Now mkiv correctly loads the patterns and hyphenation works (though even with \language[ml], log says "language 'en' is active").
\language is a local command, use \mainlanguage instead
Does not seem to have an effect here. MWE:
\starttext %\language[ml] \mainlanguage[ml] \definedfont[file:rachana*default] കോണ്ടെക്സ്റ്റില് മലയാളം ടൈപ്പ്സെറ്റ് ചെയ്തത് \stoptext
The font, Rachana, could be found here:
http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/smc/fonts/malayalam-fonts-6.0/Rach...
\starttext
\mainlanguage[ml] \definedfont[file:rachana*default] \setuplayout[width=4cm] \setupalign[tolerant] \showframe
\setuplanguage[ml][lefthyphenmin=1,righthyphenmin=1]
കോണ്ടെക്സ്റ്റില് മലയാളം ടൈപ്പ്സെറ്റ് ചെയ്തത്
\stoptext
i see one hyphen ... how good are the patterns?
Sorry for the confusion - hyphenation indeed works correctly (I confirmed it earlier), but I was just noticing that the logfile still mentions "language 'en' is active" which is harmless I guess.