#language: malayalam

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Chaiyya Chaiyya • Jiya Jale • Dil Se Re • Ae Ajnabi • Thayya Thayya • Satarangi Re

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[geoazie]

Aesthetic of the languages on earth : Malayalam Malayalam is Dravidian language spoken by 37 million people over Kerala and southern India. It's an official language of the state of Kerala, Lakshadweep and Mahé in India.

[somerando9776]

You asked for random asks so what's your native language and what's your favourite quirk of it if it doesn't bother you that much

Malayalam, its a language from the southwestern part of India(from the state of Kerala) and uhhhhhhhh a quirk... uhhhh cutely forgets everything i know about this language we have like. 4 ways of making the t/th sound(four different letters for it) and 2 ways of making the r sound(two different letters for it) but its different from how u say r in english. cuz if you take the r in english and compare it to, say, spanish, spanish has a rolled r, like a lot of other languages, same in malayalam and hindi, but we have a specific letter for the english r sound. so yeah. speaking in malayalam with an english accent(or any accent where u say the r of the english language vs the rolled r) is a recipe for disaster

[guillemelgat]

I just started a new semester, and I'm finally getting the chance to take Malayalam, which I've been trying to do since my undergrad. This is obviously a very exciting development, and it's so delightful to be in a language class again for the first time in ages, but it's also been a very unique experience as far as language classes go. First of all, for me, who is generally used to having very odd personal connections to a language and being the overachieving linguist of the class. And second of all because it's just a very different experience to be in a class largely oriented towards heritage learners and people with some cultural familiarity.

There are five people in the class. Of those five, four have Malayalee family and have had some exposure to Malayalam throughout our lives; the last person is a native speaker of another non-Dravidian South Asian language. Of the four of us who are Malayalee, I'm basically the only one who didn't have a significant amount of Malayalam at home growing up. What this means is that we've spent very little time on the phonetics of the language, because everyone roughly knows how to pronounce it - something which wouldn't be true if there were non-South Asian in the class! (It was a bit comforting to hear all the other Malayalees struggling with aspirated consonants, which have constantly been the bane of my existence, and then to hear the instructor say that few people pronounce them right in spoken Malayalam anyways.) The instructor could ask us to say things on the first day, and the more fluent speakers could say them. There is already Malayalam being mixed in with the instruction. I'm sure by the end of the semester we'll be having extended conversations - especially since the two of us who don't speak have very concrete communicative desires for our outside lives.

It's also a very scary experience for me, personally. Or maybe scary isn't quite the right word, but I've always felt out of my depth in claiming Malayalee heritage - I've always felt that there were so many things which I didn't know which any normal Malayalee would. There is no evidence that this is true, at least insofar as that my cousins with two Malayalee parents have wildly varying experiences and I'm not actually that far outside the norm. In most American spaces, I will never be clocked as white, and most people usually immediately identify me as South Asian. Nonetheless, I know that when I visited Kerala this past December, I was decidedly foreign - to the two guys speaking in rapid-fire Malayalam on the flight from Qatar, to the person at the immigration counter in Trivandrum, even to my own relatives. Part of it is a mental block on my part, of feeling myself foreign and therefore never letting myself belong. Part of it is that I am, ultimately, American. But either way, in this class, I can feel that I'm the American in the room, even when I'm not, even when my pronunciation is just as good as the other Malayalees and there's nothing that's telling me I can't belong. I keep freezing up when asked to say real things, or when people speak to me, because there's some unreachable standard in my brain of Not A Real Malayalee, and everything feels fraught and fragile. So maybe this semester will be about overcoming that.

It's still strange being in a language class where the instructor, on the first day, can look at you all and say, "You know why you're here, you want to be here, we all have a shared experience." But it's also a beautiful thing in its own way, and I'm really looking forward to taking on a language in this way. I love the structure and the logic of language, the puzzle of putting it together, the beauty of making friends in it and watching shows in it and listening to songs in it - but as I get older I find myself really reflecting on what it means to learn and to know a language. And sometimes those barriers to learning and to knowing are only in our minds, not in our worlds. Language is communication and connection, and I hope that Malayalam serves me to these two ends, even as it sometimes feels like a trial by fire at each word.

[spicypussywave]

watched this het malayalam romcom movie "premalu" that's been on my list since long bc of the edits that had two guys kissing for heterosexual reasons??? and it actually is good 😭😭😭 i totally get why people swoon over the ml his awkward loser swag got to me too 😭

[wallflowerrs-blog]

There is a word in my native language malayalam, "Manoradhangal" which translates to "Chariot of your mind/thoughts".

"Mano" refers to your mind/heart/fantasy/conscious etc. "Radhangal" is a plural of "Radham" which is a chariot, vehicles, something that would transport you from here, to anywhere.

Manoradhangal can be interpreted to Mindscapes, the voyages of your thoughts/ the wishful thinking of your heart/ where your heart takes you/ what your heart seeks/a wandering fantasy...

You ride in your chariot wherever it takes you, endlessly and fall back to earth, quiver in your day dream.

