Malayalam is a Dravidian language spoken in India, predominantly in the state of Kerala. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and was designated as a Classical Language in India in 2013. It was developed to the current form mainly by the influence of the poet Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan in the 16th century. Malayalam has official language status in the state of Kerala and in the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry. It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages and is spoken by some 38 million people. Malayalam is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; with significant speakers in the Nilgiris, Kanyakumari and Coimbatore districts of Tamil Nadu, and Dakshina Kannada of Karnataka. Malayalam serves as a link language on certain islands, including the Mahl-dominated Minicoy Island. 

The origin of Malayalam remains a matter of dispute among scholars. One view holds that Malayalam and Modern Tamil are offshoots of Middle Tamil and separated from it sometime after . A second view argues for the development of the two languages out of 'Proto-Dravidian' in the prehistoric era. 

The earliest script used to write Malayalam was the Vatteluttu alphabet, and later the Kolezhuttu, which derived from it. The current Malayalam script is based on the Vatteluttu script, which was extended with Grantha script letters to adopt Indo-Aryan loanwords. With a total of 52 letters, the Malayalam script has the largest number of letters among the Indian language orthographies. The oldest literary work in Malayalam, distinct from the Tamil tradition, is dated from between the 9th and 11th centuries. The first travelogue in any Indian language is the Malayalam "Varthamanappusthakam", written by Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar in 1785.
What was that?
and later the Kolezhuttu