The existence of Southern, Central and Northern dialects of Malayalam is fairly obvious even to common people. This broad classification holds good in dialect studies also, but under each broad group there are ‘a number of sub varieties, as shown by the dialect survey of Malayalam (Ezhava-Tiyya) (Subramaniam 1974) which identified 12 dialect areas of Malayalam spoken by Ezhavas and Tiyyas. In all probability the other caste dialects also closely follow the geographical stratification found in Ezhava-Tiyya dialects. In other words, the twelve dialect areas identified by the survey can be generalized to include all Malayalam regional dialects. The twelve areas are (1) South Travancore, (2) Central Travancore, (3) West Vempanad, (4) North Travancore, (5) Cochin, (6) South Malabar, (7) South Eastern Palghat, (8) North Western Palghat, (9) Central Malbar, (10) Wayanad, (11) North Malabar and (13) Kasargod. Another significant dialect is the Malayalam spoken in Lakshadweep which is not connected to the dialect of the mainland.

At a basic level the three broad verities are set apart by phonological features such as intonation, pauses between words etc. The morphological variation is less and still lesser is the syntactic variation. The phonological and morphological variants found in the various dialects can be summarized as below.

(a) Phonetic replacements:

ile ila-ela ‘leaf’ kiṭakka ‘bed’

keṭakka

a|i nāņayam ‘coin’ kattira ‘Scissors’

nāņiyam kattiri

a|e n̄arampә Vein innala Yesterday

n̄erampә innale

u|i uņṭә - iņṭә ‘have’ koccuņņal ‘Children’

kocciņņaḷ

u|o uņṭә- oņṭә ‘have’ pura – pora ‘house’ kk|ykk keṭakka ‘bed’ aṭakka ‘arecanut’ keṭaykka aṭaykka K|V cerakәceravә ‘wing’ caṭṭukam ‘spatula’ L|ә plāvәpḷāvә ‘Jack tree’ caṭṭuvam R|ṛ ciŗi ciŗi ‘laugher’ turuppә ‘trump’ tuṛuppә V|b veḷḷam- ‘water’ rāvile ‘in the morning’ beḷḷam rābile l|v kaluttә ‘neck’ kolu ‘the plough’ kavuttә kovu Y|v ammāyi| mother in-law marayikkuka ‘to be frozen’ ammāvi maravikkuka ṭṭ|ṭ cēṭṭatti ‘elder brother’s’ wife maṭṭaḷ ‘stalk of coconut leaf’ cēṭatti maṭaḷ K|y pīṭika ‘shop’ koṭṭaka ‘tent’ pīṭiya koṭṭaya l|y kaluta ‘donkey’ eppalum ‘always’ kayuta eppayum ņ|n kaņaḷ ‘burning’ kūņә ‘mushroom’ kanaḷ ‘coal’ kūņә K|k veṭṭukkiḷI ‘locust’ maņikkaņṭam ‘wrist’ veṭṭukili maņikaņṭam

(b) Morphemic Replacements:

nnulņu varunnu - varuņu ‘comes’ ukaluva tinnuka – tinnuva ‘to eat’ ān | āṛ varaņāyi - varāṛāyi (is) ‘about to come’ iṭṭә|iṛṛә vanniṭṭә - vanniṛṛә ‘after coming’ kaḷ|aḷ kuṭṭikaḷ - kuṭṭiyaḷ ‘children’ īna|iņele kuṭṭīna - kuṭṭine ‘child’ (ace.) kuṭṭinṛe kuṭṭīre - kuṭṭīte ‘child’ (gen.)

(c) Variants of personal pronouns

enlin enṛe - inṛe ‘my’ ňāḷ ñāṅṅaḷ - ñaṅṅaḷ‘we (excl.)’ niy - nī, iyy ‘you’ avan-ōn ‘he’ avaḷ - ōḷ she avar-ōr-ōl ‘they’

(d) Variants of Particles

avanekkāṭṭīm- avanekkāḷum avaēlum ‘than hime’ pattu vītam – patties’a ‘ten each’ patukkane – patukke ‘slowly’ The regions lying adjacent to Karnataka and TamilNadu show distinct influence of Kannada and Tamil respectively. For eg: the v-b change characteristic of many northern dialects of Malayalam is due to the Kannada impact. Malayalam spoken in Trivandrum and adjacent areas have many lexical items found in Tamil, but not in other dialects of Malayalam.

