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
  • Munda
    • East
      • Kherwarian
        • Santal
          • Santali
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
States where Santali is additional official language — Jharkhand and West Bengal
Distribution map of Santali language and other Munda languages
A girl speaking Santali.
Santali books in Mayurbhanj Book Fair

Santali (Pronounced: [santaɽi], Ol Chiki: ᱥᱟᱱᱛᱟᱲᱤ, Bengali: সাঁওতালী, Odia: ସାନ୍ତାଳୀ, Devanagari: संताली), also known as Santal or Santhali, 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] by Santals. It is a recognised regional language of India as 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 was a mainly oral language until developments were made by European missionaries to write it in Bengali, Odia and Roman scripts. Eventually, the Ol Chiki script was developed by Raghunath Murmu in 1925. Ol Chiki is alphabetic, sharing none of the syllabic properties of the other Indic scripts, and is now widely used to write Santali in India.

  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).

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