Malayalis in the context of "Classical languages of India"

Malayalam (മലയാളം, Malayāḷam, [mɐlɐjaːɭɐm] ) is a Dravidian language, primarily spoken by the Malayali people, native to the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district). It is one of 22 scheduled languages, as well as one of 11 classical languages, of India. Malayalam has official language status in Kerala, Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé).

Malayalam is spoken by significant numbers of people in India and is the majority language in the state of Kerala. Malayalam is also spoken by linguistic minorities in the neighbouring states; with a significant number of speakers in the Kodagu and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka, and Kanyakumari, Coimbatore and Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu. It is also spoken by the Malayali Diaspora worldwide, especially in the Persian Gulf countries, due to the large populations of Malayali expatriates there. They are a significant population in each city in India including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad etc.

A man is an adult male human. Before adulthood, a male child or adolescent is referred to as a boy.

Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chromosome from the father. Sex differentiation of the male fetus is governed by the SRY gene on the Y chromosome. During puberty, hormones which stimulate androgen production result in the development of secondary sexual characteristics that result in even more differences between the sexes. These include greater muscle mass, greater height, the growth of facial hair and a lower body fat composition. Male anatomy is distinguished from female anatomy by the male reproductive system, which includes the testicles, sperm ducts, prostate gland and epididymides, and penis. Secondary sex characteristics include a narrower pelvis and hips, and smaller breasts and nipples.

The Malayali Diaspora refers to the Malayali people who live outside their homeland of the Indian state of Kerala and the Union Territories of Mahé, India and Lakshadweep. They are predominantly found in the Persian Gulf, North America, Europe, Australia, Caribbean, Africa and other regions around the world.

The Dravidian peoples, Dravidian-speakers or Dravidians, are a collection of ethnolinguistic groups native to South Asia who speak Dravidian languages. There are around 250 million native speakers of Dravidian languages. The two largest Dravidian groups are the Telugus (c. 90M) and Tamils (c. 90M). The next three largest are the Kannadigas (c. 44M), Malayalis (c. 40M), and Gondis (c. 13M). India's 22 scheduled languages include these four Dravidian languages: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam. Dravidian speakers form the majority of the population of South India and are native to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Dravidian peoples are also present in Singapore, Mauritius, Malaysia, France, South Africa, Myanmar, East Africa, the Caribbean, and the United Arab Emirates through migration.

Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in the Indus civilization, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium BCE", after which it branched into various Dravidian languages. South Dravidian I (including pre-Tamil) and South Dravidian II (including pre-Telugu) split around the eleventh century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off at around the same time.

Malaysian Malayalees, also known as Malayalee Malaysians, are people of Malayali descent who were born in or immigrated to Malaysia from the Malayalam speaking regions of Kerala. They are the second largest Indian ethnic group, making up approximately 15% of the Malaysian Indian population. The bulk of Malaysian Malayali migration began during the British Raj, when the British facilitated the migration of Indian workers to work in plantations, but unlike the majority Tamils, the vast majority of the Malayalis were recruited as supervisors (called mandur) in the oil palm estates that followed the kangani system, and some were into trading and small businesses with a significant proportion of them running groceries or restaurants. Over 90% of the Malayalee population in Malaysia are Malaysian citizens.