Class 98 — the complete Malayalam alphabet, every letter spoken. This is a REFERENCE class. It is not designed to be listened to once; it is designed to be returned to whenever you want to check a letter. Every letter of the Malayalam alphabet, in order, each with a word that contains it. Two instructions before you start. Say every letter after me, out loud. And do not try to learn all of them today — there are more than fifty. Take one row at a time and give each row a day. THE VOWELS — സ്വരങ്ങൾ (swarangal). They come in pairs, short and long. Listen for the length and exaggerate it. അ as in അമ്മ (amma) mother · ആ as in ആന (aana) elephant ഇ as in ഇല (ila) leaf · ഈ as in ഈച്ച (eecha) a fly ഉ as in ഉപ്പ് (uppu) salt · ഊ as in ഊണ് (oonu) the rice meal ഋ as in ഋതു (rithu) — the Sanskrit vowel from Class 55; where you see it, the word is almost certainly Sanskrit എ as in എലി (eli) rat · ഏ as in ഏണി (eni) ladder ഐ as in ഐശ്വര്യം (aishwaryam) prosperity ഒ as in ഒട്ടകം (ottakam) camel · ഓ as in ഓല (ola) the palm leaf — the leaf that made this script round ഔ as in ഔഷധം (aushadham) medicine And two marks that behave like vowels: അം, the nasal ending on all those Sanskrit nouns — ജലം, പുഷ്പം, സന്തോഷം. And അഃ, the breathed ending, as in ദുഃഖം (dukham) sorrow. THE CONSONANTS — വ്യഞ്ജനങ്ങൾ (vyanjanangal), and the thing that makes the Indian alphabets remarkable: they are not an arbitrary list. They are a grid, organised by exactly where in the mouth each sound is made and whether it is voiced or aspirated. It is a phonetic analysis two and a half thousand years old, and it is still correct. Keep this one. Come back to it. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.