Santali Alphabet

The Santali Ol Chiki alphabet has 30 letters ^[1]. Unlike most South Asian scripts that use consonant + vowel diacritic systems, Ol Chiki treats both vowels and consonants as equal, standalone letters.

This makes it similar in structure to the Latin or Greek alphabets, though the letter forms are entirely unique and unrelated to any other script.

Ol Chiki was created by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in 1925 ^[1]. Murmu designed each letter to reflect Santali sounds precisely, without borrowing from existing scripts, and also wrote the first Santali books, plays, and songs in the new script.

His contributions are so significant he is revered as "Guru Gomke" (Great Teacher). His birthday (May 5) is celebrated as a cultural festival in Jharkhand and Odisha.

Santali is spoken by approximately 7.6 million people ^[3] according to Indian Census records, making it the most widely spoken Munda language. The largest populations are in Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal.

Significant communities also live in Bangladesh and Nepal. Santali is one of India's 22 scheduled languages under the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.

Santali belongs to the Munda branch of the Austroasiatic language family ^[2], specifically the North Munda (Kherwaric) sub-group, making it a close relative of Mundari, Ho, and Sora.

More distantly, Santali is related to Khasi, Mon, and Khmer — all Austroasiatic. Munda languages are among the oldest language families in South Asia, predating the Indo-Aryan migrations.

Ol Chiki is unique among South Asian scripts for several reasons ^[1]:

• Purpose-built — created specifically for Santali, not adapted from an existing script

• Alphabetic — both vowels and consonants are full letters (unlike Devanagari's abugida system)

• Modern — invented in 1925, making it one of the newest scripts in the world

• Phonologically precise — captures sounds like glottal stops and nasalization native to Santali

• Constitutionally recognized — one of India's scheduled languages with its own script

Yes — Santali-medium education is available in several states ^[3]. As a constitutionally scheduled language, Santali has the right to be a medium of instruction. Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Odisha offer Santali-medium schools using the Ol Chiki script.

There are also Santali newspapers, radio programming on All India Radio, and a growing body of Santali literature published in Ol Chiki.

Ol Chiki is encoded in Unicode block U+1C50 to U+1C7F ^[1]. This range contains 30 letters, 6 punctuation/diacritic marks (ahad, mu-nad, re-nad, and others), and the relaa punctuation sign. The block was added to Unicode in version 5.1 (2008).

All major operating systems and web browsers support Ol Chiki rendering when the appropriate Noto Sans Ol Chiki font is installed.

Yes — Santali has an extraordinarily rich oral tradition ^[2] that predates the Ol Chiki script by centuries. This includes:

• Sereng — traditional Santali songs for farming, festivals, and ceremonies

• Baha festival songs — spring flower festival oral literature

• Epic narratives about the Santali creation story and migration traditions

• Proverbs and riddles (binti) passed down through generations

Since the invention of Ol Chiki, much of this oral tradition has been transcribed and published, preserving it for future generations.