Neo Malayalam Karshon

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The problem

Karshon - also called Karshoni, Garshuni Malayalam, or Suriyani Malayalam - means writing the Malayalam language in East Syriac script. Saint Thomas Christians in Kerala used it for liturgy, letters, and literature into the early twentieth century.

Classical Syriac has only twenty-two consonants. Malayalam needs far more. Historical Karshon solved much of that gap by adding special letter shapes - originally drawn from older Malayalam scripts - for sounds such as ങ, ജ, ട, ണ, ഭ, ള, ഴ, and ഷ. Eleven of those Garshuni letters are now in Unicode as the Syriac Supplement (U+0860-U+086A).

Even so, classical Karshon was shaped for an older stage of Malayalam. Modern Malayalam has letters and distinctions that classical Karshon simply did not cover - especially several letters borrowed from Sanskrit in the last few centuries. In particular, a set of aspirates (ഘ, ഛ, ഝ, ഠ, ഢ, ധ) and the retroflex voiced stop ഡ have no dedicated classical Karshon letter.

Nobody has settled how to write those letters. Manuscript practice stopped before the question became pressing, and no modern authority has ruled on it, so anyone typing contemporary Malayalam in Syriac script has had to improvise. Our proposal, which we call Neo Karshon, keeps the classical inventory - ordinary Syriac letters plus the Syriac Supplement - and builds the missing modern values from characters Unicode already provides. The aim is to write present-day Malayalam in Suriyani Malayalam without abandoning older texts or asking for new code points.

The name

We chose the name ourselves; it is not a traditional term, and no one used it before this proposal. The full title is Neo Malayalam Karshon; Neo Karshon is the short form used below. The Neo follows the usage of Neo-Aramaic, where a living stage of the language is written with the inherited script plus a few extra marks for sounds Classical Syriac never had. That is exactly the relationship we intend here: Karshon remains the historical orthography of the manuscripts, and Neo Karshon names the extended version for modern Malayalam. Where the Garshuni form is clearer, we also write Neo Malayalam Garshuni.

Constraints

Three hard limits shaped every choice in the proposal:

• No raw Malayalam letters. Historical manuscripts could draw extra shapes borrowed from Malayalam. In digital Unicode text that shortcut fails. Karshon is right-to-left, and Syriac vowels and marks attach only to Syriac letter bases. A Malayalam character dropped into the line cannot take those vowels and marks correctly.
• No new Unicode letters. We did not want the proposal to depend on new code points, since encoding fresh Karshon consonants would mean years of committee work and fonts that cannot render the text meanwhile. So we allow only letters already in the Syriac and Syriac Supplement blocks, together with combining marks Unicode already defines.
• No underline for new shapes. Classical Karshon already uses a horizontal line under a letter to mark doubling (gemination). That under-line is reserved. It cannot also invent new consonant values, or the two meanings would collide.

So the missing modern letters had to be built from existing Syriac letters - by adding a mark above, or by assigning a clear Malayalam value to a rare Syriac letter that ordinary Karshon almost never used.

Aspiration: Combining Tilde (majliyana)

Where classical Karshon had no letter for an aspirated consonant, we take the matching unaspirated base and add Combining Tilde (U+0303, ◌̃). In Syriac tradition this mark is called majliyana (ܡܲܓ̰ܠܝܼܵܢܵܐ). The same majliyana is already used in Neo-Aramaic orthography to write sounds that Classical Syriac lacks, so we are borrowing an established East Syriac device rather than inventing a private mark.

Malayalam grammar, following Sanskrit, divides each varga row five ways, and those five categories are the columns of the chart below:

• ഖരം (kharam) - voiceless unaspirated: ക ച ട ത പ
• അതിഖരം (atikharam) - voiceless aspirated: ഖ ഛ ഠ ഥ ഫ
• മൃദു (mṛdu) - voiced unaspirated: ഗ ജ ഡ ദ ബ
• ഘോഷം (ghōṣam) - voiced aspirated: ഘ ഝ ഢ ധ ഭ
• അനുനാസികം (anunāsikam) - nasal: ങ ഞ ണ ന മ

The aspirates are therefore two columns rather than one: അതിഖരം for the voiceless ones and ഘോഷം for the voiced, each standing beside an unaspirated partner in ഖരം or മൃദു. Every majliyana letter we propose falls in those two columns: ഛ and ഠ are അതിഖരം, while ഘ, ഝ, ഢ, and ധ are ഘോഷം.

The tilde sits above the letter, so the gemination under-line stays free, and Syriac vowels can still attach to the same base. The aspirate also remains visibly related to the ഖരം or മൃദു letter it is built on.

