In the traditional Malayalam script (the old lipi), the shape of the written character depends on the other characters that were combined with it. For example, MALAYALAM LETTER KA combined with MALAYALAM LETTER U would render as: .

Since the number of character combinations was too large for efficient typewriter design, a new lipi (writing system) was mandated by the local government in 1974. In this system, characters are placed next to each other (as in typewritten Roman text) without the glyph shapes changing, making malayalam typewriters possible.

We know of one effort to create fonts supporting the old Malayalam lipi, namely the Rachana font set. This is a set of 6 TTF font files that contain most of the 900+ glyphs of the old lipi. A specialized editor, which is aware of the distribution of glyphs among these six font files, is needed to use this font set.

For more information about the Rachana movement, please contact Sri K. Hussain <hussain@kfri.org>.

These are consonants that can stand independently without a combined vowel. For example:

XXX: List of chillaksharams needed here and their glyphs. Use proper Unicode character names.