Editing Malayalam (section)

=== Words adopted from Sanskrit ===
When words are adopted from Sanskrit, their endings are usually changed to conform to Malayalam norms:

==== Nouns ====
* Masculine [[Sanskrit]] nouns with a [[word stem]] ending in a short /a/ take the ending /an/ in the nominative singular. For example, [[Krishna|Kr̥ṣṇa]] → Kr̥ṣṇan. The final /n/ is dropped before masculine surnames, honorifics, or titles ending in /an/ and beginning with a consonant other than /n/ – e.g., "Krishna Menon", "Krishna Kaniyaan" etc., but "Krishnan Ezhutthachan". Surnames ending with /ar/ or /aḷ/ (where these are plural forms of "an" denoting respect) are treated similarly – "Krishna Pothuval", "Krishna Chakyar", but "Krishnan Nair", "Krishnan Nambiar", as are Sanskrit surnames such "Varma(n)", "Sharma(n)", or "Gupta(n)" (rare) – e.g., "Krishna Varma", "Krishna Sharman". If a name is a compound, only the last element undergoes this transformation – e.g., "Kr̥ṣṇa" + "dēva" = "Kr̥ṣṇadēvan", not "Kr̥ṣṇandēvan".
* Feminine words ending in a long /ā/ or /ī/ are changed to end in a short /a/ or /i/, for example "[[Sita|Sītā]]" → "Sīta" and "[[Lakshmi|Lakṣmī]]" → "Lakṣmi". However, the long vowel still appears in compound words, such as "Sītādēvi" or" Lakṣmīdēvi". The long ī is generally reserved for the [[vocative case|vocative]] forms of these names, although in Sanskrit the vocative actually takes a short /i/. There are also a small number of nominative /ī/ endings that have not been shortened – a prominent example being the word "strī" for "woman".
* Nouns that have a stem in /-an/ and which end with a long /ā/ in the masculine nominative singular have /vŭ/ added to them, for example "[[Brahmā]]" (stem "Brahman") → "Brahmāvŭ". When the same nouns are declined in the neuter and take a short /a/ ending in Sanskrit, Malayalam adds an additional /m/, e.g. "Brahma" (neuter nominative singular of "[[Brahman]]") becomes "Brahmam". This is again omitted when forming compounds.
* Words whose roots end in /-an/ but whose nominative singular ending is /-a-/ (for example, the Sanskrit root of "[[karma]]" is actually "karman") are also changed. The original root is ignored and "karma" (the form in Malayalam being "karmam" because it ends in a short /a/) is taken as the basic form of the noun when declining.<ref>{{cite book |last=Varma |first=A.R. Rajaraja |title=Keralapanineeyam |publisher=D C Books |year=2005 |location=Kottayam |page=303 |isbn=978-81-7130-672-5}}</ref> However, this does not apply to all consonant stems, as "unchangeable" stems such as "manas" ("mind") and "suhr̥t" ("friend") are identical to the Malayalam nominative singular forms (although the regularly derived "manam" sometimes occurs as an alternative to "manas").
* Sanskrit words describing things or animals rather than people with a stem in short /a/ end with an /m/ in Malayalam. For example, "[[Ramayana|Rāmāyaṇa]]" → "Rāmāyaṇam". In most cases, this is actually the same as the Sanskrit accusative case ending, which is also /m/ (or, allophonically, anusvara due to the requirements of the [[sandhi]] word-combining rules) in the neuter nominative. However, "things and animals" and "people" are not always differentiated based on whether or not they are sentient beings; for example, "[[Narasimha]]" becomes "Narasiṃham" and not "Narasiṃhan", whereas "[[Ananta Shesha|Ananta]]" becomes "Anantan" even though both are sentient. This does not strictly correspond to the Sanskrit neuter gender, as both "Narasiṃha" and "Ananta" are masculine nouns in the original Sanskrit.
* Nouns with short vowel stems other than /a/, such as "[[Vishnu|Viṣṇu]]", "[[Prajapati|Prajāpati]]" etc. are declined with the Sanskrit stem acting as the Malayalam nominative singular (the Sanskrit nominative singular is formed by adding a visarga, e.g., as in "Viṣṇuḥ")
* The original Sanskrit vocative is often used in formal or poetic Malayalam, e.g. "Harē" (for "[[Hari]]") or "Prabhō" (for "Prabhu" – "Lord"). This is restricted to certain contexts – mainly when addressing deities or other exalted individuals, so a normal man named Hari would usually be addressed using a Malayalam vocative such as "Harī". The Sanskrit genitive is also occasionally found in Malayalam poetry, especially the personal pronouns "mama" ("my" or "mine") and "tava" ("thy" or "thine"). Other cases are less common and generally restricted to the realm of Maṇipravāḷam.
* Along with these [[tatsama]] borrowings, there are also many [[tadbhava]] words in common use. These were incorporated via borrowing before the separation of Malayalam and Tamil. As the language did not then accommodate Sanskrit phonology as it now does, words were changed to conform to the Old Tamil phonological system, for example "Kr̥ṣṇa" → "Kaṇṇan".<ref>{{cite book |last=Varma |first=A.R. Rajaraja |title=Keralapanineeyam |publisher=D C Books |year=2005 |location=Kottayam |pages=301–302 |isbn=978-81-7130-672-5}}</ref> Most of his works are oriented on the basic Malayalam family and cultures and many of them were path-breaking in the history of Malayalam literature