Ol Chiki script

The Ol Chiki (ᱚᱞ ᱪᱤᱠᱤ) script, also known as Ol Cemetʼ (Santali: ol 'writing', cemet' 'learning'), Ol Ciki, Ol, and sometimes as the Santali alphabet, is the official writing system for Santali, an Austroasiatic-Munda language recognized as an official regional language in India. It has 30 letters, the forms of which are intended to evoke natural shapes. The script is written from left to right.

The shapes of the letters are not arbitrary, but reflect the names for the letters, which are words, usually the names of objects or actions representing conventionalized form in the pictorial shape of the characters.

— Norman Zide, [1]
Ol Chiki
Type
Alphabet
LanguagesSantali language
DirectionLeft-to-right
ISO 15924Olck, 261
Unicode alias
Ol Chiki
Unicode range
U+1C50–U+1C7F

History

The Ol Chiki script was created in 1925 by Raghunath Murmu for the Santali language, and publicized first in 1939 at a Mayurbhanj State exhibition.[2]

Previously, Santali had been written with the Latin script. However, Santali is not an Indo-Aryan language and Indic scripts did not have letters for all of Santali's phonemes, especially its stop consonants and vowels, which made writing the language accurately in an unmodified Indic script difficult. The detailed analysis was given by Byomkes Chakrabarti in his "Comparative Study of Santali and Bengali". Missionary and linguist Paul Olaf Bodding, a Norwegian, introduced the Latin script, which is better[3]at representing Santali stops, phonemes and nasal sounds with the use of diacritical marks and accents. Unlike most Indic scripts, Ol Chiki is not an abugida, with vowels given equal representation with consonants. Additionally, it was designed specifically for the language, but one letter could not be assigned to each phoneme because the sixth vowel in Ol Chiki is still problematic.

Letters

The values of the letters are as follows:

LetterNameIPA[4]TransliterationShape[1]
ALA-LC[5]Zide[4]Deva.[6]Beng.[6]Odia[6]
ᱚla/ɔ/aọअঅଅburning fire
ᱛat/t/ttतতତ୍the Earth
ᱜag/k’/, /g/gk’गগଗ୍vomiting mouth which produces the same sound as the name of the letter
ᱝang/ŋ/ṃṅंংଂblowing air
ᱞal/l/llलলଲ୍writing
ᱟlaa/a/āaआআଆworking in the field with a spade
ᱠaak/k/kkकকକ୍bird (sound of a swan)
ᱡaaj/c’/, /j/jc’जজଜ୍person pointing towards a third person with the right hand (saying he)
ᱢaam/m/mmमমମ୍person pointing towards a second person with the left hand (saying you)
ᱣaaw/w/, /v/wwवওয়ୱopening lips
ᱤli/i/iiईইଇbending tree
ᱥis/s/ssसসସ୍plow
ᱦih/ʔ/, /h/ẖhहহହ୍hands up
ᱧiny/ɲ/ññञঞଞ୍person pointing towards himself/herself with the left hand
ᱨir/r/rrरরର୍sickle used for cutting or reaping
ᱩlu/u/uuउউଉvessel used for preparing food
ᱪuch/c/ccचচଚ୍peak of a mountain which is usually high
ᱫud/t’/, /d/dt’दদଦ୍mushroom
ᱬunn/ɳ/ṇṇणণଣ୍picture of a flying bee (which makes this sound)
ᱭuy/j/yyयয়ୟ୍a man bending towards ground to cut something
ᱮle/e/eeएএଏoverflowing rivers changing course
ᱯep/p/ppपপପ୍person receiving with both hands
ᱰedd/ɖ/ḍḍडডଡ୍a man with two legs stretching towards his chest and mouth
ᱱen/n/nnनনନ୍thrashing grains with two legs
ᱲerr/ɽ/ṛṛड़ড়ଳ୍a path that turns to avoid an obstruction or a danger
ᱳlo/o/ooओওଓa mouth when sounding this letter
ᱴott/ʈ/ṭṭटটଟ୍camel hump
ᱵob/p’/, /b/bp’बবବ୍curly hair
ᱶov/w̃/ṅw̃उंঁঁnasalized
ᱷoh/ʰ/h(C)hहহହa man throwing something with one hand

Aspirated consonants are written as digraphs with the letter ᱷ:[7][6] ᱛᱷ /tʰ/, ᱜᱷ /gʱ/, ᱠᱷ /kʰ/, ᱡᱷ /jʱ/, ᱪᱷ /cʰ/, ᱫᱷ /dʱ/, ᱯᱷ /pʰ/, ᱰᱷ /ɖʱ/, ᱲᱷ /ɽʱ/, ᱴᱷ /ʈʰ/, and ᱵᱷ /bʱ/.

