this to just [moːn] in a lot of contexts (such as when they're referring to me!). Specifically, I'm their [iˈɭejə məˈgɛn] or, as they say, [ɛˈɭejə moːn]. Incidentally, [jiˈɭejə]/[jɛˈɭejə] also means 'tender'. 'Daughter' is [məˈgəɭ] or [moːɭ] for short.

My brother is my [əˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃa] because he's older; anyone else's older brother is their Achachan [əˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃɛn]. He is my parents' older/oldest son or, in Malayalam, their [ˈmuːt̪ə məˈgɛn] or [ˈmuːt̪ə moːn]. [ˈmuːt̪a] also means 'ripe'. I actually don't call him [əˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃa] but rather Achicha [əˈt͡ʃit͡ʃa] because for whatever reason, I had trouble saying [əˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃa] when I was little and replaced the [aː] with an [ i ] instead, and it's stuck ever since! The word for 'older sister' for me is Chechi [ˈt͡ʃeːt͡ʃi]. Nearly every one of my cousins is either an Achachan or a Chechi, and so I add these titles to their first names. The formal term for 'younger brother' AFAIK is [əˈnud͡ʒɛn], but this is more casually pronounced [əˈnijɛn], which kind of sounds like the English word onion. Similarly, the formal term for 'younger sister' is [ənuˈd͡ʒət̪i], but this is more casually pronounced [əniˈjət̪i].

Traditionally in our family, Ammachi [əmˈmət͡ʃi] is just another word for 'mother', Appachen [əˈpət͡ʃɛn] is another for 'father', and 'grandmother' and 'grandfather' in Malayalam are Valiyammachi [ˈʋɛljəmmət͡ʃi] and Valiyappachen [ˈʋɛljəpət͡ʃɛn] respectively. [ˈʋɛljə] means 'big', so this is similar to the English terms 'grandmother' and 'grandfather'. Similarly, e.g. [ˈʋɛljəʋɛljəpət͡ʃɛn] is 'great-grandfather'. However, my mom has oddly chosen to shift the meanings of these words by one generation, so that Ammachi now means 'grandmother', Appachen now means 'grandfather', Valiyammachi now means 'great-grandmother', etc. As a result, I call my late (paternal) grandparents Ammachi and Appachen.

My mom has so many siblings that some of them are closer in age to my grandmother than to my mom and I sometimes add "Ammachi" to their names! However, for one of my mom's sisters-in-law, I instead use Ammayi [əmˈmaːji] combined with her first name; I also use this term all by itself (without attaching a name to it) for my dad's sister-in-law (dad's brother's wife). I add the term Ammachen [əmˈmaːt͡ʃɛn] to all my mom's brothers' names. My dad, however, only has two older sisters and one younger brother. I call his younger brother Uppappan [uˈpaːpɛn]; this is also what my niece calls me and is the correct term in our family for 'father's younger brother' in general. However, I call both his sisters by the same nicknames he uses: The oldest one is Ammamma, which probably should be [əmˈmaːmma] but which I usually just pronounce [əmˈmaːma], and her younger sister is Kocha [kɔˈt͡ʃa]. I call everybody else just "____ Uncle" or "____ Auntie." The equivalent of 'auntie' in Malayalam is [kɔˈt͡ʃəmma].

The word for 'wife' is [ˈbʱaːɾja], and 'husband' is [bʱərˈt̪aːʋɯ] (both of these are ultimately loanwords from Sanskrit). 'Groom' is [məɳəˈʋaːɭɛn]. Sometimes, people also say [məɳəˈʋaːɭət͡ʃɛrʊkɛn]; [t͡ʃɛˈrʊkɛn] basically means 'boy' or 'young man' ([t͡ʃɛˈrʊ]- is a bound morpheme meaning 'small', and -[ɛn] is a masculine suffix. The word for 'small' is [t͡ʃɛˈrija]). 'Bride' is [məɳəˈʋaːʈi]. 'Nephew' is [əˈnən̪d̪əɾəʋɛn], and 'niece' is [əˈnən̪d̪əɾəʋəɭ]. 'Daughter-in-law' is [məɾʊˈməgəɭ] or [məɾʊˈmoːɭ]. My dad also calls both his sisters' husbands [əˈɭijɛn]. I call my sister-in-law by the Hindi word for 'older brother's wife' and am not quite sure what I'd call her in Malayalam.