Subramaniam. V. I (ed) 1993 Dravidian Encyclopaedia

Vol No III, International

School of Dravidian Linguistics

Thiruvnanthapuram. P: 487.

1. Regional Variation

As far as the regional variations are concerned extreme differences are observed in the various levels of linguistic structure including the intonation patterns of the speech of the same. Caste group or different groups living in two different areas, for instance, the Malayalam speech of any group of the northern region vs. that of the southern region shows considerable difference which can only be attributed to the region since features are almost uniform for any group of the respectable regions. Regarding the lexical items there are many with purely regional connotations, the same forms in two areas have two different meanings and also there are forms which are taboos in one region is not so in another region. Similarly certain verbs and nouns have co-occurrence restrictions at regions.

eg:

For ‘pappaya’ in the southern region, generally the term ‘ōmaykka’ is used. But in Malabar region ‘Karmōs’ is the form. The difference is purely based on geographical variation. In the areas where the influence of Kannada is felt, ‘Karpūs’ is used. For chilly ‘KollamLaku’ is the form in the Quilon region and ‘VaRRalmoLaku’ is used in some other region. It is also shortened to vaRRal. Another form is ‘Kappal moLaku’ Groundnut has two variations, ‘KappalaņṭI’ and ‘nilakkaṭala’ KoLLikkelammu’, ciini, ‘kappa’ are the varient forms of tapioca. Bread fruit tree has two forms ‘siimaplāvu’ and ‘kaṭaplāvu’. ‘paRaņkiyaņṭi’ ‘cashewnut’ is borrowed from Portuguese.

These dialect forms might have been introduced by a single speaker and then it spreads throughout the community. Now everyday uses the English word pocket. The names of plants and flowers are also different in different areas. Different culture contact between different languages may be the reasons for these charges.

If Trivandrum is a centre for Naixs and Quilon is a cultural centre for Ezhavas, the speech of Ezhavas member of Trivandrum may resemble that of the Quilon dialect. Based on the suprasegmental features we can distinguish the region from which the speaker hails even before going to the lexical items.

Subramaniam (ed) 1973 Seminar on Dialectology

Dravidian Linguistic Association

Dept. of Linguistics, University

of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram.

Subramaniam. U. I 1975 IJDL Vol. No. IV No.2

Department of Linguistics

University of Kerala,

Thiruvananthapuram

PP: 365-374.

2. Social Variation:

Religions and caste stratification of Malayalam is not as obvious as regional stratification, except in the case of Muslim dialects which stand apart from other caste speeches. The Christian and Hindu speeches are closer to each other than the Muslim speech to either of these dialects. Caste dialects vary in kinship terms also.

Hindu Christian Muslim Father accan appan vāppa|bāppa Mother amma amma|ammacci umma Elder brother ceṭṭan accāyan ikkā The Muslim dialects in addition, show a number of phonological morphological and lexical variations. A study based on data from one village (Subramoniam-1977) show that.

(a) The Brahmin dialect is closer to the standard dialect.

(b) The Nair dialect is closer to the Brahmin dialect; Ezhava-Tiyya dialect to Harijan dialect.

(c) Harijan dialects preserve archaic features such as pronominal termination.

(d) Nair and Exhava dialects are closer to each other than to the Muslim dialect.

Castes belonging to the upper strata shows a tendency to preserve non-native phonology while the lower castes assimilate loan words to native phonology.

Subramonian.V. I (ed) 1993 Dravidian Encyclopaedia

Vol No III. International School

of Dravidian Linguistics,

Thiruvananthapuram.

Pp: 487 – 488.

a) Caste: i) Sub caste variation:

In Malayalam, there are communal dialects and caste dialects. Namboodiri dialect has the influence of Vedic language. In the case of Christians and Muslims the influence of religious work is noticeable Vanninhi (came) ‘Pōyinhi’ (went) etc. are the characteristic features of the cherakkal dialect.

To establish a caste dialect with caste as an independent variable, one should show that the dialect has linguistic features which are shared by all the members of that caste irrespective of the region they belong the religion they follow, the status they have attained etc. and only by them.

