Malayalam

High school (ages 12+)
People & Society

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/malayalam

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the primary geographic location?State of Kerala, India, and significant diaspora communities globally
2. What is the linguistic classification?Dravidian language, South Dravidian branch
3. Where is Malayalam spoken?Malayalam is spoken in the state of Kerala in India and by Malayali people all over the world.
4. Why does Malayalam have words from other languages?Malayalam borrowed words from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and European languages because of trade and history.

Proto-Dravidian: The hypothetical reconstructed common ancestor of all Dravidian languages.
Abugida: A writing system where consonant-vowel units are written as a block, with vowels modified by diacritics.
Agglutination: A process in language where morphemes (units of meaning) are added to a word to express grammatical functions.
Malayali Diaspora: Communities of people of Malayali origin living outside their native Kerala.