Munda Language Script & Letters

Like most of the tribal languages of eastern India, Munda was a spoken language long before it was a written one, and it never developed a script (lipi) of its own. Its speakers write it in the script of the state they live in: Devanagari, the script of Hindi, in Jharkhand; the Odia script in Odisha; the Bengali script in West Bengal and among Bengali-reading communities; and Roman letters, which missionaries and scholars used for the Munda languages from the nineteenth century on.

Unicode's Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR), the database phones and computers use for language settings, lists Munda under the code unx with the Bengali script, and that is the set on this page: the letters ক খ গ, the vowel signs, the hasanta ্ and the Bengali digits ০ ১ ২. If you write Munda in Devanagari, the Hindi collection has the same alphabet in that script; for Odia letters see the Odia collection.

The closest relative, Mundari (CLDR code unr), has had a script of its own since the twentieth century: Mundari Bani, created by Rohidas Singh Nag and added to Unicode in version 15.0 (2022) under the name Nag Mundari (𞓐 𞓑 𞓒 …). Its letters are in our Mundari collection.

Munda alphabet in Bengali script: vowels, matras and consonants

The Bengali script is an abugida: each consonant already carries a vowel, so ক on its own is read kô (roughly /kɔ/ in Bengali pronunciation) or ka, and every other vowel is written as a sign attached to it. The eleven vowel letters are অ আ ই ঈ উ ঊ ঋ এ ঐ ও ঔ; after a consonant they become the signs in কা কি কী কু কূ কৃ কে কৈ কো কৌ. The signs ি ে ৈ stand before the consonant on paper, and ো ৌ wrap around it, but in Unicode you always type the consonant first and the sign second; the font moves it into place.

The consonants follow the order of Indian grammar: five rows of stops (ক খ গ ঘ ঙ, চ ছ জ ঝ ঞ, ট ঠ ড ঢ ণ, ত থ দ ধ ন, প ফ ব ভ ম), then য র ল, then শ ষ স হ, then the dotted letters ড় ঢ় য় and the half letter ৎ. The hasanta ্ removes a consonant's vowel and joins it to the next one, which is how the name of the language itself is spelled: মুন্ডা (Munda), with ন + ্ + ড forming the cluster ন্ড.

Munda, like the other Munda languages, has sounds the Bengali alphabet was not designed for, above all stop consonants at the end of a syllable that are held without being released (the checked stops that Munda languages are known for, which Roman transcriptions often mark with an apostrophe). Writers handle them in different ways, with the hasanta, an apostrophe or no mark at all, and there is no single agreed spelling, so expect variation between books and between villages.

How to type the Munda alphabet in Bengali script

Phone: in Gboard or SwiftKey add the Bengali (Bangla) language. Its transliteration layout lets you type Munda words in Roman letters and pick the Bengali spelling: johar becomes জোহার. On an iPhone add the Bangla keyboard under Settings › General › Keyboard › Keyboards.

Windows: under Settings › Time & language › Language & region add Bengali (India), which brings the Bengali – INSCRIPT keyboard; many people prefer a free phonetic keyboard such as Avro. Mac: System Settings › Keyboard › Input Sources offers Bangla and Bangla – QWERTY. The rupee sign ₹ is AltGr + 4 on the English (India) keyboard in Windows, or copy it from this page.

Code points: the Bengali block runs from U+0980 to U+09FF. In Microsoft Word type the hex code and press Alt + X (0995 gives ক); on Linux press Ctrl + Shift + U, the code, then Space; in HTML write ক. The dari । (U+0964) and ॥ (U+0965) are shared by Bengali, Devanagari and other Indian scripts, and ₹ is U+20B9 (₹).

The Munda language family and the Munda people

The word Munda names two things. It is a language family, the Indian branch of the Austroasiatic languages, which makes it a distant relative of Khmer and Vietnamese rather than of Hindi or Bengali. The branch includes Santali, the largest, with its own Ol Chiki script, Mundari, Ho with its Warang Citi script, Bhumij, Kharia, Korku, Sora, Juang, Gutob and Remo. And it is the name of the Munda people and of their language: language data such as CLDR keep Munda (unx) apart from Mundari (unr), its nearest relative.

The best-known Munda is Birsa Munda (1875–1900), who led the Ulgulan, the great revolt of 1899–1900 against British rule and the outsiders who were taking Munda land, and died in Ranchi jail at about 25. He is remembered as Dharti Aaba, father of the earth. The state of Jharkhand was created on his birthday, 15 November, in 2000, and since 2021 India marks the date as Janjatiya Gaurav Divas, the day honouring its tribal peoples.

Munda life follows the seasons of the forest and the fields. At Sarhul in spring, villages honour the sal tree in its sacred grove (the sarna) when it blossoms 🌳🌼; at Karam, in the monsoon months, a branch of the karam tree is brought into the village and danced around through the night to the beat of drums 🪘💃. The greeting heard everywhere in Jharkhand is Johar 🙏.

Where the Munda language is spoken

CLDR estimates about 680,000 speakers of Munda, all of them in India 🇮🇳. The Munda people's homeland is the Chota Nagpur plateau, above all the area around Ranchi and Khunti in Jharkhand, and the neighbouring districts of Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. Large Munda communities also live in the tea-growing districts of Assam, where their families came to work on the gardens in the nineteenth century.

Most Munda speakers also use the main language of their state, Hindi, Odia or Bengali, and many speak Sadri (Nagpuri), the common language of the Chota Nagpur region. For the characters of the neighbouring languages see our Mundari, Ho, Santali, Kurukh, Bangla, Hindi and Odia collections, and the India collection for the flag 🇮🇳, ₹ and the country's emoji.