It should be noted that the dialect studies and surveys conducted so far in Kerala in the Malayalam language situation especially with references to caste and region show that all caste differences cannot be explained by a two or three fold division such as Brahmin: Non-Brahmin or Brahmin: Non Brahmin : Harijan etc. Each community, caste and even sub castes with in the caste groups have to be studies independently and exhaustively. For instances, the Non-Brahmin include such castes as Nairs, Ezhavas, Harijans and the Harijans again comprise of such sub-castes as the pulayas and parayas. We can see that there is considerable difference among the dialects of these castes.

Caste and communal traits occur mainly in the kinship terms, cultural vocabulary items besides in the phonological level, in grammatical category and in specific Phrase Formations. For instance, in the Malayalam speech of the paraya sub caste of the Harijan community living in Hosting there are two peculiar and systematic occurrences of the present tense markers anRa and uņta – for ex. KottanRa ‘chops’ iṭuņtṭa ‘places’ where as these markers are not at all found in any other caste dialects so far investigated. The present tense markers in other dialects of Malayalam are –unnu -uņu etc for ex. Kottunnu ‘chops’ ituņu ‘places’ etc. Similarly the Muslim dialect of Laccadives islands shows the peculiar present tense marker-aņṭa ex bayaņṭa ‘come’ pōkaņṭa ‘goes’ paRayaņṭa ‘says’. This is a characteristic marker of this dialect where as the above marker occurring in other dialects of Malayalam has a negative meaning ex. varaìṭa ‘don’t come’ pōkaņṭa ‘don’t go’ paRayaņṭa ‘don’t say’.

A few further characteristic features of the paRaya dialect may be noted:

1. A regular dropping of almost all word initial constants like p,b,tc,khvn is a characteristic feature of this dialect. Whereas only the dropping of h in such words like hāram>āram ‘garland’ hājaru>ājaru ‘presence is noted in the other dialects too Viz. Ezhava/Tiyyas, Nairs. eg: pēṭi>ēṭi ’fear’ beṭakkāya>eṭakkāya ‘bad’ tōlu>ōlu ‘skin’ cēcci<ēcci ‘elder sister’ KāRRu>āRRu ‘wind’ veralu>eralu ‘finger’ nen̄n̄u>in̄n̄u ‘breast’.

2. Occurrence of nasalized vowles is noted where as it is not found in other dialects. eg: īṭu ‘face’, īnu ‘fish’ ōḷe ‘frong’

3. The occurrence of pronouns like atōn ‘he’, aṭaḷu ‘she’ ānu ‘I’. The corresponding forms for these pronouns in the other dialects are avan|ōn, avaḷu|ōḷu and n̄ān.

4. Peculiar lexical items like īppaḷu ‘below’ paymu ‘blause’ Vēre ‘blood’ oḷappē ‘fish’, kākkan ‘brother’, iḷḷatti ‘bird’.

5. Characteristic fused phrase units like ān̄ēRiyatu ‘Male young’ en̄ceRiyatu ‘female young’ āmpaṭṭāyi ‘male dog’, pampattāyi ‘female dog’ etc. These features distinguish the paRaya dialects of Malayalam spoken in Kerala. Similarly a number of features peculiar to and found only with the Muslims, the pulayas and other castes can be cited. For instance, the presence of an interdental velarized lateral phoneme |L| and a lebiodental fricative |f| in such words as LohaRu ‘noon prayar’ auLu ‘water tank in a Mosque aLLa ‘God’ vayaLu ‘a religious discourse etc, fattuva ‘conqueror’, Kāfar ‘a non-believer’, saafu ‘neatness’ etc are features found only with the Muslim speech.

ii) Sub Tribe Variation:

A tribal language is also called a non-literary language or an uncultivated language or an uncultivated language. All the tribes speak some form of Malayalam, may be then even dialects of Malayalam, containing features distinct from the regional dialects. We can divide the tribal speeches of Kerala into three groups namely malabar, Cochin and Travancore area. We may call the tribes belonging to Northern, Central, and Southern Kerala respectively.

For example a tribe called mannans found to be distributed in the forest areas of Todupuzha, Devikolam, iduukk, whose language is a distinct variety.

