This class is not about Malayalam. It is about the English Malayalis speak — because you will hear it constantly, and because almost every feature of it is Malayalam grammar surfacing through English words. First, the attitude, because it costs you socially if you get it wrong. Indian English is a recognised variety with its own dictionaries, newspapers and literature, in the same way Australian and American English are. Kerala English is a regional variety of it, shaped by Malayalam. Its speakers are not approximating your English. They are speaking theirs. Now watch the Malayalam show through: "You are coming tomorrow, isn't it." One invariant tag for everything — that is അല്ലേ (alle). English's tags that agree in tense, polarity and auxiliary are among the most complicated on earth; French, Spanish, German and Japanese all use an invariant tag too. "He came yesterday only." Not the restrictive only. This is തന്നെ (thanne), an emphatic particle meaning precisely, exactly. ഇന്നലെ തന്നെ വന്നു. "Today itself. Now itself." തന്നെ again — ഇന്ന് തന്നെ, ഇപ്പോൾ തന്നെ. "I am having two brothers." Malayalam's -ഉന്നു form covers both simple and continuous, so the stative-verb rule simply does not exist. In this class: • Eight core features, each traced back to its Malayalam source • Prepone, out of station, do the needful and where they come from • Why hearing this as broken English will be noticed instantly Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.