മലയാളം

Malayalam spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India spoken by nearly 2.88% of Indians. Malayalam has official language status in the state of Kerala and in the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry and is spoken by 34 million people worldwide. Malayalam is also spoken by linguistic minorities in the neighbouring states; with significant number of speakers in the Nilgiris, Kanyakumari, and Coimbatore, Tenkasi, Theni districts of Tamil Nadu and Kodagu and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka. Due to Malayali expatriates in the Persian Gulf, the language is also widely spoken in the Gulf countries.

Malayalam is compulsory in all schools of all boards, from this academic year onwards. The students who are currently in the 9th and 10th standard are not affected by this, as this applies only to students appearing board from 2021 onwards. Nothing has changed for these students. The CBSE schools follow the same as it was earlier, but with extra classes for teaching Malayalam (no evaluation). The ordinance only insists on teaching and not on evaluating. Of course, there are some CBSE schools which have made it compulsory into the 2nd and 3rd language options.