01 · A living language
Ol Chiki: a script with a story
The President’s Secretariat’s account of the 2026 centenary celebration credits Pandit Raghunath Murmu with creating Ol Chiki in 1925. It describes earlier use of Roman, Devanagari, Odia and Bengali scripts for Santali.
The age of a script is not the age of the language. Nor does one script represent every speaker’s writing practice.
02 · A living language
Literature keeps moving
Sahitya Akademi’s Santali award register lists Nalha, a poetry collection by Gobinda Chandra Majhi, as its 2016 winner. It gives a reader a particular author and work to seek out, beyond a general introduction to the script.
Start with an edition a fluent reader recommends. Ask what its title means in context, who is speaking in a poem, and what a translation carries—or leaves behind.
03 · A living language
Baripada: a literary conversation
On 21 May 2022, Sahitya Akademi held a symposium in Baripada with the Santali department of MSCBD University. Its annual report names Damayanti Beshra among the scholars discussing Santali language, script and literature.
Read about Mayurbhanj with a literary question in mind: which writers are people reading now? The recorded symposium is part of the city’s cultural history, not an event available to book.
04 · A living language
A script’s milestones
1925 · The President’s Secretariat credits Raghunath Murmu with inventing Ol Chiki in this year.
16 February 2026 · A centenary celebration in New Delhi recognised the script and contemporary Santali literary work. The event date and the 1925 origin date are separate milestones.
Where the voices were counted · Census 2011
Recorded as Santali
8,59,947people in Odisha
2.05%of Odisha’s 2011 population
This is the individual mother-tongue entry in the Census table. It counts reported mother tongues in 2011, not everyone who can speak the language today.
Largest recorded counts: Mayurbhanj (6,24,414); Baleshwar (95,331); Kendujhar (67,908).
Explore all 30 districts →Census C-16 · Sheet1, row 116. Original table
On the reading shelf
Santali · a book to open together
Compare the language columns with a willing reader or teacher. Ask how their own usage differs from the printed example.
Open the original learning booklet (PDF) ↗A shared page
- English
- Odia
- Santali
The linked booklet places these languages alongside one another. This panel describes its layout; it does not reproduce or translate its vocabulary.
- First edition
- November 2018
- Published by
- Special Development Council, Mayurbhanj
- Compiled by
- Mangat Murmu, Raghunath Hembram, Saluram Hembram
Continue with the work
Browse published supplementary readers ↗Find Nalha in the Santali award register ↗Read the Baripada symposium account (PDF page 145) ↗Follow your curiosity
One voice.
Another doorway.
Sources, image credits & editorial notes
Prepared for Utkal Project, founded and edited by Ahimanikya Satapathy. Research checked 2026-10-01. English introduction checked against the cited publications. Fluent-speaker and specialist review remain pending; original-language phrases, translations and recordings are not supplied.. Opening lines and reading prompts are original editorial invitations.
Reading and evidence
- President of India · Ol Chiki centenary, 16 February 2026
Full press release inspected. The 1925 date is attributed to this account; the centenary event occurred in 2026.
Used in: Ol Chiki: a script with a story; A script’s milestones. - Sahitya Akademi · Santali award register
Indexed official award table inspected for the 2016 Nalha entry. Direct retrieval timed out. Award year is not asserted as the book’s publication year; full work not read.
Used in: Literature keeps moving. - Sahitya Akademi · Annual report 2022–2023
Original PDF page 145 (printed page 144), relevant symposium account inspected. Documents an event held on 21 May 2022, not a current visitor programme.
Used in: Baripada: a literary conversation. - SCSTRTI · Santali trilingual learning booklet (2018)
Original PDF inspected: publication credits on PDF page 3 and comparison table on PDF page 10. Selected pages only; vocabulary and pronunciation have not received fluent-speaker review. Linked for reading; pages and illustrations are not reproduced.
Used in: Reading shelf.
Images and reuse
- “Ol Chiki” in the script itself. A script sample, not a translation of “Santali”.
SlowPhoton · CC0 1.0. Original SVG retained, displayed at responsive size.
Research and presentation prepared with AI assistance. No speaker recording or complete literary text is reproduced. Help improve the collection.
Editorial preview · awaiting Founder and language or literary review.