Manipravalam (

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

: മണിപ്രവാളം, Tamil: மணிப்பிரவாளம்) is a

macaronic language Macaronic language uses a mixture of languages, particularly bilingual puns or situations in which the languages are otherwise used in the same context (rather than simply discrete segments of a text being in different languages). Hybrid words ...

found in some manuscripts of

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...

. It is a hybrid language, typically written in the

Grantha script The Grantha script ( ta, கிரந்த எழுத்து, Granta eḻuttu; ml, ഗ്രന്ഥലിപി, granthalipi) is a South Indian script, found particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Originating from the Pallava script, th ...

, which combines

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

lexicon and Dravidian morpho-syntax.The Illustrated weekly of India, (1965). Volume 86. Bennett, Coleman & Co., Ltd. pp. 35-37 According to language scholars Giovanni Ciotti and Marco Franceschini, the blending of Tamil and Sanskrit is evidenced in manuscripts and their colophons over a long period of time, and this ultimately may have contributed to the emergence of Manipravalam. However, the 14th century

work ''Lilatilakam'' states that Manipravalam is a combination of Dravidian and Sanskrit. Generally, it is agreed that it was a combination of

Middle Tamil Middle Tamil is the form of the Tamil language that existed from the 8th to the 15th century. The development of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil, which is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of ...

and

. The twelfth century has been described as a watershed moment in the history of Malayalam, where it was finally accepted as a vehicle for literary expression. The two dominant schools in Malayalam writing were the ''pattu'' and the manipravalam, the former being influenced by Tamil poetic traditions and the latter designated for Sanskrit influences. Despite their extraneous regulation, the two schools would come to dominate the edifice of Malayalam poetry that they continue to shape its style to this day. ''Mani-pravalam'' literally means 'gem-coral', with mani referring to gem in Tamil and pravalam referring to coral in Sanskrit. It likely played a role in the growth of the

Malayalam literature Malayalam, the lingua franca of the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puduchery, is one of the six Classical languages of India. Malayalam literature comprises those literary texts written in Malayalam, a Sou ...

and Modern Malayalam script. The Kerala scholars distinguished Manipravalam from the aforementioned ''pattu'', the former being significantly influenced by Sanskrit and the latter predominantly

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

. Manipravalam has been used for poetry manuscripts that combine Dravidian and Sanskrit, as well as South Indian works on eroticism. The 14th-century ''

Lilatilakam ''Lilatilakam'' (IAST: ''Līlā-tilakam'', "diadem of poetry") is a 14th century Sanskrit-language treatise on the grammar and poetics of the Manipravalam language form, a precursor of the modern Malayalam language spoken in the Kerala state of I ...

'' text states Manipravalam to be a ''Bhashya'' (language) where "Dravida and Sanskrit should combine together like ruby and coral, without the least trace of any discord".Ke Rāmacandr̲an Nāyar (1971). ''Early Manipravalam: a study.'' Anjali. Foreign Language Study. pp. 78

Effect on the history of the Malayalam script

It is suggested that the advent of the Manipravalam style, where letters of the

coexisted with the traditional

Vatteluttu ''Vatteluttu,'' popularly romanised as ''Vattezhuthu'' ( ta, வட்டெழுத்து, ' and ml, വട്ടെഴുത്ത്, ', ), was a syllabic alphabet of south India (Tamil Nadu and Kerala) and Sri Lanka used for writing t ...

letters, made it easier for people in Kerala to accept a Grantha-based script ''Ārya eḻuttŭ'', and paved the way for the introduction of the new writing system. Eventually ''Vaṭṭeḻuttŭ'' was almost completely supplanted by the modern Malayalam script.

References

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Effect on the history of the Malayalam script

See also

References

Further reading