Malayalam is an ancient Dravidian language spoken by Indians called Malayalees. In post independence India, boundaries of the several states (including Kerala) were drawn creating the federation of states which is India. Kerala boundaries were marked to include Indians whose primary language was Malayalam---mainly areas known in the time of the British Raj as Trivandrum, Cochin, and part of Malabar. Thus speakers of Malayalam are called Malayalees, or by their state name as Keralans or Keralites.

Malayalam is the first medium of instruction in Kerala schools. There is an extensive literature and a large number of Malayalam periodicals. Tamil and Hindi are known by some, but the second language is clearly English. Many Tamil, Hindi and English words have entered Malayalam. Malayalam has a rounded script very different from the Sanskrit script used by other Indian languages. The persistence of their own script as against the script of Sanskrit used by religious scholars might be applied as further evidence that Sanskritization (also called Pan Hinduism) had less success in Kerala than in other areas of India. (Indian reality)

(Directory)  March 20, 2000