[TurkeySloth]

Kinship Terms

I'm writing a post about this at a point when I haven't even said much about Malayalam just because I use these terms a lot even in English, to the point where using the kinds of terms that English-speakers normally use feels awkward.

The truth is that every family has its own set of kinship terms AFAIK, so even for native speakers, understanding another native speaker using the terms they personally would use can be difficult and there's a lot of "oh you say this for this kind of relative? But for us that means this other kind of relative haha! And what do you say for this kind?" etc. So I'm just going to explain the terms that I'm familiar with for my own family.

I call my mom Amma [əmˈma] ("Amma" is how I spell that when writing in English). I've been told that this is very common all over India, and of course it's common in many other parts of the world, too. My dad is Appa [əˈpa]. However, anyone else's dad is their [əˈpɛn]; for me to refer to them as their *[əˈpa] is grammatically incorrect. I am Amma and Appa's son; the word for 'son' (that I'm aware of, at any rate) is [məˈgɛn], but lots of speakers, including my parents, contract this to just [moːn] in a lot of contexts (such as when they're referring to me!). Specifically, I'm their [iˈɭejə məˈgɛn] or, as they say, [ɛˈɭejə moːn]. Incidentally, [jiˈɭejə]/[jɛˈɭejə] also means 'tender'. 'Daughter' is [məˈgəɭ] or [moːɭ] for short.

My brother is my [əˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃa] because he's older; anyone else's older brother is their Achachan [əˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃɛn]. He is my parents' older/oldest son or, in Malayalam, their [ˈmuːt̪ə məˈgɛn] or [ˈmuːt̪ə moːn]. [ˈmuːt̪a] also means 'ripe'. I actually don't call him [əˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃa] but rather Achicha [əˈt͡ʃit͡ʃa] because for whatever reason, I had trouble saying [əˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃa] when I was little and replaced the [aː] with an [ i ] instead, and it's stuck ever since! The word for 'older sister' for me is Chechi [ˈt͡ʃeːt͡ʃi]. Nearly every one of my cousins is either an Achachan or a Chechi, and so I add these titles to their first names. The formal term for 'younger brother' AFAIK is [əˈnud͡ʒɛn], but this is more casually pronounced [əˈnijɛn], which kind of sounds like the English word onion. Similarly, the formal term for 'younger sister' is [ənuˈd͡ʒət̪i], but this is more casually pronounced [əniˈjət̪i].

Traditionally in our family, Ammachi [əmˈmət͡ʃi] is just another word for 'mother', Appachen [əˈpət͡ʃɛn] is another for 'father', and 'grandmother' and 'grandfather' in Malayalam are Valiyammachi [ˈʋɛljəmmət͡ʃi] and Valiyappachen [ˈʋɛljəpət͡ʃɛn] respectively. [ˈʋɛljə] means 'big', so this is similar to the English terms 'grandmother' and 'grandfather'. Similarly, e.g. [ˈʋɛljəʋɛljəpət͡ʃɛn] is 'great-grandfather'. However, my mom has oddly chosen to shift the meanings of these words by one generation, so that Ammachi now means 'grandmother', Appachen now means 'grandfather', Valiyammachi now means 'great-grandmother', etc. As a result, I call my late (paternal) grandparents Ammachi and Appachen.

