Malayalam

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Re: Malayalam

Postby TeneReef » 2010-12-24, 5:59

Vowels compared:


e-----E-----ai-----o-----O-----au

ए-----x-----ऐ-----ओ-----x-----औ Devanagari

എ-- ഏ -ഐ -- ഒ -- - ഓ-----ഔ Malayalam

எ---- ஏ-- ஐ--- ஒ---- ஓ----ஔ Tamil

And Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it (25% of Malayalis :partyhat: )


പുഥുവല്സര ആശംസകല് (puthuvalsara aashamsakal) - Merry Christmas
ക്രിസ്തുമസ് ആശംസകല് (kariistumasu aashamsakal) - Merry Christmas
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Re: Malayalam

Postby TeneReef » 2010-12-25, 8:43

Malayalam shows affinity to Tamil, Kota, Toda,
Irula, Badaga, Kodagu, Kannada, and Tulu, all of
which belong to the South Dravidian branch of the
Dravidian family. However, the affinity with Tamil is
greater, since Malayalam emerged from Proto-Tamil–
Malayalam; divergence occurred over a period of
four or five centuries, from the 8th century onward,
and distinct languages, separate from Tamil, were
established.

Three distinctive features of Proto-Tamil–
Malayalam include (1) k->c- before front vowels,
whether followed by a retroflex or not, (2) *e, *o>i,
u before a derivative suffix beginning with a, and
(3) the presence of the accusative suffix -ai.

The features that distinguish Malayalam from Tamil are
(1) progressive assimilation of nasal stop > nasal
nasal except in retroflexes and labials, (2) loss of
person–number–gender in finite verbs, (3) negative
periphrastic construction with illa, and (4) prohibitive
construction with infinitiveþarutu.


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Re: Malayalam

Postby TeneReef » 2010-12-29, 13:44

A lovely dialog for those who wonder how Malayalam may sound like...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dQJ1k23sRo


:partyhat:
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Re: Malayalam

Postby Michael » 2010-12-31, 0:44

TeneReef wrote:A lovely dialog for those who wonder how Malayalam may sound like...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dQJ1k23sRo


:partyhat:
I understood 10% of that *I don't mean the English, I understood all of that* :lol: Malayalam sounds like Tamil but not like a Tamil dialect as many say. Like, if I were given two dialogs to listen to, I could make distinctions between the two languages. Malayalam sounds like Tamil but much softer and with way lesser retroflexes, but I think that's because Malayalam along with its cousins Telugu and Kannada all have aspirates, something Tamil lacks luckily for me!
Last edited by Michael on 2010-12-31, 20:30, edited 1 time in total.
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: Malayalam

Postby TeneReef » 2010-12-31, 10:33

But aspirates are observed only in a very formal READING. ;) Not in spontaneous speech.
For example, there's an actress called BHAVANA (famous in Tamil Nadu too).
And she pronounces here name as [bavn@] in Malayalam inteviews and not as expected [bhav@n@].

Furthermore, there is a famous Delhi-based Malayali playback singer: KK
(who sings in almost every Bollywood movie, but in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu movies too)...

And when he sings in Telugu, you can clearly hear the aspiration BH,
but when he sings in Malayalam, it's just a normal B.

So, aspiration in Malayalam is similar to HW pronunciation of WH in English, it's formal and a kind of a spelling pronunciation. :mrgreen:

Oh, I order 3 books from German Amazon, in case you're interested:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5 ... _OU03_.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/6 ... AA300_.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5 ... AA300_.jpg

:)
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Re: Malayalam

Postby Michael » 2010-12-31, 20:40

TeneReef wrote:But aspirates are observed only in a very formal READING. ;) Not in spontaneous speech.
For example, there's an actress called BHAVANA (famous in Tamil Nadu too).
And she pronounces here name as [bavn@] in Malayalam inteviews and not as expected [bhav@n@].

Furthermore, there is a famous Delhi-based Malayali playback singer: KK
(who sings in almost every Bollywood movie, but in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu movies too)...

And when he sings in Telugu, you can clearly hear the aspiration BH,
but when he sings in Malayalam, it's just a normal B.

