Malayalam ( /malajaːɭam/; ISO 639) is a Dravidian language (Southern branch) spoken by over 33 million people in India, predominantly in Kerala (Lewis, Simmons & Fenning 2013). The language is diglossic, with the formal register used in written media and orally in formal settings. Colloquial Malayalam, for which there is no standard orthography, varies by region and social community (Asher & Kumari 1997). The speech illustrated below is representative of the variety spoken by the Namboodiri subcaste of Brahmins in and around Kochi, a city in central Kerala. The Namboodiri subcaste was traditionally a land-owning priestly class, and until relatively recently, the community was very insular. Consequently, the dialect differed from standard Malayalam as it is spoken today; this is discussed in some detail in U. Namboodiripad (1989, personal communication).

In the IPA Illustration ‘Malayalam (Namboodiri Dialect)’, the word transcribed as /viʈi/ ‘let go’ in the section entitled ‘Vowels’ should have been transcribed as /viʈu/. In addition, the gloss for the word /viʈ/ in the same section should be ‘let go (informal)’.

The Council of the IPA is establishing committees that will take on some of the tasks of running the Association, and will allow us to expand the kinds of projects that we can undertake.