Mygurudu

Mygurudu is a Malayalam-based secret language developed in Northern Kerala during the Malabar Rebellion of 1921.^[1]^[2] Prisoners used this coded language to pass messages without getting leaked.

Concepts

The fundamental idea behind Mygurudu involves the swapping of Malayalam alphabets. For example, Mygurudu uses ‘Ra’ instead of ‘Cha’, and ‘Pa’ instead of ‘Na’.

Current State

Mygurudu had about 400 speakers before 2020, however, the number of speakers has reached 900, and 2,500+ people are learning right now. This is mostly due to online platforms increasing accessibility to language learning resources. [1] The Speech Science Research Forum of the Department of Linguistics of Kerala University has digitized and documented the structure of Mygurudu and other dying languages.^[2]

The scheme

The following tables give the transposition scheme used in the Mygurudu code.

Vowels

Clear text	അ	ആ	ഇ	ഈ	ഉ	ഊ	ഋ	എ	ഏ	ഐ	ഒ	ഓ	ഔ	അം	അഃ
Cipher text	സ	സാ	സി	സീ	സു	സൂ	സൃ	സെ	സേ	സൈ	സൊ	സോ	സൗ	സം	സ:

Consonants

Clear text	ക	ങ	ച	വ	ണ്ട	പ	റ	ഞ	ങ്ക	മ്പ	ന്ത	ബ
Cipher text	മ	യ	ര	ട	ഷ	ന	ണ	ള	റ്റ	ഞ്ച	ഹ	ജ

Mnemonic

The users had developed a mnemonic to learn and remember this language. The mnemonic was very similar to Sanskrit slokas.

കമ ങയ ചര വട ണ്ടഷ
പന റണ ഞള ങ്കറ്റ മ്പഞ്ച
ന്തഹ ബജ

Examples

Clear text	എന്താ പേര്	എവിടാ വീട്	ഒരു ചായ വേണം	കടി വേണോ	വേണ്ട
Cipher text	സെഹാ നേച്ച്	സെടീവാ ടീവ്	സൊചു രാങ ടേറം	മവി ടേറോ	ടേഷ

References

^ Shafeeq, Alingal (2017-04-27). "Mygurudu! The jail lingo is vocal again". Express News Service, The New Indian Express. Retrieved 2017-11-17.
^ ^a ^b "Project to digitise dying languages embarked". PTI, The Economic Times. 2013-12-06. Retrieved 2017-11-17.

[NIE_2017_article-1] Shafeeq, Alingal (2017-04-27). "Mygurudu! The jail lingo is vocal again". Express News Service, The New Indian Express. Retrieved 2017-11-17.

[ET_2013_article-2] "Project to digitise dying languages embarked". PTI, The Economic Times. 2013-12-06. Retrieved 2017-11-17.

[1]

[2]