അ is the first letter of the Malayalam script.[1][2] It is an independent vowel letter that represents the near-open central vowel /ɐ/.[3] In the Malayalam abugida, അ is classified as a laghu (short vowel), a category that influences metrical rules in poetry and grammatical sandhi.[4]
As the inherent vowel of the script, the sound /ɐ/ is implied in every consonant letter unless otherwise indicated by a diacritic. For example, the consonant letter ക (ka) represents the sound /kɐ/.[4]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Steever, Sanford B. (2015). The Dravidian Languages. Routledge.
- ↑ Unicode Consortium (2025). "The Unicode Standard, Version 17.0: Malayalam Code Chart (U+0D00–U+0D7F)" (PDF).
- ↑ Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003). The Dravidian Languages. Cambridge University Press.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Varma, A. R. Raja Raja (1896). കേരളപാണിനീയം.