Back Santali Afrikaans संथाली भाषा ANP اللغة السنتالية Arabic চাঁওতালি ভাষা Assamese Idioma santali AST Santali dili Azerbaijani Санталі Byelorussian সাঁওতালি ভাষা Bengali/Bangla Santaleg Breton Santali Catalan

Santali language

Santali
ᱥᱟᱱᱛᱟᱲᱤ
The word Santali in Ol Chiki script
Native toIndia, Bangladesh, Nepal
EthnicitySantal
Native speakers
7.6 million (2011 census[1])[2]
Austroasiatic
Dialects
  • Mahali (Mahili)
  • Kamari-Santali
  • Khole
  • Lohari-Santali
  • Manjhi
  • Paharia
Official status
Official language in
Language codes
ISO 639-2sat
ISO 639-3Either:
sat – Santali
mjx – Mahali
Glottologsant1410  Santali
maha1291  Mahali
Distribution of Santali language

Santali (ᱥᱟᱱᱛᱟᱲᱤ, Pronounced: [santaɽi], সাঁওতালি, ସାନ୍ତାଳୀ, सान्ताली) is a Kherwarian Munda language spoken natively by the Santal people of South Asia. It is the most widely-spoken language of the Munda subfamily of the Austroasiatic languages, related to Ho and Mundari, spoken mainly in the Indian states of Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Odisha, Tripura and West Bengal.[5] It is one of the constitutionally scheduled official languages of the Indian Republic and the additional official language of Jharkhand and West Bengal per the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.[6] It is spoken by around 7.6 million people in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, making it the third most-spoken Austroasiatic language after Vietnamese and Khmer.[5]

Santali is characterized by a split into at least a northern and southern dialect sphere, with slightly different sets of phonemes: Southern Santali has six phonemic vowels, in contrast with eight or nine in Northern Santali, different lexical items, and to a certain degree, variable morphology. Santali is recognized by linguists as being phonologically conservative within the Munda branch. Unlike many Munda languages that had their vowel systems restructured and shrunk to five such as Mundari, Ho, and Kharia, Santali retains a larger vowel system of eight phonemic cardinal vowels, which is very unusual in the South Asian linguistic area.[7][8] The language also uses vowel harmony processes in morphology and expressives similar to Ho and Mundari.[9] Morphosyntactically, Santali, together with Sora, are considered less restructured than other Munda languages, having less influence from Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages.[10] Clause structure is topic-prominent by default.[11]

Santali is primarily written in Ol Chiki script, an indigenous alphabetic writing system developed in 1925 by Santal writer Raghunath Murmu. Additionally, it is also written in various regional Indian writing systems such as Bengali-Assamese script, Odia script, and Devanagari.[7]

A girl speaking Santali
  1. ^ "Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2011". www.censusindia.gov.in. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
  2. ^ Santali at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018) Closed access icon
    Mahali at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018) Closed access icon
  3. ^ "P and AR & e-Governance Dept" (PDF). wbpar.gov.in. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
  4. ^ "Redirected". 19 November 2019. Archived from the original on 9 May 2019. Retrieved 9 May 2019.
  5. ^ a b Santali at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Mahali at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference 2001census was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b Zide, Norman (1999). "Three Munda scripts". Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 22 (2): 199–232.
  8. ^ Ghosh (2008), p. 20.
  9. ^ Ghosh (2008), p. 25.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference OUP WP 17 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Ghosh (2008), p. 75.
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