Remember,You own your Chariot of fantasies.

[quatregats]

Seeing all the people who keep reblogging the Indian states quiz commenting that they forgot Kerala. Apparently I need to blog harder 😔

[random-xpressions]

Quite unjust if I don't write anything in my mother tongue. So here's a thought:

സ്നേഹം കാണിക്കാനുള്ളതാണ് ഒളിപ്പിക്കാനുള്ളതല്ല

Transliteration: (Sneham kaanikkaanulladhaan olippikkanulladhalla)

Roughly translated means:

"Love is something that's to be shown, not to be kept hidden!"

Random Xpressions

[tlajtollirambles]

Go watch this video about how language shapes gender by India in pixels.

[fishyyyyy99]

You know that episode in The Big Bang Theory in which Bernadette and Raj do a parody of an Indian dance number? The lyrics do sound ridiculous . . . in English. That's the thing. I don't know why, but Indian song lyrics that sound absolutely bizarre when translated to English, sound perfectly normal, nay beautiful, in the original Indian versions of the songs. I guess Indian languages just carry the hyperboles and metaphors with a certain elegance.

P. S. When I say Indian languages, I don't necessarily mean that they are spoken only by Indians or by people of Indian origin.

[dreamingofmoonshadows]

Language asks are amazing!! ☾, ✌, ☯, ♡?

☾ : I have already answered this, so I will answer with another one of my favourites. 'കൗതുകം' (Transliteration : Kauthukam'). It translates to curiousity, intrigue. It is a pretty word, one I loved hearing, as it was rarely used in casual conversation.

✌ : My favourite saying is:

'ഒന്നുകിൽ കളരിക്കുപുറത്തു അല്ലെങ്കിൽ ഗുരുക്കളെ നെഞ്ചത്തു'.

Literally, it translates to 'Either outside the Kalari, on upon your guru's (teacher's) chest', referring to the display of the martial arts of Kerala, Kalari (Both the art, and the building where you learn it share the name, thus the phrase 'outside the Kalari'.) The meaning of the proverb is basically 'either too much or too little, but never in moderation'. I have been the proud recipient of it my entire life, twice from my actual Kalari Gurus! *Proud*

☯ : I adore malayalam for a variety of reasons, but I think my favourite thing about it is the diverse slangs and dialects of the language. From the northern tip of Kasargod to the southern tip of Thiruvananthapuram, malayalam changes its accents, its usages, its phrases. Barely anyone speaks the proper written form of malayalam in day-to-day life. The slangs are all gorgeous in its own way, and I have a special fondness for the literature written in dialects and slangs.

♡ : I learned English, Hindi and Sanskrit in school. English for 12 years, Hindi for eight, and Sanskrit for six. I am fluent in both English and Hindi, and though I can't speak Sanskrit, I have a rudimentary understanding of it. I am also fluent in my mother tongue, Malayalam, but I never learned it scholastically. I learned Malayalam as anyone learns their mother tongue - through hearing it, through reading kid's magazines, and being taught by my parents.

Thank you for the ask~

Ask game

[desigrrrl]

നമസ്കാരം! (నమసకారం)! I'm learning malayalam, and I've enjoyed scrolling through your telugu posts looking for cognates and other fun dravidian similarities 💕 love your blog and നന്ദി പ്രിയ for adding to the linguistic diversity of langblr 💌 have a nice day! ☀️

Hi! So happy to hear that <3 thank you sm. this just made my day.

I actually used to understand malayalam without subtitles as a kid (two of my grandparents were raised in kerala) but I hope to properly learn the language down the line! If you’re a langblr or know any malayalam ones, I’d love if you lemme know.

Have a good day to you as well!

[linguisticdiscovery]

Dreaming of Words [documentary]

This documentary is about Njattyela Sreedharan, a school dropout who compiled a dictionary connecting four major Dravidian languages. Travelling across four states and doing extensive research, he spent twenty five years making the multilingual dictionary. The dictionary offers a comparative study of Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu. 'Dreaming of Words' traces Sreedharan's life, work, love for languages and the struggles to get the dictionary published. The film also explores the linguistic and cultural diversity in India.

trailer: Dreaming of Words (with English subtitles) | Official Trailer - YouTube

full movie: Dreaming of Words (with English subtitles) | Full Documentary - YouTube

[official-saul-goodman]

The thing with manichitrathazhu is that the songs and dances align very well, the meaning of the lurics is very specific to the specific bharatanatyam dance moves. Incredibly well thought out and directed movie and it will be one of the most well written Indian movies to exist.

[astrophilic-soul]

Which language do you think is the prettiest

Honestly, every language is pretty. When people speak their language I’m always interested in how their voice changes, how they might speak with an accent, how language evolved to over time and led to a a particular moment in time. I love linguistics, how people write words, how people speak, the sounds that are in some languages and not others, they’re all beautiful to me lol

[zzznap]

the state of my english language skills is so bad rn 😭 constantly going this that no other that uhhh that like this *points to something I could definitely name*