Cite
MLA
“Malayalam.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/lipi/malayalam-language/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). Malayalam. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/lipi/malayalam-language/
01The Chera copper plates
The Vazhappally copper plate, issued under the Chera king Rajashekhara around 830 CE, is the oldest record in the language. It and the other Chera plates of Mahodayapuram are written in Vatteluttu, with Grantha for Sanskrit words, and show a speech already moving away from Tamil. Whether Malayalam branched from Middle Tamil or developed alongside it from a shared parent is a question scholars still discuss.
02Manipravalam and Ezhuthachan
Kerala poets mixed Sanskrit and Malayalam into Manipravalam, ‘rubies and coral’, and the 14th-century Leelatilakam laid down its rules. In the 16th century Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan wrote the Adhyatma Ramayanam Kilippattu, told by a parrot, in the script developed from Grantha. During the month of Karkidakam, Kerala households still read it aloud each evening, and Ezhuthachan is called the father of modern Malayalam.
03Print and today
The first book printed in Malayalam script, the Samkshepavedartham, came from Rome in 1772, and Hermann Gundert’s Malayalam–English dictionary of 1872 is still consulted. G. Sankara Kurup won the very first Jnanpith award in 1965. Malayalam was declared a classical language in 2013. It is the official language of Kerala and Lakshadweep, and the 2011 Census counted 3,48,38,819 speakers. Lakhs of Keralites working in the Gulf have carried it to Dubai, Doha and Muscat.
