Gondi Script & Letters

Gondi (Koitur in the Gonds' own name for themselves) is a Dravidian language, a relative of Telugu, Kui and Kuvi rather than of Hindi, spoken by Gond people across central India. For most of its history it was not written at all; songs, origin stories and the long Gond epics were passed on by bards. Today most written Gondi uses the script of the state it is spoken in: Devanagari in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, the same letters as Hindi and Marathi (गोंडी), and Telugu script in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh (గోండి). Those letters are on the Hindi, Marathi and Telugu pages.

Gondi also has two Unicode-encoded scripts of its own, often called Gondi lipi: Masaram Gondi (𑴎𑴽𑵀𑴘𑴳), devised in 1918 by Munshi Mangal Singh Masaram, and Gunjala Gondi (𑵶𑶓𑶕𑶂𑶌), named after the village of Gunjala in Adilabad district, Telangana, where old manuscripts in it were found. Both entered Unicode recently, Masaram Gondi in version 10.0 (2017) and Gunjala Gondi in version 11.0 (2018), so they can now be typed, posted and copied like any other script. Both are Brahmic scripts: they work the same way as Devanagari, with consonants that carry a built-in a and vowel signs that change it.

Masaram Gondi script: letters, vowel signs, halanta and virama

Masaram Gondi orders its letters by where each sound is made, from throat to lips, much as Devanagari does, so anyone who reads Gondi, Hindi or Marathi in Devanagari finds each sound in a familiar place. There are ten vowel letters, 𑴀 a 𑴁 ā 𑴂 i 𑴃 ī 𑴄 u 𑴅 ū 𑴆 e 𑴈 ai 𑴉 o 𑴋 au, used where a word begins with a vowel; after a consonant, /a/ is inherent and the other vowels use signs: 𑴌 ka, 𑴌𑴱 kā, 𑴌𑴲 ki, 𑴌𑴴 ku, 𑴌𑴺 ke, 𑴌𑴽 ko. The consonants run 𑴌 𑴍 𑴎 𑴏 𑴐 (k-row) through 𑴠 𑴡 𑴢 𑴣 𑴤 (p-row), then 𑴥 𑴦 𑴧 𑴨, 𑴩 𑴪 𑴫 𑴬 and 𑴭 ḷa. The common clusters kṣa 𑴮, jña 𑴯 and tra 𑴰 are letters of their own.

Its signs are where Masaram Gondi differs from Devanagari. It has two vowel killers: the halanta 𑵄 is a visible stroke that shows a word ends in a bare consonant, while the virama 𑵅 is invisible and tells the font to join two consonants into a conjunct. An r joined to a consonant has two dedicated characters, the repha 𑵆 for r before a consonant and the ra-kara 𑵇 for r after it. 𑵀 anusvara indicates nasalization; 𑵃 candra transcribes vowel sounds not native to Gondi; 𑵁 is the visarga and 𑵂 the nukta dot. The script has its own digits, 𑵐 𑵑 𑵒 𑵓 𑵔 𑵕 𑵖 𑵗 𑵘 𑵙, and borrows the Devanagari danda । for sentence endings and double danda ॥ for verse endings. The word Gondi itself is ga + o sign + anusvara + ḍa + ī sign: 𑴎𑴽𑵀𑴘𑴳.

Gunjala Gondi script (Gunjala Gondi lipi)

Gunjala Gondi became known to the wider world in the 2000s, when a team led by Professor Jayadhir Tirumala Rao of the University of Hyderabad documented manuscripts in it kept by Gond families in Gunjala and nearby villages of Adilabad. The script is the old written tradition of the Raj Gonds of that district, and it has since been taught there again.

It is a smaller alphabet than Masaram Gondi: ten vowel letters, 𑵠 a 𑵡 ā 𑵢 i 𑵣 ī 𑵤 u 𑵥 ū 𑵧 ē 𑵨 ai 𑵪 ō 𑵫 au, with 𑵧 and 𑵪 each used for both short and long /e/ and /o/, respectively, and 30 consonants, with one s instead of three and no ñ or ṇ. Unicode stores the consonants in an order of its own, starting 𑵬 ya 𑵭 va 𑵮 ba 𑵯 bha 𑵰 ma 𑵱 ka; the grid on this page sets them in the familiar k-c-ṭ-t-p rows so they line up with Masaram Gondi. Vowel signs work as usual (𑵱 ka, 𑵱𑶊 kā, 𑵱𑶋 ki), 𑶗 is the virama, 𑶕 and 𑶖 are anusvara and visarga, and there is a sign of its own for Om, 𑶘, and a full set of digits 𑶠 𑶡 𑶢 𑶣 𑶤 𑶥 𑶦 𑶧 𑶨 𑶩. Gondi in Gunjala letters: 𑵶𑶓𑶕𑶂𑶌.

How to type Gondi and get a Gondi font

Gondi in Devanagari is typed with any Hindi or Marathi keyboard (InScript or a phonetic layout on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS), and Gondi in Telugu script with a Telugu keyboard. The two Gondi scripts are another matter: most computers and phones do not come with a keyboard for them, so the simplest way is to copy the letters from this page and paste them, or to install a third-party keyboard for Masaram or Gunjala Gondi.

If the letters on this page show as empty boxes, your device lacks a font. The free fonts Noto Sans Masaram Gondi and Noto Sans Gunjala Gondi from Google Fonts cover both scripts completely and also draw the conjuncts made with the virama. Windows Alt codes cannot reach these characters, because they sit outside the Basic Multilingual Plane; in a web page you can write them as HTML numeric entities, 𑴀 for 𑴀 or 𑵠 for 𑵠. Type letters in logical order, consonant first and then its vowel sign.

Where Gondi is spoken: Gondwana, Gond art and dance

Gondi is spoken in the hills and forests of central India: in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra (around Gadchiroli, Chandrapur and Nagpur), Chhattisgarh (Bastar), Telangana (Adilabad), Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. CLDR estimates about 3.4 million speakers, all in India 🇮🇳, while the Gond people number many more: a large share of Gonds now speak Hindi, Marathi or Telugu at home, which is one reason the Gondi scripts have become a symbol of keeping the language alive. Its dialects differ a lot from north to south, so Gondi speakers from different states do not always understand each other easily.

The region was long called Gondwana, the land of the Gonds. Much of the world now knows Gond culture through Gond painting 🎨: the Pardhan Gond artists of Patangarh in Madhya Pradesh, starting with Jangarh Singh Shyam in the 1980s, made their village wall art into canvases of trees 🌳, peacocks 🦚, tigers 🐅 and deer 🦌 filled with dots and fine lines. In Adilabad, the Raj Gonds dance Gussadi during the Dandari festival around Diwali, with drums 🪘 and tall headdresses of peacock feathers. For the scripts of neighbouring languages, see the Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Odia and Santali pages, and India for the country's emoji.