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
- ↑ The Dravidian Languages{{#if:Steever|, Steever}. Routledge(2015)
- ↑ The Unicode Standard, Version 17.0: Malayalam Code Chart (U+0D00–U+0D7F), Unicode Consortium(2025).
- ↑ The Dravidian Languages{{#if:Krishnamurti|, Krishnamurti}. Cambridge University Press(2003)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 കേരളപാണിനീയം{{#if:Varma|, Varma}(1896)