Wanted: 'Roman Malayalam'

"One who does not love his language is worse than putrid fish"
- a Tagalog proverb.

Saw that Wikipedia has come up with a Malayalam edition: ml.wikipedia.org. Although it could be called an interesting development, the 'Mallu' characters appear badly garbled, at least on my browser; rather sad, since a considerable amount of effort might well have gone into this activity of Wikifying Mallu (or Mallufying Wiki).

At least part of the problem seems to be the 'standard' Malayalam script - with its many letters and ever so many different ways of joining them. And this difficulty with the language has beens known for a long time. Governmental action(?) some decades ago led to a new simpler (and somewhat clumsier looking) script for quick printing (this new 'printing script' is NOT supposed to be the standard for writing - writing in it used to be penalized(!) in school examinations). But, even with this new script, typewriters could not really manage - typewritten Malayalam has always managed to look *terrible*.

Well over a decade ago, the late writer M.P.Narayana Pillai proposed an English (Roman) script for Malayalam. His intent probably was to make the language IT-enabled and printer-friendly and also to enable non-resident Mallus (who know the language but are uncomfortable with the script) read literary works in the language. (aside: even the majority of Mallus who *formally* learnt the language cannot write all letters in the proper script correctly!).

Pillai even proposed a simple scheme of transliteration of Malayalam into English. If I remember right,he talked about using upper case English letters for retroflexed Mallu letters - 't' in 'tala' (means 'head') and 'T' in 'paTa' (means 'army'). This would imply Malayalam would have to be written 'malayaaLam' since the second 'l' is retroflexed).

I don't think Pillai's proposal received any attention from anyone of consequence although the idea was by no means outlandish or revolutionary. Turkish, Indonesian and so many other languages had adopted or switched to Roman letters much earlier. In fact, well before Pillai's article, at least a few Mallus had started writing at least emails in Malayalam with Roman letters. And I was among them.

I remember picking up the idea from some folks who were writing mails in Marathi(!) in English letters. From idea to implementation was an easy step. And over many years, I have tried writing emails in Malayalam to many fellow-Mallus, well-known to me. I had no fixed scheme of transliteration. And there was no prior warning: "Watch out, I am gonna write in Malayalam!". I did not see the need for any warning: I was writing to people who apparently knew the language well.

Let me list from memory some of the initial responses I got from various people, who will remain unnamed. The stuff in brackets is mine.

1. "I find this style of malayalam unnatuaral(sic). and this thinking in Malaylam, then translating into english fond(sic), i find it is a long and waistful (sic) process!"

2. "I am afraid I did not really read the part of your mail where you froke out with Malayalam. Of course, I remain fully literate and comfortable with my mother tongue but I would prefer Malayalam to be read and written in Malayalam."

3. "Thante mail innale vaayichu (Translation: "saw your mail yesterday") Well, I just typed that one line in 'Engalam' and am switching to proper English. I find Mallu in English awkward and I dont believe it is mandatory for two Mallus to communicate only in Mallu. What is SO great about Malayalam anyway?"

4. "Look boss, just translate the above stuff into proper english and send again, if you really want me to read it. You and your mallu fanaticism!"

5. "njan aadyamaayanu ingine type cheyyunnathu. aadyam vicharichathra buddhimuttilla. satyam paranjaal sangathi kollaam!" (Translation: "this is the first time i am trying this. and when i tried it, it was not difficult at all; it was in fact fun!")

I need to mention another individual who had no comments but replied in detail in elegant English to whatever I had written in Malayalam. And yes, there was yet another One who too made no comment whatever but wrote to me only in Malayalam thereafter

Note: I initially thought 'Mangalam' (= Malayalam + 'Aangalam', the word for 'English' in Malayalam) would be a good name for Malayalam written in English letters. But now, I would say there is no need for a new name whatsoever. Almost every language - Malayalam included - has experimented with different scripts during its evolution; so just using the Roman script to write Malayalam would not make it any less of itself!