Malayan is one of the thirty-five ethnic communities recognised by the Government of Kerala as scheduled tribes. They are mainly populated across the three districts, namely, Thrissur, Ernakulam, and Palakkad; and scarcely across the two districts, namely, Pathanamthitta and Idukki of Kerala. The data for the dictionary have been collected from three Malayan settelements of the Trissur district. Two of them, namely, Vaccumaram, and Thavalakuzhippara fall under Athirapalli Panchayat; and the third one, Rendukai under Kodaserry Panchayat. Their population stands as 5550 (Govt. of Kerala 2013). They call themselves as Malangudi ‘hill dwellers’ and their language as Malayan Bhasha ‘Malayan language’. This is a Malayan-Malayalam-English dictionary. This is the dictionary on Malayan speech. It is prepared with the aim to fostering the development of the language of the Malayan ethnic community. A total of 2180 entries written in Malayalam script have been arranged alphabetically.