So, aspiration in Malayalam is similar to HW pronunciation of WH in English, it's formal and a kind of a spelling pronunciation. :mrgreen:
Well then again it's not like Dravidian aspiration is like the aspiration of Hindi and Urdu up North: In those two languages per say the aspiration is much more apparent.

I think you're intent on learning Malayalam to a fluent level! I'm not intent in getting that far with Tamil at least this year: I'd be satisfied with a decent intermediate level. I'm very interested in Urdu and Kannada though :D
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„Çdo njeri është peng i veprave të veta.‟
Every human being is hostage to their own deeds.

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Re: Malayalam

Postby TeneReef » 2011-01-18, 4:59

I have found some nice videos for kids learning Malayalam :partyhat: :silly:


The alphabet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbD8UYc2RHI



Some words:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMJXod4xKwk


:) :D :whistle:
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Re: Malayalam

Postby Meera » 2011-01-18, 18:25

Thanks!
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Re: Malayalam

Postby TeneReef » 2011-02-04, 11:04

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Re: Malayalam

Postby Meera » 2011-02-04, 21:24

TeneReef wrote:Interview with Nayanthara: :partyhat:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HccR47SF4kY&feature=fvw



Did you here about her scandal? :naughty:
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Re: Malayalam

Postby mafke » 2011-02-23, 23:14

A quick glance makes me think this hasn't been posted before.

Anyway, I really didn't like Moag's first spoken Malayalam course (referenced earlier)

1. bad romanization (that conflicts with most other academic romanization systems)

2. snail's pace delivery (probably a good thing for intended audience of the time but frustrating for me)

3. not meant for self-study (just the way it was designed which made it frustrating for me)

Anyway this course looks _much_ better and more suited to self-study

http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED197626.pdf

entitled "University course and reference grammar"

Plus it has audio! Which you can download! at:

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/malayalam/index.html

The audio is (so far) pretty decent with more than one speaker (certainly not the case with all such courses)

One thing I didn't like was that it was all in the traditional orthography (handwritten) and the presentation of the script could have been handled better.

But still this seems to be the go-to book for web based Malayalam self-study.

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Re: Malayalam

Postby TeneReef » 2011-02-24, 6:00

I am giving Malayalam a break of a month or so, I will get back to Malayalam once I've finished Teach yourself Colloquial Tamil. :P

I find Malayalam letters much easier to write (using your hand).
When I write Tamil, many letters look almost the same k, t, n :rotfl:
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Re: Malayalam

Postby mafke » 2011-02-24, 9:33

As mentioned on another thread I find Kannada the easiest Dravidian (or Indian based) script to read (and Telugu maybe the hardest, oddly enough the differences all seem to work in Kannada's favor).

Malayalam may have the nod when it comes to ease of producing legible handwriting though.

Tamil script is very beautiful (very space age looking for me) but it's not very precise Some voicing distinctons (and a better fit between written and spoken morphology) would be very wlecome.

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Re: Malayalam

Postby TeneReef » 2011-03-01, 20:43

I find Malayalam very easy to write, like cursive Latin script.
Tamil is really difficult to write accurately and quickly, I would compare it to lowercase Latin, but some frequent letters are just too samey: க் ச் ஞ் த் ந் தி தீ து நி நீ நு கி கீ கு கூ it's really a pain when you have to hand-write them (using a PC it's a bit easier).

Cute Malayalam cartoon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPAmryl3tQE


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Re: Malayalam

Postby Meera » 2011-03-13, 20:55

Teenreef do you like the malayalam actress Asin? I think shes awesome :D Especially in Tamil movies :D I want her to do more Hindi movies, her accent is so cute.

Her Malayalam interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmYcExwG ... 4C8630A77E
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Re: Malayalam

Postby TeneReef » 2011-03-15, 9:30

I like this interview of hers better: :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaXSmzLc0Mo
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Re: Malayalam

Postby Meera » 2011-03-15, 16:35

awww shes soo cool
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Re: Malayalam

Postby TeneReef » 2011-04-24, 6:12

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Re: Malayalam

Postby Meera » 2011-04-24, 15:51

Sweet Song!
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