Malayalam:
GIPMER, a Delhi government hospital banned its nursing staff from speaking in Malayalam in the hospital and warned of “serious action” if they do not talk in English or Hindi.
- Malayalam is a Dravidian language spoken.
- Malayalam has official language status in Kerala, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry (Mahé)
- It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India and is spoken by 2.88% of Indians.
- Due to Malayali expatriates in the Persian Gulf, Malayalam is also widely spoken in the Gulf countries.
- Malayalam was designated a “Classical Language in India” in 2013.
- The earliest script used to write Malayalam was the Vatteluttu script.
- The current Malayalam script is based on the Vatteluttu script, which was extended with Grantha script letters to adopt Indo-Aryan loanwords.
- It bears high similarity with the Tigalari script, a historical script that was used to write the Tulu language.