Languagle #1: Malayalam
അടിതെറ്റിയാൽ ആനയും വീഴും
Adi thettiyal aanayum veezhum
"Even an elephant falls if it puts a foot wrong."
What it means
Used to say that a single moment of carelessness can bring down even the strongest or most capable, since the elephant, the biggest and most sure-footed animal around, is the image chosen specifically because it should be the last thing to trip.
How to say it
A-di-thet-ti-yaal AA-na-yum VEE-zhum
The zh in veezhum is ഴ, a sound Malayalam shares with Tamil: curl the tip of your tongue back and say a soft r. Double letters like tt are held for a moment.
Word by word
- അടിതെറ്റിയാൽ A-di-thet-ti-yaal: if its step goes wrong (adi, a step; thettiyal, if it slips)
- ആനയും AA-na-yum: even an elephant (aana, elephant; -um, even)
- വീഴും VEE-zhum: will fall
The first word is really two, joined together, which is typical of Malayalam.
Where it was found
In Malayalam a proverb is a pazhamchollu (പഴഞ്ചൊല്ല്). This one is from a list on the Edzym blog.
Similar sayings
- Tamil: யானைக்கும் அடி சறுக்கும் (yaanaikkum adi sarukkum). Even an elephant's foot slips. Malayalam's closest neighbour has almost the same saying.
- English: Even Homer nods. Even the greatest make mistakes.
How to recognise Malayalam
Malayalam letters are built from round, looping curves with no line along the top, and its words often run very long, because Malayalam glues words and endings together. Telugu and Kannada letters are rounded too, but most of them wear a little tick on top, like a check mark. Tamil has fewer letters, more angular ones, and marks a consonant with no vowel by putting a dot on top (்). Malayalam uses a small curved stroke for that instead (്).
About the Malayalam language
Malayalam is a Dravidian language spoken by around 35 million people, mostly in the southern Indian state of Kerala, where it is the official language. It is closely related to Tamil and split from it roughly a thousand years ago. Its script is an abugida descended from the ancient Brahmi script: each consonant carries a built-in vowel, and the rounded letter shapes came from writing on palm leaves, where straight strokes would have split the leaf.