Version 1.0, 12 June 2018
Version history:
1.0, 12 June 2018
The Malayalam script
The Malayalam script (മലയാളലിപി, Malayāḷalipi) is a South Asian abugida or alphasyllabary. More on this script can be found via Scriptsource.
Malayalam script and orthographic varieties
Broadly speaking, there are two varieties of the Malayalam script: the old orthography, and the reformed orthography (from 1971). The main difference between the two standards is that the old script contains a huge number of often complex conjuncts – stacks or clusters consisting of consonant characters, vowel signs, vowel ‘killers’ (virāma or rather candrakkala, ചന്ദ്രക്കല) and other diacritics –, whereas the reformed variety is rather less complex, thereby easing typewriting and typesetting at the time, which seems to have been the main object of the exercise.
John Hudson notes, however, “that within those standards there are also differences in accepted practice for writing specific conjuncts. There are some conjuncts that must always be written in a certain way, some that must never be written in a particular way, and some that can be written acceptably in more than one way. The rules become particularly complex in conjuncts of 3 consonants, in which sometimes the first two form a unit and sometimes the second two form a unit. The other thing to be aware of is that Sanskrit in Malayalam follows different orthographic rules, but similar I believe to traditional Malayalam orthography.”
There are indications that although the ‘simpler’ reformed standard is still widely used in print, including in Kerala government publications, online the ‘old’ standard is rapidly increasing in popularity. The recent advances in type technology which facilitate rendering complex script behavior, such as is found in the old orthography, seem to have fueled a demand for the more traditional way of writing Malayalam. See Malayalam Orthographic Reforms: Impact on Language and Popular Culture by Kavya Manohar and Santhosh Thottingal, June 8, 2018.
Fonts and type sizes
Malayalam old script
At the time of this writing, June of 2018, there is a clear need for typesetting Malayalam in the old script. Provisionally the Anjali Old Lipi font provided at no cost under the Open Font License v. 1.1 by Swathanthra Malayalam Computing has been chosen to fulfill this need.
Brill 11 pt: ~ Anjali Old Lipi 10 pt
Brill 10 pt: ~ Anjali Old Lipi 9 pt
Brill 9 pt: ~ Anjali Old Lipi 8 pt
Malayalam reformed script
No font has been chosen yet to render Malayalam in the reformed orthography. Maybe Noto Sans Malayalam, maybe another font.
Windows and macOS
Windows fonts, as long as they are TrueType fonts (.ttf) or TrueType Collections (.ttc) can also be used on macOS.
The same is not true per se the other way around: significantly, the macOS Malayalam fonts Malayalam Sangam and Malayalam Sangam MN are AAT [Apple Advanced Typography] fonts, which will not work correctly on MS Windows systems.
