Learn Tamil

What is the difference between Tamil and Malayalam?

Tamil and Malayalam are two separate languages, but they are close relatives. They share many words and sounds, yet they use different scripts, and their grammar differs in some important places.

Where they are spoken

Tamil is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is also an official language of Sri Lanka and of Singapore. Malayalam is the official language of Kerala, the state on the south-west coast of India, next to Tamil Nadu.

Both languages belong to the Dravidian family, the language family of South India. Within that family, they are each other's closest major relative. Most linguists think Malayalam grew out of a western, coastal form of older Tamil, and that the two began to go their separate ways around the ninth century. Since then, each language has changed in its own way.

The scripts are different

Tamil and Malayalam are written in different scripts, so you cannot read one after learning only the other. Both scripts work in a similar way: most letters stand for a consonant and a vowel together. But the shapes of the letters are different.

The Tamil script has 12 vowels and 18 consonants as its main letters, plus a few extra letters for sounds from Sanskrit. The Malayalam script took in many more letters from the Grantha script to write words that came from Sanskrit, so it has more letters than Tamil. You can see the full Tamil set on the Tamil script table, and read how many letters Tamil has.

Sounds they share

Some sounds are typical of both languages. One example is the letter ழ், which is hard for many learners. The chapter on the consonants explains how to say it and how it differs from ல் and ள்.

A difference in the grammar

One clear difference is in the verbs. In Tamil, the end of a verb shows who does the action: I, you, he, she, it, we or they. In Malayalam, verbs change for time and mood, but not for the person. So a Tamil verb tells you more on its own. You can see how this works in the chapter on Tamil verbs.

Can speakers understand each other?

We have not found a careful study that measures how much Tamil and Malayalam speakers understand each other. In daily life it depends a lot on the person, and on how much of the other language they have heard. If you want to speak with Tamil speakers, learn Tamil itself. Start with the Tamil script.