In the mannan dialect we have a number of examples of desonorization, ie, a movement from level ‘b’ to level ‘a’. In the major Dravidian languages where we have voiced sounds. We get a corresponding voiceless sound in the mannan dialect.

eg: Malayalam Mannan

|balam| |pilam| Strength

|dāham| |ṭākam| threat etc

This dialect has gender distinction, showing markers to indicate masculine and feminine. There is nothing peculiar with the masculine markers, when compared to Malayalam, but there are some interesting observations with the feminine markers in the mannan dialect. They are |-a| |-ātti| |-atti| and |icci|

eg: |make| daughter

|kallatti| thief (women)

|tampurātticci| land lady (royal woman)

Tribal dialects posses many features which are not found in major languages. Tribal dialects are also in the process of change. The mannan dialect is a best example of such a process. It is now in a transition stage from Tamil to Malayalam.

Battacharya. S 1976 The Tribal Languages of South Kerala

Dravidian Linguistic Association

Dept. of Linguistics, University of

Kerala, TVM. Pattanayak’s

Comments an D.D. Paper on caste

and Language.

Gopinathan Nair. B 1975 IJDL Vol. No. IV No.2

Department of Linguistics

University of Kerala,

Thiruvananthapuram.

Pp:365- 374.

Monsy. A 1997 The Linguistic Significance of

Mannan dialect, IJDL Vol XXVI

No.1, IJDL Vol. XXVI No.2.

Dravidian Linguistic Association,

TVM.

b) Sex:

Differences in language behaviour exist in all human societies and one such linguistic behaviour is associated with fender obviously, it is associated with sex and developmental level, that is, the differences between male and female patterns of speech are biologically determined.

The choice of lexical items, preferences for colloquialism, elaborateness or brevity, use of interjections, choice of address terms etc, the speech of men and women are different.

Socio-cultural systems are composed of human individuals and their life support systems, as well as families, groups, institutions, organization and the technical systems brought forth by them. The relation among these are characterised by pattern of domination and subordination as well as those of functional cooperation and various degrees and competition. Socio-cultural conventions include the nonverbal gestures as well as the verbal features like use of polite forms, unassertive statements. Conservation, avoidance of taboos, profanity and obscenity and the like.

1. Personal names reflect the gender:

In most of the cultures, the names of men and women are kept distinct. In Malayalam names like Janaki, Radha, Meera etc can easily be identified as that of females, while names like Raman Krishnan, etc belong to men. Even without grammatical marking, it is customary in all cultures to keep the names distinct for both the sexes.

In Malayalam the words|Kumari| ‘Miss’ and |Srīmati| Mrs and |Sri| and |Srīmān| ‘Mr’ to use to distinguish men and women and their marital status.

Use of Personal Pronouns:

1. In Malayalam first person plural pronoun is used for the singular ‘I’ by men eg: Among the Muslims of North Kerala men use |nammal|I (plural) and women and use |n̄ān| I (singular).

2. Where as in a group, women generally use the inclusive plural |nām, nammal| (eg: namukkentā (after all what is it for me?) Here instead of dominance, politeness and friendliness is implied.

This is an area where sex difference is prominent. However sex is not the only criteria but there are other factors like region, caste, community and religious, official and economic status, age, personal relationship etc.

I. Brother = Sister

Other things being equal, Malayalam does not have an in-group use for certain kinship address/reference terms like ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ in English.

eg: |āṅṅaḷa| ‘brother’ (used only by women to refer |address brother) |peṅṅaḷ| ‘sister’ (only by brother to sister and not by sister to sister.

Similar is in the case with |uṭappirannōn| ‘brother’ |uṭappirannōḷ| sister. |pāppa|ōppa| ‘elder brother’ |ōppōḷ| ‘sister’.

II. Husband-Wife

In western culture ladies address and refer their husbands by personal names majority of the Christian ladies in Kerala and a few young ladies of other communities follow this tradition. Among the Muslims of North Kerala women generally address their husbands using the second person plural pronoun |ṅṅaḷә|(niṅṅaḷ) ‘you’ (polite) and refer by the third person plural pronoun |ōrә| (avar) ‘they’ (polite). The men in turn address their wives by |jjә| (ni) ‘you’ (sig) (impolite) and refer by |ōḷә|(avaḷ) ‘she’ (impolite). Wives use the word |nōkki| ‘look’ and husband use |pinne| ‘hallo’ to draw the attention of each other similar distinction is available in other communities also through out Kerala.

