Which is why, even though she runs the account, she tries to make it community-based by inviting her followers to share their stories and by collaborating with Malayali content creators.

She began uploading posts on social media of her learning curve as EliKutty which roughly translates to little rat and the response was heartening.

Her accounts on Instagram and YouTube, called Learn Malayalam with EliKutty, have in the past two years amassed tens of thousands of followers, including actor Parvathy and historian Manu Pillai.

But to many viewers, it offered more than language lessons it often gave them a fresh perspective.

Teaching moment Keyton, who is from Georgia, United States, speaks Spanish, Korean and Japanese.

When the English teacher moved to West Asia, she wanted to learn Arabic, but her plans changed when she met her husband, a Malayali from Kochi.

She began learning Malayalam from an online tutor in late 2017 and was progressing satisfactorily until, six weeks later, the United Arab Emirates banned Skype.

The sessions came to a sudden end and Keyton had to search afresh.

At that time, she was only able to access two resources: a linguistic analysis of Malayalam, and a textbook on spoken Malayalam from the 1960s by Dr Rodney Moag, who is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas, Austin.

Theres usually language resources available online for learners, Keyton said.

But when it comes to Malayalam, the resources are either for native speakers or scholarly tomes for doctoral students.

Theres no in-between for people who just want to pick it up, she said.

So I started taking notes and posting them on Instagram for feedback.

View this post on Instagram Migrating from my personal account to my malayalam focused page.

I am sure that she, being an American learner, will have great influence on Americans who want to learn Malayalam.

Keyton realised she could build the project further after attending a social media contest in Dubai.

Instead of posting illustrations of Malayalam letters and words and photographs of her notes, she switched to video content.

She even began vlogging trips with her husband Arjun, during which they tried to converse only in Malayalam.

Her aim with Learn Malayalam with EliKutty is simply to make the language more approachable and fun.

For instance, she uses famous scenes from Mollywood films to illustrate body parts in Malayalam, and explains the basics of Malayalam grammar using colloquial words.

The comments on her social media pages are littered with people saying she has given them a fresh perspective on Malayalam: by breaking it down, she has allowed them to understand why its spoken the way it is.

A lot of content that you see about Kerala.is just coconut trees, banana chips and Manichitrathazhu, she said.

I wanted to diversify that, and I want Keralas multifaceted image to be represented: but at the same time, I dont want to be the spokesperson.

Its not my place.

Keyton is very aware of the optic of a white woman seemingly teaching an Indian language to an audience that might include Indians.

Malayalam Learning Online