Santali language

Santhali
Spoken in	India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan
Ethnicity	Santals
Native speakers	6.2 million  (1997)
Language family	Austro-Asiatic Munda North Munda Kherwari Santhali
Dialects	Mahali (Mahli)
Writing system	Latin, Ol Chiki
Language codes
ISO 639-2	sat
ISO 639-3	either: sat – Santali mjx – Mahali

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.

It has its own alphabet, known as Ol Chiki, but literacy is very low, between 10 and 30%. Santhali is spoken by the Santhals.

Grammatical sketch

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

Consonants

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.

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	voiceless	p (ph)	t (th)	ʈ (ʈh)	c (ch)	k
	voiced	b (bh)	d (dh)	ɖ (ɖh)	ɟ (ɟh) <j jh>	g (gh)
Fricatives			s				h
Nasals		m	n		ɲ	ŋ
Trill			r
Flap				ɽ
Lateral			l
Glides		w			j <y>

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

Santali has eight non-nasal and six nasal vowels.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i ĩ		u ũ
Mid-high	e	ə ə̃	o
Mid-low	ɛ ɛ̃		ɔ ɔ̃
Low		a ã

There are numerous diphthongs.

Morphology

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

Nouns

Number

Three numbers are distinguished, singular, dual and plural.

Singular	seta	'dog'
Dual	seta-kin	'two dogs'
Plural	seta-ko	'dogs'

Case

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

Case	Marker	Function
Nominative	-Ø	Subject and object
Genitive	-rɛn (animate) -ak', -rɛak' (inanimate)	Possessor
Comitative	-ʈhɛn/-ʈhɛc'	goal, place
Instrumental-Locative	-tɛ	Instrument, cause, motion
Sociative	-são	Association
Allative	-sɛn/-sɛc'	Direction
Ablative	-khɔn/-khɔc'	Source, origin
Locative	-rɛ	Spatio-temporal location

Possession

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

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

		Singular	Dual	Plural
First person	Exclusive	iɲ	ɘliɲ	alɛ
	Inclusive		alaŋ	abo
Second person		am	aben	apɛ
Third person	Anaphoric	ac'	ɘkin	ako
	Demonstrative	uni	unkin	onko

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

	Animate	Inanimate
Referential	ɔkɔe	oka
Non-referential	cele	cet'

The indefinite pronouns are:

	Animate	Inanimate
'any'	jãheã	jãhã
'some'	adɔm	adɔmak
'another'	ɛʈak'ic'	ɛʈak'ak'

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

Simple	Animate	Inanimate
Proximate	nui	noa
Distal	uni	ona
Remote	həni	hana

Particularized	Animate	Inanimate
Proximate	nii	niə
Distal	ini	inə
Remote	enko	inəko

Numerals

The basic cardinal numbers are:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	20	100
mit'	bar	pɛ	pon	mɔ̃ɽɛ̃	turui	eae	irəl	arɛ	gɛl	isi	sae

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

Verbs

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

Subject markers

		Singular	Dual	Plural
First person	Exclusive	-ɲ(iɲ)	-liɲ	-lɛ
	Inclusive		-laŋ	-bon
Second person		-m	-ben	-pɛ
Third person		-e	-kin	-ko

Object markers

Transitive verbs with pronominal objects take infixed object markers.

		Singular	Dual	Plural
First person	Exclusive	-iɲ-	-liɲ-	-lɛ-
	Inclusive		-laŋ-	-bon-
Second person		-me-	-ben-	-pɛ-
Third person		-e-	-kin-	-ko-

Syntax

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

See also

• Paul Olaf Bodding
• Byomkes Chakrabarti
• Languages of India
• Languages with official status in India
• List of Indian languages by total speakers
• National Translation Mission

Further reading

• 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 4872977912
• Newberry, J. (2000). North Munda dialects: Mundari, Santhali, Bhumia. Victoria, B.C.: J. Newberry. ISBN 0921599684
• Murmu, G., & Das, A. K. (1998). Bibliography, Santhali literature. Calcutta: Biswajnan. ISBN 8175250801
• Muscat, George, Santhali: A New Approach. Sahibganj, Bihar.
• Ghosh, A. (1994). Santhali: a look into Santal morphology. New Delhi: Gyan Pub. House. ISBN 8121204518
• Chakrabarti, B. (1992). A comparative study of Santhali and Bengali. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co. ISBN 8170741289
• 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

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