You studied carefully, then somebody in Kerala spoke and you understood nothing. The course did not fail you. You met a dialect. Standard Malayalam is based on central Kerala speech and is nobody's exact home language, just like standard Italian or German. This class maps the variation along three axes: region (Malabar in the north, Thrissur, central Travancore and the south), community, and register. You hear the northern ഇങ്ങള് for നിങ്ങൾ and the southern എന്തുവാ for എന്താണ്, and learn that Malayalam has been written in more than one script. Words and phrases in this class: മലബാർ (malabaar) – Malabar, the north ഇങ്ങള് (ingalu) – you (northern) നിങ്ങൾ (ningal) – you (standard) ഞമ്മള് (njammalu) – we (northern) ഞങ്ങൾ (njangal) – we (standard) തൃശ്ശൂർ (thrissur) – Thrissur, the centre മധ്യതിരുവിതാംകൂർ (madhyathiruvithaamkoor) – central Travancore തെക്കൻ കേരളം (thekkan keralam) – southern Kerala എന്തുവാ (enthuvaa) – what is it? (southern) എന്താണ് (enthaanu) – what is it? (standard) അറബി മലയാളം (arabi malayaalam) – Malayalam written in Arabic script അപ്പൻ (appan) – father (community variant) അമ്മച്ചി (ammachi) – mother (community variant) In this class: • Why the standard you learned is nobody's home speech, and why it is still the right one • North to south: Malabar, Thrissur, central Travancore and the south • Community varieties, a normal pattern found around the world • A language is not its alphabet: the scripts Malayalam has been written in Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.