III. Between Women:

The following address terms are used by women in North Kerala.

These are mainly colloquial forms.

eg: |eṭō|- women use it more

|eņē|- between women only

Similarly |eṭī| |pōṭī| |pōņē| ‘you go’ are used by women to form |ayya| (interjection) is prefaced to utterances by women along in kannur district.

eg: ayya, mōḷe atiṅṅeṭuttēkku

hi, daughter (please) passiton.

When a man dies his wife is known as his |vidhava| ‘widow’ and if the woman dies her husband is never known as her |vidhavan| widower.

Men are defined in terms of what they do in the world, while women are defined in terms of the men with whom they are associated, certain caste names in Malayalam, for instance, are associated with certain professions. But none of these women who are always referred to by the feminine form of these caste-names ever engage in these professions.

eg: Masculine Feminine

taṭṭan taṭṭātti ‘goldsmith’

kollan kollatti ‘blacksmith’

panikkan panikkatti ‘carpenter’

Word sequence is sometimes treated as an index of precedence.

Man Women

acchanammamār ‘parents’

(father) (mother) Pl.

The reverse order is more in Malayalam

|mātāpitākkaḷ| ‘mother and father’

|sahōdarīsahōdaranmār| ‘sisters and brothers’

|bhāryābhartākkanmā| ‘wife and husband’

Due to cultural reasons, there is a differences in the related activities of men and women.

1. The pooja (temple rites) is performed always by men and hence the ‘poojari’ language (language of the priest) will not be used by women.

2. Women show more religious affinity. Prayers and penance are offered more by women.

eg: |tiņkaḷālccavratam| ‘Monday penance’ |tiruvatira noyampu| etc.

Sreedevi. B 1991 Language of women

IJDL. Vol No. XX No:2

Kerala Panini Building

Thiruvananthapuram.

Pp:61-78.

Vasanthakumari. T Language of Women (A focus

On the impact of stratification

& socialization). IJDL Vol.No.XX

No.2. Kerala Panini Building

Thiruvananthapuram.

Pp: 49-60.

Anvita Abbi Language of women IJDL

Vol No.XX No.2, Kerala Panini

Building, Thiruvananthapuram.

Pp: 35-48.

Nagamma Reddy Women, Gender and Language-

Structure. IJDL Vol No.XX No.2

Kerala Panini Building,

Thiruvananthapuram.

Pp: 83-89.

(c) Education:

Education is a conscious and specialized social activity Education is now not only a mean of moulding the behaviour patterns of individual for achieving a basic social conformity but also an instrument of developing physical resources by increasing the productive capacity of man. Apart from the development of human and physical resources education is an instrument of national integration, social cohesion and cultural development of a speech community. The use of mother tongue in education has a greater cultural significance than the use of a foreign language. The primary schools with Malayalam as the medium of instruction are 8909 in number with more than a million pupils receiving instruction. The language is also reported to be taught in a number of primary schools, middle schools and secondary schools along with another language (mostly English). However, it is noted that Malayalam is taught as a subject in universities and postgraduate class level colleges in the state. Full use of Malayalam on the media of radio is done through stations Viz, Thiruvananthapuram, Calicat, Trissure and on full-time basis, while a part of time is given to the language from the foreign stations of Colombo, Seychelles, and the USA.

At the primary stage the state provides for the use of Malayalam as medium of instruction. At the secondary stage the importance is given to both Malayalam and English. In addition to this Hindi also a subject of teaching.

At the higher stage particularly in science and technical education English is continued to be used as medium of instruction in almost all the university of Kerala.

In some schools, particularly the Christian missionary schools, English is used as medium right from the primary stage. In central schools run by the Union Government both Hindi and English are used as medium of instruction from the primary to the higher secondary stage.

Administration:

The language used in administration occupies the central place in the context of language use in society. Also the effective harmonious and successful implementation has to be preceded by its use in education and following by its use in law.

Govt. of Kerala appointed a committee in August 1957 to report on the measures to be taken for the progressive adaptation of Malayalam as the official language of the state.