My mom has so many siblings that some of them are closer in age to my grandmother than to my mom and I sometimes add "Ammachi" to their names! However, for one of my mom's sisters-in-law, I instead use Ammayi [əmˈmaːji] combined with her first name; I also use this term all by itself (without attaching a name to it) for my dad's sister-in-law (dad's brother's wife). I add the term Ammachen [əmˈmaːt͡ʃɛn] to all my mom's brothers' names. My dad, however, only has two older sisters and one younger brother. I call his younger brother Uppappan [uˈpaːpɛn]; this is also what my niece calls me and is the correct term in our family for 'father's younger brother' in general. However, I call both his sisters by the same nicknames he uses: The oldest one is Ammamma, which probably should be [əmˈmaːmma] but which I usually just pronounce [əmˈmaːma], and her younger sister is Kocha [kɔˈt͡ʃa]. I call everybody else just "____ Uncle" or "____ Auntie." The equivalent of 'auntie' in Malayalam is [kɔˈt͡ʃəmma].

The word for 'wife' is [ˈbʱaːɾja], and 'husband' is [bʱərˈt̪aːʋɯ] (both of these are ultimately loanwords from Sanskrit). 'Groom' is [məɳəˈʋaːɭɛn]. Sometimes, people also say [məɳəˈʋaːɭət͡ʃɛrʊkɛn]; [t͡ʃɛˈrʊkɛn] basically means 'boy' or 'young man' ([t͡ʃɛˈrʊ]- is a bound morpheme meaning 'small', and -[ɛn] is a masculine suffix. The word for 'small' is [t͡ʃɛˈrija]). 'Bride' is [məɳəˈʋaːʈi]. 'Nephew' is [əˈnən̪d̪əɾəʋɛn], and 'niece' is [əˈnən̪d̪əɾəʋəɭ]. 'Daughter-in-law' is [məɾʊˈməgəɭ] or [məɾʊˈmoːɭ]. My dad also calls both his sisters' husbands [əˈɭijɛn]. I call my sister-in-law by the Hindi word for 'older brother's wife' and am not quite sure what I'd call her in Malayalam.

This was very useful. Incidentally, something somewhat similar to your, personal, [aː → i] happens/happened in vernacular Irish English with [maɪ̯ː → mi(ː)], occasionally.

[Kuchigakatai]

There are a lot of other sets of pronouns that follow the same pattern, but explaining them is a bit difficult since English doesn't really have words to distinguish all of them semantically, so I'll probably leave that for later.

These interesting pronoun sets are something that Haowen Jiang definitely doesn't mention. I'm looking forward to that section.

Thanks for your posts so far!

[Nortaneous]

This was very useful. Incidentally, something somewhat similar to your, personal, [aː → i] happens/happened in vernacular Irish English with [maɪ̯ː → mi(ː)], occasionally.

Yes, but in the Irish English case it's probably a failure of the GVS to apply, due to either influence from a dialect in which the GVS never happened or irregular shortening of the vowel (cf. 'you').

[Frislander]

This was very useful. Incidentally, something somewhat similar to your, personal, [aː → i] happens/happened in vernacular Irish English with [maɪ̯ː → mi(ː)], occasionally.

This is a general colloquial feature of British English throughout the British Isles; it's found in Cockney, Yorkshire, Scotland, everywhere. I even use it a fair bit in normal running speech. It's generally interpreted as being a relic of a pre-GVS unstressed vowel shortening process though.

[Vijay]

Thanks for all the encouragement and discussion; I appreciate it! I'm glad to read some people's comments that they find my posts in this thread useful. I'll definitely cover the other pronouns/interrogatives, though not just yet. First, I want to try to cover something a little more immediately useful when speaking Malayalam:

Greetings

How do you say 'hi' to someone in Malayalam? The answer is: You don't! There is no direct equivalent to the English word hi in Malayalam. If for whatever reason we should feel a need or desire for such a word when talking to each other, we just say it in English. This is not how we traditionally greet each other.

