PREFACE.
 

The materials for this work have been collected during more
than twenty-five years' study of the language. The woi-ds have been
taken from all available sources, from the lips of speakers of all ranks,
castes and occupations, from the letters and records of many different
districts? and from the writers in prose and poetry of every age. A
list necessarily imperfect of the literature which has been ransacked
for contributions, will be subjoined under the head of Abbreviations.
2. It has been found difficult to draw the line of demarcation
between Malayalam and Tamil words. These two languages of old
differed rather as dialects of the same member of the Dravidian family,
than as separate languages; in consequence many Tamil words occur
still in local usage (e. g. csraiy o, (sras in some of its senses) or in time-
honored phrases and formulas (e.g. (3raa3aj«fl>, (sraeizicqjaj, o^ooai),
which have long ceased to be used in colloquial speech. A consider¬
able number of such have been received and marked as aM. (ancient
Malayalam). They cannot be dispensed with, if the Dictionary is to
give a true representation of the history of the language. This history
commences for us (if we except a few inscriptions on copper and
stone) with the Rama Charitam, in which we probably have the oldest
Malayalam poem still in existence, composed as it was before the intro¬
duction of the Sansci'it alphabet and deserving of the particular
attention of the scholar, as it exhibits the earliest phase of the language,
perhaps centuries before the arrival of the Portuguese. For several
antiquated words (such as (ffi©ycfl>, (Staoo, ii. (SirasEb)) this poem is the only
authority.    The bulk of the other great poems, the Bharatara, Ramaya-