Malayalam started to develop as a separate language from the 13th century onwards. It’s the major language of Kerala and Lakshadweep. While ‘Vattezhuthu Script’ was the script used for Malayalam from 9th century onwards, the modern script of Malayalam Language evolved from the ‘Grandha Script’ which came into existence by the 16th century. Malayalam, one among the Dravidian languages, most likely originated as a split from Tamil in even more ancient times and became an independent language by AD 9th century. Today Malayalam is spoken by almost 38 million people.