Santali

Santali ; ᱥᱟᱱᱛᱟᱲᱤ
Spoken in	India ( Jharkhand , West Bengal , Orissa , Bihar , Assam , Maharashtra ), Bangladesh and Nepal
speaker	7.6 million
Linguistic ; classification	Austro-Asian languages Munda languages North Munda languages Santali ;
Official status
Official language in	India (as one of 22 recognized national languages)
Language codes
ISO 639 -1	-
ISO 639 -2	sat
ISO 639-3	sat

Santali (also Santhali ) is the most widely spoken language of the Munda subgroup of the Austro-Asian language family .

The speakers of the Santali belong to the Adivasi tribe of the Santal . Most of them live in the east and northeast of India . According to the 2011 census, there are around 7.4 million native speakers of the Santali in India. Of these, 3.3 million live in Jharkhand state , 2.4 million in West Bengal , 860,000 in Odisha , 460,000 in Bihar , 210,000 in Assam and 100,000 in Maharashtra . The Santali is recognized as one of 22 constitutional languages in India on a supraregional level . Smaller groups of Santali speakers also live in Bangladesh (estimated 220,000) and Nepal (50,000 according to the 2011 census).

The Norwegian Paul Olaf Bodding translated the Bible into the Santalis language (completed in 1914) and thus established the Latin alphabet , which is still widely used today. In addition, depending on the region, Santali is also written in Bengali script , Oriya script or Devanagari . Since the large number of writing systems used hindered the development and standardization of the language, the pedagogue Pandit Raghunath Murmu created his own alphabet in 1925, which is known as Ol Chiki or Ol Cemet ' , which does justice to the phonetic characteristics of Santali . In contrast to the Indian Abugida scripts, like the Latin alphabet, it is a pure letter script . However, the problem with the spread of this alphabet is the low literacy rate among the Santal population, which is below 28 percent.

Maina Tudu is a well-known lyric poet who writes her lyrics in Santali.

For Wikipedia, the Santali decided to use the Ol Chiki as a writing system. In August 2018, Santali became the first language of an Adivasi group that has a Wikipedia version in its own writing system.

literature

Kali Charan Hansda: Fundamental of Santal Language . Sambalpur 2015
Madhusudana Mishra: A Santali Grammar . Delhi 2006.
Lukas Neukom: Santali . Munich 2001.
Г. А. Зограф: Языки Южной Азии. М .: Наука (1-е изд., 1960). 1960/1990.
Ю. K. Лекомцев: Некоторые характерные черты сантальского предложения // Языки Индии, Пакиси Индии, Пакистана, Пакистана, Пакистана, Пакистана. М: Наука, 1968, pp. 311–321.
Paul O. Bodding: A Santal Grammar for the Beginners, Benagaria: Santal Mission of the Northern Churches . 1st edition, 1929. 1929/1952.
Sir George A. Grierson (ed.): The Linguistic Survey of India . Vol.IV. Delhi / Varanasi / Patna 1906 (reprinted 1967).
RM Macphail: An Introduction to Santali . Parts I & II. The Santali Literature Board, Santali Christian Council, Benagaria 1964.
Henri Maspero: Les langues mounda . In: A. Meillet, M. Cohen (dir.): Les langues du monde . CNRS, 1952.
Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow: A comparative study of the verb in the Munda languages . In: Norman H. Zide (ed.): Studies in comparative Austroasiatic linguistics . Mouton, London / The Hague / Paris 1966, pp. 96–193.
PO Bodding (Ed.): Santali Folk Tales . Vol. I-III. Institutet for sammenlingenden kulturforskning, publications, Oslo 1923–1929
LO Skrefsrud: The Grammar of Santali Language . Medical Hall Press, Benares 1873.
Hans J. Vermeer: Investigations into the construction of Central-South-Asian languages (a contribution to the question of language federations). J. Groos, Heidelberg 1969.

Web links

Wikipedia on Santali

Individual evidence

^ Data on Language and Mother Tongue . Part A: Distribution of the 22 scheduled languages-India / States / Union Territories - 2011 census . (PDF) Census of India 2011
^ Raymond G. Gordon, Jr. (ed.): 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World . Fifteenth edition. SIL International, Dallas TX.
^ National Population and Housing Census 2011 (National Report) . Government of Nepal, Central Bureau of Statistics (PDF) p. 164.
↑ This Tribal Language Just Became India's First to Have Wikipedia Edition in Own Script! In: The Better India . August 10, 2018 ( thebetterindia.com [accessed November 17, 2018]).

[1] Data on Language and Mother Tongue . Part A: Distribution of the 22 scheduled languages-India / States / Union Territories - 2011 census . (PDF) Census of India 2011

[2] Raymond G. Gordon, Jr. (ed.): 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World . Fifteenth edition. SIL International, Dallas TX.

[3] National Population and Housing Census 2011 (National Report) . Government of Nepal, Central Bureau of Statistics (PDF) p. 164.

[4] This Tribal Language Just Became India's First to Have Wikipedia Edition in Own Script! In: The Better India . August 10, 2018 ( thebetterindia.com [accessed November 17, 2018]).