This section makes you familiar with the pronunciation of the various letters in Malayalam. Five letters in the Malayalam writing system represent short vowels. They are A(a), C(i), D(u), F(e), H(o).  Each of them has its long counterpart also: B(aa), Cu(ii), Du(uu), G(ee), Hm(oo). A very special vowel, represented by a crescent mark added to the right top of the concerned consonant, is mostly realized as short, there being no long counter-part for it. Consonant letters are mostly pronounced as a syllables containing the short vowel  A following the concerned consonant.
E(r) the syllabic pronunciation of (Ra) usually occurs in Sanskrit loan words only. Among the consonants the plosives are much more in number than any others. They are pronounced with or with out vibration in the larynx and also with or without excessive force in articulation. Other varieties of consonants in Malayalam are nasals, fricatives,  laterals,  frictionless continuants and flapped.

 

The crescent mark  v  placed over the consonant letter has,many contexts,the value of a vowel resembling the short counter part of the vowel in words like BURN and LEARN.

'E'(r) is also counted among the vowels in the Malayalam syllabary following the practice in Sanskrit.In pronunciation it begins as the first consonant in RAIN, RAT and RAW and is followed by the vowel very much similar to the one we studied just now.