Other marks

Ol Chiki employs several marks which are placed after the letter they modify (there are no combining characters):

MarkNameDescription
ᱹgăhlă ṭuḍăgThis baseline dot is used to extend three vowel letters for the Santal Parganas dialect of Santali:[7] ᱚᱹ ŏ /ɔ/, ᱟᱹ ă /ə/, and ᱮᱹ ĕ /ɛ/. The phonetic difference between ᱚ and ᱚᱹ is not clearly defined and there may be only a marginal phonemic difference between the two. ᱚᱹ is rarely used. ALA-LC transliterates ᱚᱹ as "ạ̄".[5]
ᱸmũ ṭuḍăgThis raised dot indicates nasalization of the preceding vowel: ᱚᱸ /ɔ̃/, ᱟᱸ /ã/, ᱤᱸ /ĩ/, ᱩᱸ /ũ/, ᱮᱸ /ẽ/, and ᱳᱸ /õ/. ALA-LC transliteration uses "m̐" after the affected vowel.[5]
ᱺmũ găhlă ṭuḍăgThis colon-like mark is used to mark a nasalized extended vowel. It is a combination of mũ ṭuḍăg and găhlă ṭuḍăg: ᱚᱺ /ɔ̃/, ᱟᱺ /ə̃/, and ᱮᱺ /ɛ̃/.
ᱻrelāThis tilde-like mark indicates the prolongation of any oral or nasalized vowel. Compare ᱮ /e/ with ᱮᱻ /eː/. It comes after the găhlă ṭuḍăg for extended vowels: ᱮᱹᱻ /ɛː/. It is omitted in ALA-LC transliteration.[5]
ᱽahadThis special letter indicates the deglottalization of a consonant in the word-final position. It preserves the morphophonemic relationship between the glottalized (ejective) and voiced equivalents of consonants.[7] For example, ᱜ represents a voiced /g/ when word initial but an ejective /k’/ when in the word-final position. A voiced /g/ in the word-final position is written as ᱜᱽ. The ahad is used with ᱜ, ᱡ, ᱦ, ᱫ, and ᱵ which can form cursive ligatures with ᱽ in handwriting (but not usually in printed text).[6] ALA-LC transliteration uses an apostrophe (’) to represent an ahad.[5]
ᱼphārkāThis hyphen-like mark serves as a glottal protector (the opposite function as the ahad.) It preserves the ejective sound, even in the word-initial position. Compare ᱜᱚ /gɔ/ with ᱜᱼᱚ /k’ɔ/. The phārkā is only used with ᱜ, ᱡ, ᱫ, and ᱵ. It is omitted in ALA-LC transliteration.[5]

Digits

Ol Chiki has its own set of digits:

Digit0123456789
Ol Chiki᱐᱑᱒᱓᱔᱕᱖᱗᱘᱙
Bengali০১২৩৪৫৬৭৮৯
Devanagari०१२३४५६७८९
Odia୦୧୨୩୪୫୬୭୮୯
Persian۰۱۲۳۴۵۶۷۸۹

Punctuation

Some Western-style punctuation marks are used with Ol Chiki: comma (,), exclamation mark (!), question mark (?), and quotation marks (“ and ”).

Period (.) is not used because it is visually confusable with the găhlă ṭuḍăg mark (ᱹ).[6] Instead of periods the script uses two dandas:

  • ᱾ (mucăd) marks a minor break
  • ᱿ (double mucăd) marks a major break

Computing

Unicode
Main article: Ol Chiki (Unicode block)

Ol Chiki script was added to the Unicode Standard in April, 2008 with the release of version 5.1.

The Unicode block for Ol Chiki is U+1C50–U+1C7F:

Ol Chiki[1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+1C5x ᱐ ᱑ ᱒ ᱓ ᱔ ᱕ ᱖ ᱗ ᱘ ᱙ ᱚ ᱛ ᱜ ᱝ ᱞ ᱟ
U+1C6x ᱠ ᱡ ᱢ ᱣ ᱤ ᱥ ᱦ ᱧ ᱨ ᱩ ᱪ ᱫ ᱬ ᱭ ᱮ ᱯ
U+1C7x ᱰ ᱱ ᱲ ᱳ ᱴ ᱵ ᱶ ᱷ ᱸ ᱹ ᱺ ᱻ ᱼ ᱽ ᱾ ᱿
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 13.0

Fonts
gollark: There are SIXTEEN of them, <@319753218592866315>.
gollark: At probably >10 times the price of equivalent hard drives, too, but it's cool.
gollark: Did you know that you can get nearly 4TB SSDs now?
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gollark: This is in prototypes, they'd never actually ship ones which flipped randomly.

See also

References
  1. "Ol Chiki Script". A portal for Santals. 2002. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  2. Hembram, Phatik Chandra (2002). Santhali, a Natural Language. U. Hembram. p. 165.
  3. Bodding, P. O (1922). Materials for a Santali grammar. Santal Mission of the Northern Churches. OCLC 14036654.
  4. Zide, Norman (1996). Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William (eds.). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. pp. 614-615. ISBN 978-0195079937.
  5. "Santali (in Ol script)" (PDF). ALA-LC Romanization Tables. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  6. Everson, Michael (2005-09-05). "L2/05-243R: Final proposal to encode the Ol Chiki script in the UCS" (PDF).
  7. "The Unicode Standard, Chapter 13.10: Ol Chiki" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020.
  8. "Noto Sans Ol Chiki". Google Noto Fonts. Retrieved 5 June 2020.
  9. "Nirmala UI font family - Typography". docs.microsoft.com. Retrieved 5 June 2020.
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