Arabi Malayalam (also called Mappila Malayalam and Moplah Malayalam) is the traditional

Dravidian language The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant imm ...

of the Mappila Muslim community. It is spoken by several thousand people, predominantly in the

Malabar Coast The Malabar Coast is the southwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest regions of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their westward-facing m ...

of Kerala state, southern India. The form can be classified as a regional dialect in northern Kerala, or as a class or occupational dialect of the Mappila community. It can also be called a

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

in general, or as a provincial

patois ''Patois'' (, pl. same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon o ...

, with the latter label being increasingly applicable in Colonial times. All the forms of the Malayalam language, including Mappila, are mutually intelligible.Subramoniam, V. I. (1997). ''Dravidian Encyclopaedia''. Vol. 3, Language and literature. Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala): International School of Dravidian Linguistics. pp. 508-09

/ref> The Mappila form shows some lexical admixture from Arabic and Persian.Krishna Chaitanya. ''Kerala. India, the Land and the People.'' New Delhi: National Book Trust, India, 1994

/ref> The variety Arabi Malayalam is also used by Ezhava, lower caste non-Muslims in northern Kerala, Muslims in Dakshina Kannada, and different Mappila migrant communities in South East Asia.

Writing system

The Arabi Malayalam script is an

Abjad An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels ...

. The script is also known as Khatafunnani or Ponnani script. It is also used to write several minority languages such as Eranadan and Jesri. Arabi Malayalam was made by writing Malayalam while using the Arabic script. The language of Malayalam was mainly used to spread the ideas and practices of Islam in Kerala. Creating Arabi Malayalam made it easier for the Arabs who migrated to Kerala to spread the religion without a language barrier getting in the way.

Study center

The Malayalam University has been set up a centre for studies of Arabi Malayalam language at

Tirur Tirur is a Municipality in Malappuram district in the Indian state of Kerala spread over an area of . It is one of the business centers of Malappuram district and is situated west of Malappuram and south of Kozhikode, on the Shoranur–Manga ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Arabi Malayalam Languages of India Dravidian languages Islamic culture Mappilas Arabi Malayalam

Writing system

Study center

See also

References

External links