In more formal situations, we do have a word that basically means 'hello', and that is [n̪əməsˈkaːɾəm]. We also have [n̪əˈməst̪e] at least in theory, but in practice, I've never heard this word being used in conversation in Malayalam, only in slogans (IIRC) and in the name of a Malayalam-language radio station in the Bay Area (Namaste Kerala) as well as a few movie titles. I typically see Appa (my dad ) using [n̪əməsˈkaːɾəm] in situations where he's faking formality for a humorous effect in front of some of my mom's friends.

While we don't have an equivalent for 'hi' per se, we do have a number of ways to say 'how are you?'. The one that I think of as being most common (it probably isn't the most common one per se) and produce myself most often is [jɛˈŋɛne jiˈɾikʲun̪n̪u]. [jɛˈŋɛne] as I already said means 'how'; [jiˈɾikʲuga] literally means 'to sit' but can also mean something like 'to remain' or 'to stay' and is used for talking about continuous, ongoing, and/or repetitive actions (in any tense, sort of like an imperfective aspect marker). [jiˈɾikʲun̪n̪u] is the present progressive form of this verb, so the greeting literally means something like 'how are you sitting?' or (slightly less literally) 'how are you remaining/staying?'. (The subject is inferred from context).

Generally, I reply to this question by saying [kɔɻʊˈpəmɪlla]. [kɔɻʊˈpəm] means something like 'trouble' or 'problem', and [ɪlˈla] means 'there isn't/aren't', so [kɔɻʊˈpəmɪlla] means 'there is no problem' or, in a context like this, basically 'I'm okay'. Another common reply that I use is [sʊˈgəm ˈt̪ənne]; some people also just say [sʊˈgəm]. [sʊˈgəm] or [suˈkʰəm] literally means 'comfort', and [ˈt̪ənne] literally means something like 'itself'; in this context, it's an intensifier. Either of these replies pretty much just means 'fine'.

In fact, another way of saying 'how are you' is [sukʰəmaːˈɳoː] or [sʊgəmaːˈɳoː]; this is generally the expression I give non-Malayalees who want to learn to say something in Malayalam because it's a lot easier for them than [ɛˈŋɛne jiˈɾikʲun̪n̪u]! -[ˈaːɳɯ] is the present tense form of the copula (i.e. am/are/is), and since -[oː] is the interrogative suffix for yes/no questions, this greeting literally means 'is comfort?'.

Another expression people often use is [ɛˈŋɛnɔɳɖɯ], which means something like 'what's up?'. [ɔɳˈɖɯ] literally means 'there is' or 'there are' (the affirmative equivalent of [ɪlˈla]); this word is also used with a dative case argument to mean 'have' (i.e. 'I have' is literally 'to-me there-is/are'), so I guess you could think of this as being similar to languages where the equivalent of 'how are you' literally translates to something like 'how do you have it'. Another expression with a similar meaning is [ɛn̪ˈd̪aː ʋɪˈɕeːʃəm], meaning something like 'what's new?' or 'what's going on?'. [ʋɪˈɕeːʃəm] basically means 'affairs', 'news', or something like that (kind of like jambo in Swahili). [jɛn̪ˈd̪ɯ] of course means 'what', and -[aː] is a short/casual form of -[ˈaːɳɯ], which is the present tense form of the copula (i.e. am/are/is). Thus, [ɛn̪ˈd̪aː] means 'what is?'. People also say, "[jɛn̪ˈd̪ɔɳɖɯ ʋɪˈɕeːʃəm]?" (what news is there?) and [ˈɛn̪d̪ɯ pəˈrejun̪n̪u] 'what are you saying?'.

One more expression that I don't hear often but is apparently pretty common is [ˈt͡ʃoːrʊɳɖoː], literally 'did (you) eat cooked rice?' [ˈt͡ʃoːrɯ] literally means 'cooked rice' but also refers to a complete meal (no meal is traditionally considered complete or proper without rice). [ˈuɳɳʊga] means 'to eat a meal', and the past tense form is [ˈʊɳɖu], which is also the reply to this greeting.

