Old Malayalam

Old Malayalam, or Early Malayalam, the inscriptional variety found in Kerala from c. mid-9th to c. 13th century CE, is the earliest attested form of Malayalam language. The language was employed in several administrative records and transactions (at the level of the medieval Chera kings as well as the upper-caste village temples). Old Malayalam was mostly written in Vatteluttu script (with additional Pallava/Southern Grantha characters). Old Malayalam was called "Tamil" by the people of south India for many centuries.

The existence of Old Malayalam is sometimes disputed by scholars. They regard the medieval Chera inscriptional variety [of the vernacular] as a diverging dialect or variety of medieval Tamil. Thus Old Malayalam was also described by as "Tamil", or as "the western dialect of Tamil" or as the "mala-nattu Tamil" (a "desya-bhasa").