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.

The language has its own script, known as Ol Chiki.

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.

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.

Santali has eight non-nasal and six nasal vowels.

There are numerous diphthongs.

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

The Santal (also spelled as Santhal (formerly also spelt as Sontal), are the largest tribal community in India, who live mainly in the states of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, and Assam. There is also a significant Santal minority in neighboring Bangladesh, and a small population in Nepal. The santals belong to the Proto-Australoid group,and may have arrived in India soon after the Negritos.The name is given because of the similarity of racial type with Australian tribes.There is no precise information as to when this race first came into India.It is found among the prehistoric skulls in the Tinnevelly district, and from references in early Sanskrit literature to 'Nishads', where they are described as noseless (anash) with dark skin colour and peculiar speech and habits,there can be no doubt that the Proto-Australoid tribes were meant.The Santals are short in stature, and among them the broad flat nose with a sunken nose ridge is fairly common. They frequently have wavy hair;sometimes it is curly, though it is never frizzy.They share all these characteristics with other primitive tribes in the same group. To the Proto-Australoid races may perhaps be attributed a largest share of totemistic rites, exorcism, food taboos, and magical belief still obtaining in Indian life. The ban on commensality and intermarriage which forms the basis of the caste system must also owe its origin to them.It is impossible to dogmatize on these subjects when one remembers how widespread each of the above factors is among primitive cultures in various parts of the world. The tribal structure of the Santals is totemistic and the clans are patrilinear, as among the other tribes of Central India. Many of the taboos and customs which have grown up round life's crises, many features in the tribal ritual, their attitude towards disease and towards the supranatural world, are fundamentally similar throughout these tribes.