With effect from 1st November, 1965 (G.O (p) No.647 |65|po, dated 19th October 1965) the govt of Kerala ordered that Malayalam shall be the official language for some of the offices in the panchayats municipalities, etc. with effect from1st May, 1966 (G.O (p) No.159 |66| PD dated 19th April 1966) use of Malayalam as official language was extended to office of prison, Education, survey and lord records etc. The Kerala official Languages (legislation) Act, 1969 recognized Malayalam and English to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the state. The act has also made special provisions for linguistic minorities of Kerala. Accordingly (a) The Tamil and Kannada minority people in the state may use their respective languages for their correspondence with the state government in the secretarial and the Heads of Departments and also with all the local offices of the state Government situated in those areas which are declared by the government to be linguistic minority areas for the purpose and the replies sent in such cases shall also be in their respective minority languages and (b) The linguistic minorities other than Tamil and Kannada in the state may use the English language for their correspondence with the state government offices and in such cases the replies sent to them shall be in the English language.

The use of Malayalam language is formed to be frequent or occasional for verbal as well as written purposes at al levels as the local administrative|official level. While in national level the use is limited only be verbal communication.

Sreedevi. B 1994 ‘The Language of administration

Officiates Malayalam-Hindvanu

in Usage’ IJDL Vol XXIII No.2,

Dravidian Linguistic Association,

Thiruvananthapuram. Pp: 109-117.

Mallikarjun. B 1908 Language use in administration &

National integration, Central Institute

Of Indian Languages, Mysore Pp:44-45.

Originally diglossic community was used in the specific sense of two varieties of one language which are functionally complementary it is relatively a stable language situation in which in addition to the primary dialect of the language there is a highly codified superposed variety. The high variety is used in formal situation. In Malayalam the distinction has traditionally been made between the literary language and the colloquial language, which is considered as law variety. The literary Malayalam is recognized as the standard variety. This variety is used for literature and printed documents and taught in the schools too. The non standard or colloquial variety is used daily conversation.

All dialects of a language are equally efficient, expressive and complex. However, in the history of most languages, the dialect of the politically, socially and economically important speakers acquires social prestige and the speakers of the other dialects begin using the prestigious dialect in order to identify themselves with the prestigious class and there by gain social acceptability.

In the case of Malayalam the socio economic and political status of the speech community has nothing to do the standardization of the dialect. Irrespective of the socio-economic factors, all people use both the high and law varieties of Malayalam for different purposes.

In Malayalam speech community, more of the lexical codes of the regional and caste dialects interfere with standard Malayalam. For example in the Northern dialect have a term | caṭuka|. The colloquial meaning of the word used there is ‘to throw’ or to ‘put’. But in standard Malayalam it means ‘to jump’ and the word for throw is |eriyuka| or |iṭuka|. We can see many of such differences in the dialect which is considered as the law variety and the high variety standard language. The words |cēcci| |cēṭṭan| |appuppan| etc mean different things in different varieties.

Word Sense in Standard Malayalam Sense in dialects

cēccī Elder sister elder sister or any lady elder than

cēṭṭan Elder brother Husband

appuppan Grand father any respectable person or old

person

The interference of English is very much is Malayalam Quebec a lot of words like bus, pencil, lorry, kerchief, watch, room scale paper etc have been part of Malayalam vocabulary.

Every society, anilingual or bi (multi) lingual, is characterized by a definite set of generalized social roles inherent in the social behaviour of its members. In a bilingual society, one language is resorted to in. One class of situations and social roles while other is reserved for different class of situations and social roles. In an anilingual society, the same functions are fulfilled by the sub-systems of a single language.

Written and spoken varieties can be regarded as two modalities of human communication; they share the same basic features of structure but each has its own type of history and social functions. Written language is associated with political and economic power, with admired literature and with educational institutions all these associations give it high prestige. In writing, the language style was full of Sansritic borrowing although by the literary institutions of adopt a more simplified and less Sanskritized style in order to make it popular and with in the reach of comprehension of the common masses.

The colloquial language differs slightly according to locality.

Grierson. G. A 1967 Linguistic Survey of India

Vol. No. IV, Motilal Banarsidass

Delhi, P.348.

1. Judiciary:

In law court also at the highest ie; supreme court level, the language has no place, while at the High court level, only verbal evidence is permitted in the native language, but is the lower courts even written judgements are made in Malayalam. In the state legislature the use of the language is frequent, but in the parliament the native speaker can speak in his language without having the right of receiving the reply in the same language.