Class 7 — family, respect, and the three words for "you", in Malayalam script. This is where Malayalam stops being a set of structures and becomes a way of dealing with people. It opens with the rule that matters most, because it is not in the grammar and nobody warns learners about it: IN KERALA YOU DO NOT CALL PEOPLE BY THEIR NAMES. Not anyone older than you. Not a colleague, not a shopkeeper, not your husband’s brother, not the woman who runs the vegetable stall. Using a bare name for someone older is rude in a way that will not be corrected out loud, but will be noticed. So what do you call them? You call them a relative — even when they are not. ചേട്ടാ (chettaa) — elder brother. Say this to any man moderately older than you: the auto driver, the man at the counter, the colleague across the desk. It means elder brother, and you use it with total strangers. ചേച്ചി (chechi) — elder sister. The same for a woman moderately older than you. These two words are the most socially useful things in this entire course. They cost nothing, they are impossible to get wrong, and they change the temperature of every interaction in Kerala. For the generation above: അമ്മേ (amme) to a woman of your mother’s generation, അച്ഛാ (achaa) to a man of your father’s generation. You will also hear ആന്റി and അങ്കിൾ borrowed straight from English, especially from children and in cities. Both are entirely normal. And downward: മോനേ (mone) to a boy or younger man — it means my son. മോളേ (mole) to a girl or younger woman — my daughter. Used by older people to any younger person, related or not. A shopkeeper says മോളേ to a customer in her twenties; a nurse says മോനേ to a patient. Think about what that system does: it converts every stranger into a family member. There is no neutral option. Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.