Multilingual storytelling is not a niche interest in Indian cinema — it’s the norm. Characters who shift between Malayalam and English in the same sentence, films that release simultaneously in five languages, scripts written in Hindi-Urdu with English titles: this is Indian cinema’s everyday reality.
Formatting it properly on the page is something most screenwriting guides don’t address. This guide does.
The purpose of language notation in scripts
A screenplay is a blueprint, not a literary document. When you note what language a character speaks, you’re giving information to a director, an actor, a dubbing supervisor, and a subtitler. The notation needs to be consistent, readable, and unambiguous.
There is no single universal standard for multilingual screenplay formatting. What follows are the approaches most used by professional Indian screenwriters, adapted from international conventions.
Approach 1: Write in the performance language
The simplest approach is also the most honest one: write the dialogue in the language it will actually be performed in.
If ARJUN speaks Hindi, his dialogue is in Hindi (or Hinglish, if that’s the character). If MEENA responds in Malayalam, her dialogue is in Malayalam. The reader — director, producer, casting agent — is expected to know both, or to use the script with a translation reference.
ARJUN
Yaar, kuch toh bata. Kya ho raha hai?
MEENA
Njan parayan poka. Ith ningalude vishayam alla.This works well when the script is circulating within an industry where both languages are understood. It’s common in Malayalam-Hindi co-productions and Tamil films with mixed-language casts.
Approach 2: Primary language with translation notes
For scripts that will travel — international submissions, OTT platforms, competitions — a common approach is to write all dialogue in the primary language with translated dialogue noted in brackets.
ARJUN
Yaar, kuch toh bata. Kya ho raha hai?
[Friend, tell me something. What's going on?]
MEENA
Njan parayan poka. Ith ningalude vishayam alla.
[I won't say anything. This is none of your business.]This adds length to the script but makes it readable to non-speakers. OTT platforms that release globally often request this format for their development executives.
Approach 3: Language tags in parentheticals
When a character switches languages mid-conversation — common in urban Indian dialogue — a parenthetical can note the switch without breaking the flow.
PRIYA
(in Malayalam)
Nje ninne vishwasicchu.
(switching to English)
And look where that got me.This is clean and readable. It works particularly well when language choice is a character beat — when PRIYA switching to English is itself significant, a signal of emotional distance or education or code.
Handling transliteration
Indian screenplays frequently use transliterated dialogue — Malayalam written in Roman script, Hindi written without Devanagari. This is common when the production is working with non-native speakers or when the script is being shared with a production team that doesn’t read the native script.
There is no single transliteration standard for any Indian language. The most practical approach is consistency: choose one system and use it throughout the script. If you write “enthanu” (Malayalam for “what is it”), don’t switch to a different spelling in scene 12. The same applies to Tamil, where “enna” (Tamil for “what”) must be spelled consistently throughout.
If you’re using ScriptDraft to dictate in Malayalam, Tamil, or Telugu, the app will handle transcription in the native script by default, using the iOS or Android system speech recogniser. You can then convert to transliteration in the editing step if needed.
Song sequences in multilingual scripts
Song lyrics in Indian films often mix languages deliberately. The convention is to include the language composition as a note to the music director, not to attempt a fully transliterated version in the script.
SONG SEQUENCE #2 — "MAZHA PEYYUNNU"
[Malayalam with Hindi bridge. Lyrics to follow — see song sheet.]The screenplay notes the sequence and the mood. The actual lyrics are a separate deliverable.
Subtitling and dubbing considerations
If your script is intended for a film that will be subtitled or dubbed:
For subtitling: Every line of dialogue should be translatable. Avoid puns, wordplay, and cultural references that depend entirely on the source language, or be prepared for them to flatten in translation. This is a creative choice, not a formatting one, but it’s worth thinking through at the script stage.
For dubbing: Lip-sync dubbing requires dialogue that matches the rhythm and mouth shape of the original performance. Scripts intended for multi-language release (common in Mollywood, Kollywood, and Tollywood) sometimes include character timing notes alongside dialogue — not standard Fountain format, but a practical addition.
The ScriptDraft workflow for multilingual writers
ScriptDraft is built to handle multilingual input natively. If you speak Malayalam and then English in the same recording — the kind of Manglish (Malayalam+English) code-switching common in Kerala dialogue — the app will transcribe both correctly using on-device speech recognition. The same applies to Tamil and Tanglish (Tamil+English) switches. The formatted output places each element — heading, action, dialogue — correctly regardless of which language it’s in.
For writers who think in one language and need to deliver in another, the AI translation feature handles scene text translation between supported languages. The translation is a starting point; idiomatic review is always the writer’s job.
The practical workflow many multilingual writers use: dictate the scene in your primary language for maximum speed, then review and adapt the translated version before sharing with a multilingual team.
Multilingual storytelling is one of the most interesting artistic challenges in Indian cinema. The language itself is part of the story — who speaks which language to whom, and why, reveals character, class, intimacy, and exclusion in ways that a single-language story can’t. Getting the formatting right means those choices land on the page the way they play in your imagination.