The six aspirates we propose are:

• ഘ ← ܓ̃ (from ഗ / ܓ)
• ഛ ← ܫ̃ (related to ച / ܫ݁; written on plain ܫ)
• ഝ ← ࡡ̃ (from ജ / ࡡ)
• ഠ ← ࡣ̃ (from ട / ࡣ)
• ധ ← ܕ̃ (from ദ / ܕ)
• ഢ ← ܖ̃ (from ഡ / ܖ)

The remaining അതിഖരം and ഘോഷം letters need no tilde, because classical Karshon already gave them values. Three അതിഖരം letters were covered by ordinary Syriac consonants - ഖ as ܩ, ഥ as ܛ, and ഫ as ܦ݂ (pe with rukkakha, exactly as East Syriac writes soft pe) - and ഭ is the one ഘോഷം letter with its own Garshuni letter in the Syriac Supplement, ࡦ.

ഡ: Dotless Dalath Rish

That still left ഡ, which is not an aspirate at all: it sits in the മൃദു column, voiced and unaspirated. A tilde can mark aspiration on an existing base; it cannot by itself create a new place of articulation. And no ordinary Karshon consonant was free to take the retroflex voiced stop.

We therefore assign a rarely used Syriac letter, Syriac Letter Dotless Dalath Rish (U+0716, ܖ), to ഡ. Because Karshon texts effectively never call on that letter, giving it a Malayalam value costs nothing in older readings. Its aspirated partner ഢ then follows the same majliyana rule as the other proposed aspirates: ܖ̃.

Dots for clarity: ച / ശ, ബ / വ, and പ / ഫ

Missing letters were not the only gap. Classical Karshon also let two different Malayalam sounds share one Syriac letter, leaving the reader to decide from context which was meant:

• ച and ശ both written with shin, ܫ
• ബ and വ both written with beth, ܒ

We separate each pair with a dot that Syriac already uses for exactly this kind of hard-soft contrast: qushshaya, the dot above (U+0741), and rukkakha, the dot below (U+0742).

• ച = ܫ݁ (shin with dot above)
• ശ = ܫ (plain shin)
• ബ് = ܒ (plain beth)
• വ് = ܒ݂ (beth with dot below)

ഫ belongs with these dotted letters, but it needs no new decision of ours. East Syriac already writes the soft value of pe with rukkakha, and we keep that same form for Malayalam ഫ:

• പ് = ܦ (plain pe)
• ഫ് = ܦ݂ (pe with dot below - the ordinary East Syriac soft pe)

As with majliyana, nothing new is encoded and no under-line is touched. The marks are ordinary Syriac dots put to a Malayalam use. For ച / ശ and ബ് / വ്, a classical spelling written without the Neo dots still renders correctly - it simply carries the older ambiguity. For ഫ, the dotted pe is already the classical East Syriac reading.

Advantages

We think the approach has a few practical strengths, and they are the reasons we settled on it:

• Works with existing Unicode. No new letters are required. Any font and keyboard stack that already supports Syriac, the Syriac Supplement, and Combining Tilde can render it today, with no wait for encoding decisions.
• No clash with doubling. In Malayalam, aspirated consonants are not doubled. A letter that carries majliyana never also needs the gemination under-line, so no form ends up with a tilde above and a doubling line below at once.
• Familiar in the Syriac world. Majliyana is already used in Neo-Aramaic writing for sounds absent from Classical Syriac, so the mark is not a private invention of ours - a Syriac reader meets it in a role it already plays.

Alphabet chart

The consonant table below is the standard Malayalam grid: the five varga rows first, with the columns named ഖരം, അതിഖരം, മൃദു, ഘോഷം, and അനുനാസികം, and then the rows that fall outside the vargas - അന്തസ്ഥം (യ ര ല വ), ഊഷ്മാവ് (ശ ഷ സ), ഘോഷി (ഹ), ദ്രാവിഡമധ്യമം (ള ഴ റ), and റ്റ. Dental ന and alveolar ഩ share the nasal cell of the ത row. Column names apply to the varga rows only; below them the letters simply fill the grid from the left, as they do in printed grammars.

Every cell gives the Malayalam letter above and its Neo Karshon value below. This chart is the proposal in full: only the seven gold cells and the two blue ones are new, and everything else is the ordinary Syriac and Syriac Supplement inventory. Use the font selector at the top to switch among Adiabene, Malankara, and Malankara Classical. Gold marks what we propose - the six majliyana aspirates, and ഡ / ഢ on Dotless Dalath Rish. Blue marks the letters classical Karshon left ambiguous and we separate with a dot.

Two independent vowels depart from traditional Karshon on purpose. Classical practice, following Syriac spelling habits more closely, wrote ഐ as ܐܵܝ and ഔ as ܐܵܘ - alaph with zqapha before yodh or waw. Neo Karshon uses ptaha instead: ഐ = ܐܲܝ, ഔ = ܐܲܘ. That matches the dependent signs ൈ / ൗ (ܲܝ / ܲܘ) and sits closer to Malayalam phonetics than to Syriac orthographic convention.

The remaining signs are marks rather than letters:

• anusvāra ം = ܡ, as in നാമം = ࡥܵܡܲܡ
• visarga ഃ = ܐ݈
• virama ് = no vowel mark on the letter
• doubling ക്ക = one letter with the line below, ܟ̱
• aspiration ഘ = majliyana above, ܓ̃

For word-level examples and compound letters, see the script correspondence table.

