Santali Language
The Santali language is an Austroasiatic language that belongs to the Munda subfamily, primarily spoken by around six million people, mainly in India, with smaller communities in Bangladesh and Nepal. It is one of the twenty-two official languages of India and holds a significant cultural heritage for the Santal people, who are the third largest indigenous group in the country. Historically, Santali remained predominantly an oral language until the arrival of British missionaries, who began documenting it in the Latin script during the colonial period. In the early twentieth century, a teacher named Pandit Raghunath Murmu developed the Ol Chiki script specifically for Santali, which has become the most common writing system for the language, although it is not officially recognized by the Indian government.
Santali boasts a rich linguistic structure, featuring a complex system of consonants and vowels, with nouns categorized by animate and inanimate gender and numbers, including singular, duel, and plural. The language follows a subject-object-verb sentence structure. Although Santali is not considered endangered, it has evolved into various dialects as speakers have mingled with different linguistic communities. In recent decades, there has been a revival movement advocating for the promotion and teaching of Santali in schools, leading to its presence in modern literature and media. The language represents not only a means of communication but also a vital aspect of Santal identity and cultural expression.
Santali Language
The Santali language is an Austroasiatic language of the Munda subfamily spoken by about six million people, primarily in India, with smaller groups found in Bangladesh and Nepal. Santali is one of twenty-two official languages of India. The Austroasiatic languages are a group of about 150 languages spoken by more than sixty-five million people across Southeast Asia and India.
The word Santali comes from the Santal people, the primary speakers of the language. The Santals are the third largest indigenous group in India, with almost five million living on the subcontinent. Other groups of Santals live in Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal.
History and Classification
Santali is an Austroasiatic language and one of the few non-Indo-Aryan languages in India. It is part of the Munda subfamily, a group of languages spoken by more than ten million people. Historians believe these languages originated in Southeast Asia and moved west into India in prehistoric times. The Munda family is divided into two groups—North Munda and South Munda—with the decisive majority of speakers falling into the North category. Santali is the predominant North Munda language. Other languages in this group include Mundari and Ho, which both have more than one million speakers.
Santali was predominantly a spoken language for most of its existence. During the time of colonial expansion in the seventeenth century, the British arrived in India, greatly impacting the nation and its culture and languages. After encountering the Santal people, Christian missionaries began recording their language, preserving many of their proverbs, stories, and songs in writing. Some of the folk literature recorded at the time is still popular Santali literature in the twenty-first century.
In 1855, the Santals, unhappy with British land restrictions and policies, rebelled against the government. The uprising was crushed, causing many Santals to scatter across India, taking with them their language and spreading it to other areas of the country.
For most of their existence, the Santal people did not use a writing system for the language. Santali was exclusively an oral tradition. When the British arrived, Christian missionaries wrote Santali using the Latin script. This alphabet was predominantly used to write the language until the twentieth century and was used in translations of the Bible, grammar books, and folk tales. The Latin script was also adopted by some Santal who began transcribing their language.
In the early twentieth century, a teacher named Pandit Raghunath Murmu noticed Santali was one of the few Indian languages without its own script. To help promote Santal culture, Murmu created a Santali alphabet called Ol Chiki or Ol Cemet’, a script of thirty characters and nine numerical symbols.
The Santali language has a complex system of consonants and vowels and a weak distinction between nouns and verbs. There are eight vowels that can have short or long sounds. Words very rarely use a double-vowel syllable structure—such as in beef or flea in English—and are more likely to consist of a consonant-vowel structure. Nouns are classified by animate and inanimate gender, although some nouns have a masculine or feminine distinction. Nouns are also categorized in three numbers—singular, duel, and plural—while most adjectives do not agree in number and gender. Santali makes extensive use of suffixes, such as adding -kin to words to demonstrate dual number, or -ko to designate plural. Sentence structure is usually in subject-object-verb order.
Geographical Distribution and Modern Usage
Santali is spoken by about six million people, most of whom live in the Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Odisha states of India. Other groups of Santali speakers live in Bangladesh and Nepal, with smaller numbers scattered across India. Santali is the largest Munda language, with Mundari next at about two million speakers. Santali is also the only Munda language recognized as an official language by the Indian government. Although Santali is not considered a threatened or endangered language, it is not a widely studied one. It is the only Munda language that is not considered endangered.
Santali is predominantly written in four scripts, Devanagari, the alphabet used in Hindi; Odia, used mainly in the state of Odisha; Latin script; and Ol Chiki. Although Ol Chiki is the most common script for writing Santali, it is not officially recognized by the Indian government. It is, however, recognized by the government of West Bengal as an official script.
Because the Santal people have migrated across India, their language has evolved into a number of different dialects. As Santali speakers move and encounter other cultures and languages, they often adopt local languages, such as Bengal or Hindi, as their own. In the 1970s, activists began a movement to promote the use of Santali. Indian schools began teaching Ol Chiki and writers were encouraged to use the language in their work. In the twenty-first century, Santali can be found in books, magazines, and other documents.
Bibliography
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Mandi, Maya. "Problem of Being a Woman Writer in Santali Language." Indian Literature 35.3 (1992), 140–42. Print.
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