The Santali Latin alphabet was invented in the 1890s by the Norwegian missionary Paul Olaf Bodding, and is still used by most

Santals The Santal (or Santhal) are an Austroasiatic-speaking Munda ethnic group of the Indian subcontinent. Santals are the largest tribe in the Jharkhand and West Bengal in terms of population and are also found in the states of Odisha, Bihar, Assam ...

, in northern Jharkhand,, northern West Bengal, Assam, Bangladesh and Nepal and exclusively used by Santals who have studied in missionary schools. Since the

had no alphabet to call their own till 1925 when Pandit Raghunath Murmu invented

Ol chiki script The Ol Chiki () script, also known as Ol Chemetʼ (, , ), Ol Ciki, Ol, and sometimes as the Santali alphabet is the official writing system for Santali language, Santali, an Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic language recognized as an of ...

in 1925, they adopted the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

, using certain diacritical marks to denote sounds that differ from those these letters have in English. This was done under the influence of Christian missionaries who were the first to take an active interest in the study of the

Santali language Santali (, , , , ) is a Kherwarian languages, Kherwarian Munda languages, Munda language spoken natively by the Santals, Santal people of South Asia. It is the most widely-spoken language of the Munda subfamily of the Austroasiatic languages, ...

Letters

Other script

The Santali language is now primarily written using the Ol Chiki script and it is being used in several schools, colleges, universities and government purposes in eastern states of India in Santal domianted regions.

References

* Troisi, J (2000). “Tribal Religion”, Manohar Publishers & Distributors, 27. Santhal Latin alphabets {{Latin-script-stub