Editing Malayalam script (section)

====Chandrakkala====
The virama in Malayalam is called candrakkala (chandrakkala), it has two functions:<ref>Cibu Johny; Shiju Alex; Sunil V S. (2015). L2/14-014R [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14014r-circular-virama.pdf ''Proposal to encode Malayalam Sign Circular Virama''].</ref><ref>Cibu Johny; Shiju Alex; Sunil V S. (2015). L2/14-015R [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14015r-vertical-virama.pdf ''Proposal to encode Malayalam Sign Vertical Bar Virama''].</ref>{{efn|Srinidhi A and Sridatta A made comments on the proposals of Cibu Johny et al.<ref>Srinidhi, A. & Sridatta, A. (2017). L2/17-207 [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17207-malayalam-candrakkala.pdf ''On the Origin of Malayalam Candrakkala''].</ref>}}
*As virama: used to suppress the inherent vowel
*As samvruthokaram: represent the "half-u" sound /ə̆/

=====As virama=====
''Chandrakkala'' <big>{{lang|ml|&nbsp;്}}</big> ({{lang|ml|ചന്ദ്രക്കല}}, ''candrakkala'') is a diacritic attached to a consonant letter to show that the consonant is not followed by an inherent vowel or any other vowel (for example, {{lang|ml|ക}} ''ka'' → {{lang|ml|ക്}} ''k''). This kind of diacritic is common in Indic scripts, generically called ''[[virama]]'' in Sanskrit, or ''halant'' in Hindi.

=====Half-u=====
At the end of a word, the same symbol sometimes represents a very short vowel, known as "half-u", or "samvruthokaram" ({{lang|ml|സംവൃതോകാരം}}, ''{{transliteration|ml|ISO|saṁvr̥tōkāram}}''), or ''{{transliteration|ml|ISO|kuṯṯiyal ukaram}}'' ({{lang|ml|കുറ്റിയൽ ഉകരം}}).<ref name="ChitrajakumarEtGangadharan2005">{{cite web|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2005/05213-samvruktokaram.pdf|date=2005-08-07|title=Samvruthokaram and Chandrakkala|access-date=2010-08-23|first1=R|last1=Chitrajakumar|first2=N|last2=Gangadharan|publisher=[[Unicode Consortium]]|url-status=live|archive-date=2014-07-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140712144726/http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2005/05213-samvruktokaram.pdf}}</ref> The exact pronunciation of this vowel varies from dialect to dialect, but it is approximately {{IPA|[ɯ̽]}}<ref name="N3126"/> or {{IPA|[ɨ]}}, and transliterated as '''ŭ''' (for example, {{lang|ml|ന}} ''na'' → {{lang|ml|ന്}} ''nŭ''). Optionally, a vowel sign ''u'' is inserted, as in {{lang|ml|നു്}} (= {{lang|ml|ന}} + {{lang|ml|&nbsp;ു}} + {{lang|ml|&nbsp;്}}). According to one author, this alternative form is historically more correct, though the simplified form without a vowel sign ''u'' is common nowadays.<ref name="S"/> This means that the same spelling {{lang|ml|ന്}} may represent either ''n'' or ''nŭ'' depending on the context. Generally, it is ''nŭ'' at the end of a word, and ''n'' elsewhere; {{lang|ml|നു്}} always represents ''nŭ''.

The [[virama]] of [[Tigalari script]] behave similarly to Malayalam. Virama has three functions: to suppress the inherent vowel (as the halant of Devanagari); to form conjunct consonants; to represent the half-u.<ref>Murthy, Vaishnavi & Rajan, Vinodh. (2017). L2/17-378 [http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17378-tigalari.pdf ''Preliminary proposal to encode Tigalari script in Unicode''] (pp. 12-15).</ref><ref>Srinidhi, A. & Sridatta, A. (2017). L2/17-182 [https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17182-tigalari-cmt.pdf ''Comments on encoding the Tigalari script''] (pp. 9-11).</ref> [[Devanagari]] supports half-u for Kashmiri; for example {{lang|ml|നു്}} is written as {{lang|hi|नॖ}}.
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