[pecan]

For some reason I've been on a huge Malayalam movie music binge lately, so this is a pretty fun thread to see. I'm also just generally interested in the Dravidian family. They seem like interesting and often overlooked languages. Thanks for this thread!

Regarding wh-words, is Malayalam a wh-in-situ or wh-movement language? And do wh-words act more like indeterminate pronouns (being able to take interrogative, existential, universal, negative, or free-choice interpretations, depending on other features of the sentence), akin to Japanese? I recall seeing that Sinhala wh-words act like this, and I was wondering if that was due to Dravidian influence.

[Vijay]

For some reason I've been on a huge Malayalam movie music binge lately, so this is a pretty fun thread to see.

Nice, I grew up on old Malayalam movie songs! Whenever my mom drives anywhere and she feels like listening to music, she puts in a CD (or audiocassette, especially when I was smaller) of those.

I'm also just generally interested in the Dravidian family. They seem like interesting and often overlooked languages.

Yeah, I think they are!

Thanks for this thread!

No problem and thank you!

Regarding wh-words, is Malayalam a wh-in-situ or wh-movement language?

Wh-in-situ

And do wh-words act more like indeterminate pronouns (being able to take interrogative, existential, universal, negative, or free-choice interpretations, depending on other features of the sentence), akin to Japanese? I recall seeing that Sinhala wh-words act like this, and I was wondering if that was due to Dravidian influence.

Sort of, though I don't think they can do this to quite the extent that Japanese can. They can't take on negative interpretations (from what I can recall at least), but they can take on existential or universal ones in addition to interrogative interpretations.

[Frislander]

Why does it seem that half of Southern Dravidian vocabulary is just Sanskrit with -am stuck on the end?

[Vijay]

Well, Sanskrit nouns often have -am stuck on the end already in accusative case. But most Indian languages have borrowed heavily from Classical Sanskrit over the millennia since it used to be the language that most literature was written in and that all educated people were supposed to be able to speak. It's kind of like English having so much Latin in it.

The relationship between Malayalam and Sanskrit is a bit like the relationship between English and French: Sanskrit was historically the language of the elite and considered superior to Malayalam (and indeed to vernacular Indian languages just in general), and this attitude has not really disappeared even long after Sanskrit has ceased to be as politically relevant as it used to be (it's no longer used in diplomatic correspondance or inscriptions, for example).

EDIT: Ironically, now it's English that's in a comparable position instead of Sanskrit!

[Vijay]

Deixis and Interrogatives: More sets

I'm actually not going to list all the examples of these because I've come to realize that there are a shit ton of them, more than I ever realized existed. But here's another example of the /i/- vs. /a/- vs. /e/- alternation I mentioned earlier:

[jɪˈt̪ra] 'this much/many'
[əˈt̪ra] 'that much/many'
[jɛˈt̪ra] 'how much/many?'

Combined with the dative case suffix, we get:

[jɪˈt̪rɛkʲɯ] 'to this extent'
[əˈt̪rɛkʲɯ] 'to that extent'
[jɛˈt̪rɛkʲɯ] 'to what extent?'

There are also many ways of saying 'this/that/what kind of', probably more than any dictionary lists. Here are a couple of them (I personally tend to use the second one in each pair):

[jɪˈt̪əri] or [jiŋəˈnət̪e]
[əˈt̪əri] or [əŋəˈnət̪e]
[jɛŋəˈnət̪e]

There are also situations where either this alternation or [jiː]/[aː] + noun could be used, though I'm not sure whether both expressions in each pair are perfectly synonymous:

[jiː kɔlˈləm] or [jɪˈkɔlləm] 'this year'
[aː kɔlˈləm] or [əˈkɔlləm] 'that year'