A whole text: the Our Father

A chart proves little on its own, so here is the proposal carrying a real text. The Our Father is a useful test, because a single short prayer touches most of the inventory. Malayalam is on the left, Neo Karshon on the right.

A few things worth watching in these lines:

• ഞങ്ങൾ as ࡢܲࡠ̱ܲࡨ uses three Syriac Supplement letters in one word - ഞ, ങ, and ൾ - with ങ്ങ written as a single ࡠ carrying the gemination line rather than as two letters. Between them, these ten lines use all eleven Supplement letters.
• ക്ഷമിച്ചതുപോലെ shows both marks stacking on one base: the ച്ച in the middle is ܫ̱݁, a shin with the qushshaya dot above for ച and the doubling line below.
• ആമ്മേൻ is not spelled phonetically but as ܐܵܡܹܝܢ. Words that came into Malayalam from Syriac in the first place keep their classical Syriac spelling.
• No majliyana appears anywhere in the prayer, since it happens to contain none of ഘ ഛ ഝ ഠ ഢ ധ. The dotted letters do turn up constantly, as in വരണമേ = ܒ݂ܲࡧܲࡤܲܡܹܐ.

Another text: the Creed

The Our Father happens to omit every majliyana letter and every use of Dotless Dalath Rish. The Nicene Creed in Malayalam does not - it brings in ധ, ഡ, and several Syriac loanwords that keep their classical spellings. Malayalam is again on the left, Neo Karshon on the right.

A few things worth watching here that the prayer did not show:

• പീഡകൾ as ܦܝܼܖܲܟܲࡨ uses Dotless Dalath Rish for ഡ, the letter the Our Father never needed.
• Majliyana appears in words such as സംവിധാനം = ܣܲܡܒ݂ܝܼܕ̃ܵܢܲܡ, വിധിക്കാൻ = ܒ݂ܝܼܕ̃ܝܼܟ̱ܵܢ, and പരിശുദ്ധാത്മാവ് = ܦܲࡧܝܼܫܘܼܕ̃ܵܬܡܵܒ݂, where ധ is written on dalath with the tilde.
• Syriac loans keep classical spellings again: ഈശോമിശിഹാ as ܝܼܫܘܿܥ ܡܫܝܼܚܵܐ, സ്ലീവാ as ܨܠܝܼܒܵܐ, പന്തിയോസ് as ܦܲܢܛܝܼܘܿܣ, പീലാത്തോസ് as ܦܝܼܠܵܛܘܿܣ, മാമോദീസാ as ܡܲܥܡܘܿܕܝܼܬ݂ܵܐ, and ആമ്മേൻ as ܐܵܡܹܝܢ.

Backwards compatibility

Neo Karshon extends classical Karshon; it does not replace it, and we would consider the proposal a failure if it did. Shared letters keep their values, so older spellings remain readable in the same fonts. The new forms appear only for modern letters that classical practice lacked. A reader of classical Karshon still recognizes the base shapes; a writer of modern Malayalam gets a complete map into Syriac script.

Status of the proposal

The design is complete. Every letter of modern Malayalam has a value, the chart above is the whole inventory, and the rules are specified tightly enough to run as code - which is how the Our Father and Creed above were transliterated. It is also implemented rather than merely described: our font renders it, our keyboard types it, and our converter applies it.

What it is not is settled. There is no corpus written in Neo Karshon yet, no institution has adopted it, and we are not asking Unicode for anything - the whole point of the constraints was to avoid needing to. Individual choices are open to argument, and we would rather revise a letter now than defend it later, so corrections from Syriac and Malayalam scholars are genuinely welcome. If a better value can be shown for ഡ, or for any of the six aspirates, we will change it.

Tools

These resources on this site implement the proposal, so it can be typed and published today:

• East Syriac Malankara - Unicode East Syriac and Karshon font based on Kerala manuscript forms.
• Syriac Phonetic - Karshon keyboard - phonetic layouts for Windows and macOS.
• Syriac Editor - type East Syriac and Karshon in the browser.

References

• Perczel, István. "Garshuni Malayalam: A Witness to an Early Stage of Indian Christian Literature." Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 17, no. 1 (2015): 263-324. https://doi.org/10.31826/hug-2015-170115
• Kathanar, Koonammakkal Thoma. "An Introduction to Malayalam Karshon." In The Harp, vol. 15, 99-106. Gorgias Press, 2011. https://doi.org/10.31826/9781463233037-010
• Pandey, Anshuman. "Proposal to Encode Syriac Letters for Garshuni Malayalam." Unicode Technical Committee, 2015 (encoded in Unicode 10.0 as Syriac Supplement U+0860-U+086A).
• Unicode Consortium. Combining Tilde (U+0303); Syriac Letter Dotless Dalath Rish (U+0716); Syriac Qushshaya (U+0741); Syriac Rukkakha (U+0742).