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# malayalam

«malayalam» in Mova's school dictionary: **a language spoken by about 35 million people, mainly in…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

noun (Malayalam, uncountable – the name of a language)

### meaning for a pupil

1) (a language) Malayalam is a language spoken by about 35 million people, mainly in the state of Kerala in south-west India. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/#m1)

2) The alphabet (script) used to write that language, with rounded letters. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In geography and language lessons, Malayalam is one of the 22 official languages of India, part of the Dravidian family (like Tamil). People from Kerala live around the world, including the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, so classmates may speak Malayalam at home. The name «Malayalam» reads the same forwards and backwards in English letters – a palindrome.

### examples

- My friend Anu speaks Malayalam with her grandparents. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/#x1)
- Malayalam is the main language of Kerala in India. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/#x2)
- Malayalam has its own script with curly letters. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/#x3)
- «Malayalam» is a palindrome: it reads the same backwards. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/#x4)
- There is a Malayalam film festival in our city. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/#x5)
- Malayalam and Tamil are related languages. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/#x6)
- We learned to say «hello» in Malayalam: «namaskaram». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/#x7)
- Many nurses in Ireland come from Kerala and speak Malayalam. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/#x8)

### note

Always written with a capital M, because it is the name of a language. Pronounced roughly «MAL-a-YAH-lam». It is not an English word; it is a name. Do not confuse with «Malay» (a different language, spoken in Malaysia) – they are not related.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «malayalam» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/M/malayalam/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.