irikkŭ. If the palatalization is from /j/ it is sometimes deleted e.g. poykko can be [pojkʲːo] or [pokʲːo], aḍaykka as [ɐɖɐjkʲːɐ] or [ɐɖɐkʲːɐ]. Some of the northern dialects might pronounce them without palatalization. The letter ഫ represents both , a phoneme occurring in Sanskrit loanwords, and , which is mostly found in comparatively recent borrowings from European languages. Though nowadays most people (especially youngsters) pronounce as like in the word . In the Jesari dialect the native /p/ too spirantized to [f]. are unreleased word finally. Words will never begin or end with a geminated consonant. never occur word initially. All consonants appear word medially. The plain stops, affricates, nasals, laterals, the fricatives and and approximants other than can be geminated and gemination can sometimes change the meaning of the word, e.g. /kaɭam/ 'cell', 'lie'. only occur in geminated form intervocalically. The retroflex lateral is clearly retroflex, but may be more of a flap (= ) than an approximant . The approximant has both rhotic and lateral qualities, and is indeterminate between an approximant and a fricative, but is laminal post-alveolar rather than a true retroflex. The articulation changes part-way through, perhaps explaining why it behaves as both a rhotic and a lateral, both an approximant and a fricative, but the nature of the change is not understood. are very weakly palatalized while are clear. Around 75% of nk and 50% of ñc and nt from Old Malayalam got assimilated to ṅṅ, ññ and nn, almost all of the n̠t̠ merged with nn suggesting an earlier merger of some of the n̠t̠ and nt (for e.g. the cognate of Ta. nan̠r̠i is spelt as nandi and pronounced nanni); mp and ṇṭ were unchanged, e.g. Ta. mūṉṟu, maruntu, kañci, teṅku, Ml. mūnnŭ, marunnŭ, kaññi, teṅṅŭ. Word final ai, āy and ey became the word is monosyllabic, e.g. Ta. avai, māṅgāy, veṇṇey Ml. ava, māṅṅa, veṇṇa. Final āy in monosyllabic words became āya e.g. Ta. kāy, Ml. kāya. Loanwords with /z/ are switched with /s/ but not /d͡ʒ/ like in Hindi or Telugu e.g. /brasi:l/ En. "Brazil" unless it was loaned through Hindi then the Hindi pronunciation is taken e.g. /d͡ʒilːa/ Hi. Per. , other Perso-Arabic phonemes like are switched with /k, kʰ, g, h, C, ∅, ∅/, sometimes /q, x/ are switched with /kʰ, k/ e.g. قطر (Qaṭar) as ഖത്തർ (khattaṟ) and Arb. خَطّ‎ (xaṭṭ) as കത്ത് (kattŭ). English loans with