Santali language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

Santali is a language in the Munda subfamily of Austro-Asiatic, related to Ho and Mundari.

It is spoken by around 6.2 million people in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, although most of its speakers live in India, in the states of Jharkhand, Assam, Bihar, Orissa, Tripura, and West Bengal.^[1]

The language has its own script, known as Ol Chiki.^[2]

Grammatical sketch[link]

The following brief grammatical sketch is based on Ghosh 2008. It does not purport to give a full account of the language's grammar but rather give an impression of the structure of the language.

Phonology[link]

Consonants[link]

Santali has 21 consonants, not counting the 10 aspirated stops which occur almost only in Indic loanwords and are given in parentheses in the table below.

In native words, the opposition between voiceless and voiced stops is neutralized in word-final position. A typical Munda feature is that word-final stops are "checked", i. e. glottalized and unreleased.

Vowels[link]

Santali has eight non-nasal and six nasal vowels.

There are numerous diphthongs.

Morphology[link]

Santali, like all Munda languages, is a suffixing agglutinating language.

Nouns[link]

Number[link]

Three numbers are distinguished, singular, dual and plural.

Case[link]

The case suffix follows the number suffix. The following cases are distinguished:

Possession[link]

Santali has possessive suffixes which are only used with kinship terms: 1st person -ɲ, 2nd person -m, 3rd person -t. The suffixes do not distinguish possessor number.

Pronouns[link]

The personal pronouns in Santali distinguish inclusive and exclusive first person and anaphoric and demonstrative third person.

The interrogative pronouns have different form for animate ('who?') and inanimate ('what?'), and referential ('which?') vs. non-referential.

The indefinite pronouns are:

The demonstratives distinguish three degrees of deixis (proximate, distal, remote) and simple ('this', 'that', etc.) and particulate ('just this', 'just that') forms.

Numerals[link]

The basic cardinal numbers are:

The numerals are used with numeral classifiers. Distributive numerals are formed by reduplicating the first consonant and vowel, e.g. babar 'two each'.

Verbs[link]

Verbs in Santali inflect for tense, aspect and mood, voice and the person and number of the subject.

Subject markers[link]

Object markers[link]

Transitive verbs with pronominal objects take infixed object markers.

Syntax[link]

Santali is a SOV languages, though topics can be fronted.

See also[link]

• Languages of India
• Languages with official status in India
• List of Indian languages by total speakers
• National Translation Mission

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Ghosh, A. (2008). Santali. In: Anderson, G. The Munda Languages. London: Routledge.
• Hembram, P. C. (2002). Santhali, a natural language. New Delhi: U. Hembram.
• Minegishi, M., & Murmu, G. (2001). Santhali basic lexicon with grammatical notes. Tōkyō: Institute for the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. ISBN 4-87297-791-2
• Newberry, J. (2000). North Munda dialects: Mundari, Santhali, Bhumia. Victoria, B.C.: J. Newberry. ISBN 0-921599-68-4
• Murmu, G., & Das, A. K. (1998). Bibliography, Santhali literature. Calcutta: Biswajnan. ISBN 81-7525-080-1
• Muscat, George, Santhali: A New Approach. Sahibganj, Bihar.
• Ghosh, A. (1994). Santhali: a look into Santal morphology. New Delhi: Gyan Pub. House. ISBN 81-212-0451-8
• Byomkes Chakrabarti (1992). A comparative study of Santhali and Bengali. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co. ISBN 81-7074-128-9
• Mitra, P. C. (1988). Santhali, the base of world languages. Calcutta: Firma KLM.
• Paul Olaf Bodding (1929). A Santal dictionary. Oslo: J. Dybwad.
• Зограф Г. А. 1960/1990. Языки Южной Азии. М.: Наука (1-е изд., 1960).
• Лекомцев, Ю. K. 1968. Некоторые характерные черты сантальского предложения // Языки Индии, Пакистана, Непала и Цейлона: материалы научной конференции. М: Наука, 311—321.
• Bodding, Paul O. 1929/1952. A Santal Grammar for the Beginners, Benagaria: Santal Mission of the Northern Churches (1st edition, 1929).
• Grierson, Sir George A. (ed.) 1906 (reprinted 1967). The Linguistic Survey of India. Vol.IV. Delhi-Varanasi-Patna.
• Macphail, R. M. 1964. An Introduction to Santhali, Parts I & II. Benagaria: The Santhali Literature Board, Santhali Christian Council.
• Maspero, Henri. 1952. Les langues mounda. Meillet A., Cohen M. (dir.), Les langues du monde, P.: CNRS.
• Neukom, Lukas. 2001. Santhali. München: LINCOM Europa.
• Pinnow, Heinz-Jürgen. 1966. A comparative study of the verb in the Munda languages. Zide, Norman H. (ed.) Studies in comparative Austroasiatic linguistics. London—The Hague—Paris: Mouton, 96-193.
• Santhali Folk Tales: Ed. by Rev. P.O. Bodding. Oslo: Institutet for sammenlingenden kulturforskning, Publikationen. Vol. I—III. 1923—1929
• Skrefsrud, L.O. 1873. The Grammar of Santhali Language. Benares: Medical Hall Press.
• Vermeer, Hans J. 1969. Untersuchungen zum Bau zentral-süd-asiatischer Sprachen (ein Beitrag zur Sprachbundfrage). Heidelberg: J. Groos.

External links[link]

• "We Santhals" web site
• English-Santhali/Santhali-English dictionaries
• National Translation Mission's(NTM) Santhali Pages

v t e Official languages of India Union-level Hindi English State-level Assamese Bengali Bodo Chhattisgarhi Dogri English Garo Gujarati Hindi Kannada Kashmiri Khasi Kokborok Konkani Maithili Malayalam Manipuri Marathi Mizo Nepali Oriya Punjabi Rajasthani Sanskrit Santali Sindhi Telugu Tamil Urdu