From the Dravidian stock emerged the versatile and prolific language of Malayālam, one of the two official state languages of Kerala, English being the other one.  The language is a happy blend of  the simplicity of Tamil and the dignity of Sanskrit and, in a flexible and receptive style similar to that of English, enriched itself with a vocabulary culled from numerous languages.  Spoken by thirty-five million people, it is ranked eighth according to the number of speakers and is one of the twenty-two official languages of  modern India.

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