[jiː ˈkaːləm] or [jɪˈkaːləm] 'this period of time, these days'
[aː ˈkaːləm] or [əˈkaːləm] 'that period of time, those days'

[jiː ˈpraːʋəɕjəm] or [jɪˈpraːʋəɕjəm] OR (I think more commonly) [jɪˈpraːɕəm] 'this time'
[aː ˈpraːʋəɕjəm], [əˈpraːʋəɕjəm], [əˈpraːɕəm] 'that time'

It's also common to use these constructions to either side of a body of water, usually a river:

[jɪˈkəɾa] 'this side of the pond, the side where I am'
[əˈkəɾa] 'that/the other side of the pond'

[jɪˈkəɾe] 'on this side of the pond'
[əˈkəɾe] 'on the other side of the pond, across the river (etc.)'

I mentioned earlier that in my family, [əˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃɛn] means 'older brother' (and I use it for most of my male cousins as well), but I've also seen some people make this distinction(!):

[jɪˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃɛn] 'this older brother'
[əˈt͡ʃaːt͡ʃɛn] 'that older brother'

Apart from [ɪˈʋɪɖe], [əˈʋɪɖe], and [ɛˈʋɪɖe], there are a few other expressions that also mean 'here, there, where' in some sense. These I think more specifically refer to where something is located, but it's hard for me to tell because I don't see them used all that often and all these expressions can be replaced by [jɪˈʋɪɖe], [əˈʋɪɖe], and [ɛˈʋɪɖe]; I think they may also be mostly restricted to literary Malayalam:

[jiˈŋɯ]
[əˈŋɯ]
[ˈjɛŋɯ]

[əˈŋɯ] can also be a somewhat formal way of saying 'you' (in general, expressions meaning 'there' often serve as 2SG formal pronouns). More often than any of these usages, though, I see it being used in a lot of the same contexts where, in American English, I might use 'just' or 'like' instead - particularly to emphasize something (just do it! He's, like, killing me!).

In spoken Malayalam at least IME, it's common to replace [iˈpoːɭ] 'now', [əˈpoːɭ] 'then', and [ɛˈpoːɭ] 'when?' with:

[jiˈpəm]
[aˈpəm]
[jɛˈpəm]

But before a suffix, my understanding is that the [ɭ] in [iˈpoːɭ], [əˈpoːɭ], and [ɛˈpoːɭ] has to be changed to [ɻ], and the long vowel is usually reduced to schwa in speech (though it certainly doesn't have to be and the orthography doesn't reflect that at all), e.g.:

[jɪˈpəɻʊm] 'even now'
[aˈpəɻʊm] 'even then'
[jɛˈpəɻʊm] 'always'

[Vijay]

More pronouns and how to address people

We've already covered all the third-person pronouns I can think of, at least, though I should also point out that the most commonly used forms of these pronouns, or the ones that are used by default when there's no clear motivation for choosing one over the other, is the distal form. For example, while [iˈʋər] is a commonly used pronoun, my understanding is that people are more likely to use [əˈʋər] as their default third-person pronoun. I also mentioned earlier that [əˈŋɯ] can be used as a formal second person singular pronoun.

Apart from that, though, we haven't talked about first or second person in any more detail yet. There are some complications involved in saying 'you' in Malayalam, kind of like there are with the third person. The first person is pretty easy by comparison; there are pronouns that are perfectly acceptable and normal that mean 'I' or 'we'. Malayalam makes a distinction between inclusive and exclusive 'we', but the only difference in form between the pronouns corresponding to each is that the nasals in the exclusive form are pronounced further back in the mouth than those in the inclusive form:

[ɲaːn] 'I'
[ˈn̪əmməɭ] 'we (inclusive)'
[ˈɲəŋəɭ] 'we (exclusive)'

The second person plural pronoun is:

[n̪iˈŋəɭ] 'y'all'

But it can also be used as a formal pronoun, kind of like vous in French and like [əˈŋɯ]. Another similar pronoun I've heard at times, probably more often than [əˈŋɯ] (maybe a little less often than [n̪iˈŋəɭ]), is [əˈŋeːɾɯ].

