Santali language - Definition, origin, script

 Santali language is spoken by the Santals, an indigenous community primarily residing in India (Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, and Assam), Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan. There are approximately 7.5 million native Santali speakers worldwide. Santali is a tonal language, which means that the pitch or tone of a word affects its meaning. It’s also a homophonic language. Santali language follows subject – verb – object variations of grammar. Santali language is recognized as a scheduled language in the Indian Constitution and is used in various official contexts, including education and government.

 Language Definition

Through which medium the we can communicate to each others and can understand the state of mind that is what we call language. It can be a sounds, symbols, signs, or gestures but it must have to bear a meaning. In spite of communication language also has a crucial role in making a identity for the world for a particular community. Without a language it is impossible to make social bond and we know humans are social being. So if there is no language neither we can build a community nor any other intellectual growth.

Santali Language Origin

The origin of santali language is still undefined. Because there is no strong evidence had found for claiming the the origin of Santali language. Anthropologist and archaeologist stated maybe it is as old as “Indus valley civilization”. On the other side Santal people claims that this language is a God’s language. In the beginning of human race, Santali language was thought by “Marngburu” to the first couple of Santali mythology “Pilchu Haram and Pilchu Budhi”.

Linguistic history

Anthropologists have categorised the human race in various types. Proto-Australoid is one of them. This Proto Austroloid people entered India from West Asia. Their existence can be observed in a vast territory from India to Australia. Many physical characteristics mentioned about them are present in the ‘Kol’ community of India. Kol refers to tribal people such as Santal, Munda, Gond, Ho etc. According to this In linguistic theories Santali language belongs to the Munda language family, which is a branch of the Austroasiatic language family.

Script

In the British governance period, Santali had no script or letter for writing. In that time Latin alphabet, Devnagari and Bengali script was used for writing Santali. In the 19th century the sociologist and literary loving santali people realise the importance of a script for language. As results the two respected gems of Santali literature “Sadhu Ramchand Murmu and Pandit Raghunath Murmu” had taken their first attempt on this. Sadhu Ramchand Murmu created “Manj Dander Aag” in 1923 and after two years in 1925 Pandit Raghunath Murmu created “Ol Chiki” script for Santali language. For accurate grammatical structure and phonetically strong attributes “Ol Chiki” script or letter got recognition for Santali language’s script.