Mappila Malayalam

Mappila Malayalam (MM) is a sociolect of Malayalam, a language belonging to the Dravidian family, that is primarily spoken by the Muslim community in the northern region of Kerala. It developed alongside other varieties of Malayalam and is unique in that, unlike other non-standard varieties, it has a fully developed script popularly known as ‘Arabi-Malayalam’ (a variant form of the Arabic script with special orthographic features to accommodate Malayalam phonemes) and has its own oral and written literature (Shamsuddeen 1978). The use of the script is now mostly limited to madrasas, and the spoken variety of MM continues to thrive in its contemporary form (Cheerangote 2013; Ashraf 2021). The spoken variety is interesting for sociolinguistic reasons, as it is primarily associated with the Muslim community in the district of Malappuram, a marginalised and socioeconomically disadvantaged community which represents a paradox for a state otherwise known for its high social indices. Although this variety can be further classified into different subgroups based on their geographical/district boundaries, such as the Malappuram dialect, Kozhikode dialect, and Kannur dialect, it is mostly associated with Malappuram (Figure 1) due to that district’s high Muslim population compared to the others in Kerala. According to the census report (Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India 2011), Malappuram has over 4 million inhabitants, the highest in the state, and 70.24% of them are Muslims. Hence, for this Illustration, the data is collected from the Malappuram district.