Malayalam poetry

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[edit] Meters

Two types of meters are used in Malayalam - the classical Sanskrit based and Tamil based.

[edit] Sanskrit Meters

Sanskrit meters are primarily based on trisyllablic feet. The short sound is called a laghu, a long sound is called a guru. A guru is twice as long as a laghu. A guru is usually represented by a '-–' and a laghu by a '⌣'.

For easy specification of meters, the laghu's and guru's are grouped into feet (called ganam) as follows:

foot	name	identifying letter
⌣ - -	yaganam	ya (യ)
- ⌣ -	raganam	ra (ര)
- - ⌣	thaganam	tha (ത)
- ⌣ ⌣	bhaganam	bha (ഭ)
⌣ - ⌣	jaganam	ja (ജ)
⌣ ⌣ -	saganam	sa (സ)
- - -	maganam	ma (മ)
⌣ ⌣ ⌣	naganam	na (ന)