Suriyani Malayalam (സുറിയാനി മലയാളം, ܣܘܪܝܢܝ ܡܠܝܠܡ), also known as Karshoni, Syro-Malabarica or Syriac Malayalam, is a dialect of

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...

written in a variant form of the Syriac alphabet which was popular among the

Saint Thomas Christians The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, ''Marthoma Suriyani Nasrani'', ''Malankara Nasrani'', or ''Nasrani Mappila'', are an ethno-religious community of Indian Christians in the state of Kerala ( Malabar region ...

(also known as Syrian Christians or Nasranis) of

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It uses Malayalam grammar, the Maḏnḥāyā or "Eastern" Syriac script with special orthographic features, and vocabulary from Malayalam and East Syriac. This originated in the South Indian region of 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 ...

(modern-day Kerala). Until the 19th century, the script was widely used by Syrian Christians in Kerala.

Writing system

There were numerous problems in writing Malayalam using the Syriac alphabet, which was designed for a

Semitic language The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant a ...

. Only 22 letters were available from East Syriac orthography to render over 53 phonemes of Malayalam. Both the languages are not related to one another in any way except for religious causes. These problems were overcome by creating additional letters. Basic Syriac ''ʾĀlap̄ Bēṯ'' based on form with corresponding Malayalam letters Additional Malayalam letters * Malayalam alveolar nasal encoded as U+0D29 for scholarly purposes. Vowels

Unicode

The Syriac alphabet was added to the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...

Standard in September, 1999 with the release of version 3.0. Additional letters for Suriyani Malayalam were added in June, 2017 with the release of version 10.0.

Blocks

The Unicode block for Syriac is U+0700–U+074F: The Syriac Abbreviation (a type of

overline An overline, overscore, or overbar, is a typographical feature of a horizontal line drawn immediately above the text. In old mathematical notation, an overline was called a '' vinculum'', a notation for grouping symbols which is expressed in m ...

) can be represented with a special control character called the

Syriac Abbreviation Mark The Syriac Abbreviation Mark is a Unicode Control character (U+070F) that forms part of the Syriac script block. In Syriac, words are sometimes written in an abbreviated form, omitting some of the last letters. In such cases, a special overline is ...

(U+070F). The Unicode block for Suriyani Malayalam specific letters is called the Syriac Supplement block and is U+0860–U+086F:

Loanwords

Over the centuries,

borrowed Eastern Syriac words. A few of them are given below:

Literature

''Vedatharkam'' written by Kariattil Mar Ousep is one of the famous books written in Suriyani Malayalam. Large number of documents written in Suriyani Malayalam are found among the Saint Thomas Christians or Nasranis of Kerala. These documents include an alternate set of the Canons of the Synod of Diamper.Perczel (2014), 266-8. At present the dialect is not in popular usage. However it strives in historical literature of the Saint Thomas Christian denominations.

Thomas Koonammakkal Thomas Koonammakkal ( ml, കൂനമ്മാക്കൽ തോമാക്കത്തനാർ, Koonammakkal Thoma kathanar) is a Syro-Malabar Catholic priest and syriacist, scholar and church historian. He is an expert in Karshoni Malaya ...

is one of the most notable experts in Garshuni Malayalam studies.

Writing system

Unicode

Blocks

Loanwords

Literature

See also

References

Further reading