Malayalam Letter Ee

It marks long e; എ marks short e.

Malayalam distinguishes vowel length, so hold this long e longer. The letter name “ee” is often transliterated ē. A vowel-led syllable uses full ഏ; after a consonant, Malayalam uses dependent േ, as in കേ.

Malayalam was written in Vatteluttu, an older script, and the Vazhappally inscription is cited as the earliest example at about 830 CE. The modern Malayalam script developed from Grantha, a script descended from Brahmi. Malayalam and Tigalari are related sister scripts descended from Grantha. Malayalam script has also been used for Paniya and Sanskrit, so the language of the text matters when reading a letter. Grantha did not distinguish short e from long e; separate signs were introduced in the mid-19th century as Malayalam spelling developed.

How do I type the long-e letter in Malayalam?

Use uppercase Z on Keyman’s InScript layout.

On Keyman’s documented Malayalam InScript layout, uppercase Z produces ഏ. After a consonant, lowercase z produces േ, so ക + z → കേ. The keystrokes stay consonant-first even though േ appears on the left.

A phonetic Malayalam keyboard offers Malayalam suggestions from Latin-letter input. Type the word in transliteration, choose the intended Malayalam suggestion, and commit it; available suggestions vary by keyboard.