The Malayalam Alphabet: Every Letter, with a Free Chart

The Malayalam alphabet (aksharamaala) looks beautiful and a little daunting, but it is wonderfully logical and almost perfectly phonetic: words are written the way they sound. This guide gives you every letter with its sound and an example word: the vowels, the consonants, the chillu letters, the vowel signs and the most common joined letters. Then it shows you how to read your first words. There is a free printable chart to keep beside you.

⬇ Download the free printable alphabet chart (PDF)

How the Malayalam script works

Malayalam is written left to right in its own script, which has about 50 letters in everyday use: 13 vowels plus two vowel-related signs, 36 consonants and 5 chillu letters. Each consonant carries a built-in “a” sound, so ക is ka, not just “k”. To change that vowel, you add a vowel sign to the consonant. That’s the whole system: learn the letters, learn the signs, and you can sound out almost any word.

About the romanisation: Malayalam has two kinds of t, d, n and l. On this site, t / d / n / l with a dot underneath in the tables (ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ḷ) are made with the tongue curled back; th is the soft dental t, said with the tongue touching the teeth. zha is the famous Malayalam sound in Malayalam itself and mazha (rain).

Vowels (swarangal)

Vowels come in short and long pairs. These full forms are used at the start of a word; inside words, vowels appear as signs (see below).

Consonants (vyanjanangal)

The first 25 consonants sit in a neat grid of five rows, ordered by where the sound is made in the mouth, from the throat to the lips. Each row follows the same pattern: plain, breathy, voiced, voiced-breathy, nasal. Learn one row and you understand them all. The breathy letters (kha, gha, chha and so on) mostly appear in words from Sanskrit.

Row 1: throat sounds (ka-row)

Row 2: palate sounds (cha-row)

Row 3: tongue-curled sounds (ṭa-row)

Row 4: teeth sounds (tha-row)

Row 5: lip sounds (pa-row)

The remaining consonants

Saying ഴ (zha): curl the tip of your tongue back towards the roof of your mouth, as if starting an English r, and let the sound flow without touching. It sits somewhere between an r and an l. It’s the sound in Malayalam, mazha and pazham.

Vowel signs: how vowels attach to consonants

Inside words, vowels become small signs written before, after, below or around a consonant. Here they are on ക (ka). The same signs work on every consonant. The last one, ് (chandrakkala), removes the built-in vowel and leaves a short “ŭ” sound, as at the end of veedu (വീട്).

Notice that the signs for e, ē and ai are written before the consonant even though you say them after it, and o, ō and au wrap around both sides. This trips up every beginner, so look for it when you read.

Chillu letters

Chillu letters are “pure” consonants with no vowel at all. You’ll see them mostly at the end of words, and they appear in some of the most common words you’ll learn.

Joined letters (koottaksharam)

When two consonants come together with no vowel between them, they are often written as one joined letter. Doubled letters are especially common, and they make a real difference: hold a doubled sound slightly longer.

Older books often use more elaborate joined forms, and modern print sometimes splits a cluster with a visible chandrakkala instead. Both are correct, and you’ll learn to recognise them by reading.

Read your first words

Put the pieces together. Each word below is broken into its letters, so you can see exactly how it’s built.

Because Malayalam is written almost exactly as it sounds, once you can sound out letters you can read words you have never seen before. That makes reading a real confidence boost for learners.

Writing Malayalam: tips

Malayalam is written from left to right, with rounded letters that sit on an imaginary line. Most letters are drawn in one or two smooth strokes, starting from the left. A few tips that help beginners:

• Practise one consonant row at a time, saying each letter aloud as you write it.
• Look closely at letters that differ by a single loop or tail, such as പ (pa) and വ (va), or ത (tha) and ന (na).
• Once you know a few letters, copy short real words (amma, paal, mazha) rather than isolated letters.
• On a phone or computer, add the Malayalam keyboard and type phonetically: most keyboards turn “amma” into അമ്മ automatically.

Malayalam numerals

Malayalam has its own digits, though everyday Kerala uses the familiar 0–9. You’ll still spot them on old clocks, calendars and temple signs.

The spoken numbers are covered in full in Malayalam numbers.

The best order to learn the letters

1. Vowels first, in their short and long pairs.
2. Ten common consonants: ka, ma, na, pa, tha, ya, ra, la, va, sa. These alone let you read many simple words.
3. The vowel signs, practised on those ten consonants.
4. The remaining consonants, row by row, and the special sounds ḷa, zha and ṟa.
5. Chillu and joined letters, picked up naturally as you read real words.

Ten minutes a day is enough. Print the alphabet chart, keep it beside you, and read one short word each day. For a full step-by-step route, see the guide to reading and writing Malayalam, or learn the script with feedback in the reading and writing course.

You don’t need the script to start speaking Malayalam. Many learners speak first using romanised Malayalam and add the script later. If speaking is your goal, start with the free 30-day course.