Garshuni (or Karshoni) is a linguistic practice where a non-Syriac language is written using the Syriac script.
It originally started in the Middle East around the 7th–9th centuries when Arabic replaced Syriac as the spoken language. Syrian Christians kept using the Syriac alphabet to write Arabic texts to preserve their cultural identity and religious manuscripts
(Garshuni Malayalam): When Syriac became the liturgical language of the Nasrani (Saint Thomas Christian) community in Kerala, scribes adapted the East Syriac alphabet (Madnhāyā) to write spoken Malayalam. Because standard Syriac only has 22 letters, it couldn't cover Malayalam's 50+ phonemes. Nasrani scribes added 8–9 characters borrowed directly from older Malayalam/Grantha scripts (like ൿ, ള, റ) alongside diacritics to map every Malayalam sound accurately.
A counterpart to this is the Arabi Malayalam (Malayalam written in Arabic script, used by the Mappila community)or Judeo-Malayalam (written in Hebrew script by Cochin Jews).