There is also an informal second-person pronoun that should be used with caution because it is not supposed to be used for people who are older than you or socially superior to you. It is also just generally not very polite (like I'd said earlier about a lot of the third-person pronouns), though it is also used at the very least with the Abrahamic God:

[n̪iː] 'you'

In most cases, instead of using a pronoun, people addressing someone else use the exact same phrases they would use when referring to that someone else in third person. For example, let's say I wanted to ask Appa how my brother was doing. I call him Achicha [əˈt͡ʃit͡ʃa], so I would say:

[əˈt͡ʃit͡ʃa jɛˈŋɛne jiˈɾikʲun̪n̪u] or (more likely) [əˈt͡ʃit͡ʃe jɛˈŋɛne jiˈɾikʲun̪n̪u]

What if I wanted to ask Achicha directly how he was doing? I would say the exact same thing: "[əˈt͡ʃit͡ʃe jɛˈŋɛne jiˈɾikʲun̪n̪u]?" unless of course it was clear from context that I was specifically asking how he was doing, in which case I could just say "[jɛˈŋɛne jiˈɾikʲun̪n̪u]?"

People usually address each other with titles just like I do with Achicha. If they're referring to a woman (who isn't a relative), they'd probably say "Madam" or "Miss" pronounced more or less the same way they'd pronounce those words in English. If they're referring to a man (also outside the family), they may say "Sir" in English or they might use the nativized form [saːr], especially if they're addressing or referring to a male teacher or professor.

Another pronoun used for addressing people in second person is:

[t̪aːn]

My dad FWIR says this is the pronoun you're supposed to use with strangers, but I encounter people using it more often to be slightly insulting; perhaps it's just a common way of using formality to create distance. Sometimes, people also say [ˈt̪aːŋgəɭ], an even more formal pronoun, even though IIRC this is traditionally supposed to be used only for the king or queen.

EDIT: Also, here's a movie clip (from a movie I've seen at least parts of probably like a hundred times by now) that has a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary and a little bit of unfamiliar grammar, but also a lot of English. I think I'll post it and then just translate the lines into English:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYjnpFxQ4DU

Geethu: Daddy, why won't you take me with you?
Jayarajan: Oh my, dear! We can't take kids when we go to the conference, right?
G: Then won't I be by myself?
J: Aren't your uncle and aunt here to look after you, dear?
G: No. I'm scared if you aren't here.
J: Won't Daddy be back here tomorrow? What do you want me to bring you when I come back? A teddy bear, Micky Mouse, Donald Duck, huh?
G: (My) Little Pony, Pluto, a puppy, and also...oh, yeah, kiss me!
(...)
Hey! Pssst! Oh, Mister Policemaaan!
Cop: What is it, dear?
G: Just open this gate for me!
C: Why should I open it?
G: She told me to.
C: Who did?
G: Geethu. Please? Aren't you a nice policeman?
C: Okay!...Who's Geethu, dear?
G: It's me, haha!
C: Huh?!
(Bhaskara Pillai, her uncle, spots her hiding behind a bush but pretends to have a sudden urge to shit there and thus catches Geethu)
Bhaskara Pillai: Where're you running off to? Trying to become P. T. Usha [a Malayalee track and field Olympian] at such a young age? Come on, go! (mutters to self) You aren't at your mom's house now to run around like a disobedient girl without manners! Understand?
G: Uh, um, can I go play over there for a little bit?
B: Don't go outside and play for now! I hadn't gone outside and played like this when I was a kid. It was good I didn't. Discipline! "If wealth is lost, nothing is lost. If health is lost, something is lost. If character is lost (i.e. if you run around like a slut), everything is lost!" Understand? Hmm?
G: Hmph!
B: Good! Heheheh!