Page:A Brief Account of Malayalam Phonetics - L V Ramaswami Aiyar.pdf/7

 

[dɦ] as in [prədɦɑˑnəm] chief.

[n] as in [pʌni] fever.

[p] as in [pʌlʌka] plank.

[ph] as in [phʌləm] fruit.

[b] as in [bələm] strength.

[bɦ] as in [bɦʌjəm] fear.

[m] as in [mʌrəm] tree.

[j] as in [jeɟ͡ʒəmɑ:nən] master.

[r] as in [rɑ:mən] the proper name Rāma.

[r] as in [ʌra] chamber.

[l] as in [ila] leaf.

[ḷ] as in [kuḷʌm] tank.

[v] as in [vʌṭəkkən] northern, also [ʋʌṭəkkən].

[ʋ] as in [pu:ʋə] flower; or a glide, as in [ʋorn] one after the final vowel of the preceding word.

[ʃ] as in [ʃʌkɑːrəm] abuse.

[ʃ̣] as in [kʌʃ̣ɑˑjəm] medicine.

[s] as in [sʌtjəm] truth.

[z] as in [pʌriɦɑˑzəm] ridicule, [pɑ:jəzəm] rice-milk.

[ʒ] dialectal as in [be:ʒ] Bravo!

[ɹ̣] as in [vɑ:ɹ̣əpʌɹ̣əm] plantain fruit: a sound peculiar to Malayalam and Tamil.

[ɦ,h] as in [ɦʌriɦʌrən] a proper name, Hariharan, [ɦitʌm] pleasure.

 

Sanskrit symbols representing the sounds of vocalic [r̩] and [l̩] (or [rɯ] and [lɯ]) have also been incorporated in the Malayalam alphabet, though used only in Sanskrit borrowings.

The Malayalam language is spoken by nearly eight millions of people occupying that tract of the West Coast which is called Malabar, between Gōkarṇam and Cape Comorin. The fact that this strip of land, bounded on the east by the Western Ghats and on the west by the Arabian Sea, forms a geographical entity by itself, has, besides leading to the conservation in this land of strange customs and habits of life, reacted on the language of the people and resulted in the creation and development of a new and independent language differing in many respects from the parent Dravidian stock. Though it was the same political government that in ancient times ruled over Malabar and some of the Eastern Tamil districts, the geographical situation of Malabar prevented an uninterrupted intercourse between the peoples of Malabar and the peoples of the Tamil