Ol Chiki Script: A Purpose-Built Alphabet for Santali
In 1925, Pandit Raghunath Murmu created Ol Chiki as a writing system for Santali, an Austroasiatic language recognized as an official regional language in India. The script was publicized in 1939 at a Mayurbhanj State exhibition and is now known by several names, including Ol Chemetʼ, Ol Ciki, Ol, and the Santali alphabet. Its name combines Santali words associated with writing and symbols: ol means “writing,” while chiki means “symbol.” Ol Chiki contains 30 letters whose designs are intended to evoke natural shapes. More significantly, the letterforms are connected to the names of Santali words, objects, or actions. This makes the script more than a set of arbitrary graphic signs: each character’s form is associated with a meaning in the language. Written from left to right, Ol Chiki has a print form called Chhapa and a cursive form called Usara. In both styles it remains unicameral, with no separate uppercase and lowercase alphabets.
Origins and Classification
Linguistic Family
Ol Chiki was designed for Santali, which is identified as an Austroasiatic language. The script itself is therefore best understood as a writing system rather than a separate language. Its central purpose was to represent Santali more accurately than scripts that had previously been used for the language.
Origins
Raghunath Murmu created Ol Chiki in 1925. The script was first publicized in 1939 at a Mayurbhanj State exhibition. The available historical account identifies its creator and these milestones but does not specify a more precise place of invention.
Name Etymology
The script is called Ol Chiki, written in the script as ᱚᱞ ᱪᱤᱠᱤ and pronounced in Santali as [ɔl tʃiki]. Ol means “writing,” and chiki means “symbol.” Another name, Ol Chemetʼ, combines ol, “writing,” with chemetʼ, “learning.” Other names include Ol Ciki, Ol, and Santali alphabet.
Historical Development
Creation and Publicization (1925–1939)
Before Ol Chiki was invented, Santali was written in Bangla, Devanagari, Kalinga, and Latin script. The use of multiple scripts reflected the absence of a dedicated writing system, but it also created difficulties. Santali is not an Indo-Aryan language, and the Indic scripts used for it did not provide letters for all of Santali’s phonemes, particularly some stop consonants and vowels.
Murmu’s response was to create an alphabet specifically suited to Santali. Unlike most Indic scripts, Ol Chiki is not an abugida. It is a true alphabet, giving vowels equal representation with consonants. The script’s first public presentation came in 1939 at a Mayurbhanj State exhibition.
Earlier Transcription Practices
Paul Olaf Bodding, a Norwegian missionary and linguist, studied Santali while preparing works such as A Santal Dictionary. He chose the Roman alphabet for transcription. Bodding observed that Roman script lacked many of the advantages of Indic scripts, but he concluded that Indic scripts could not adequately represent important features of Santali pronunciation.
Among the features he considered were glottalization, combined glottalization and nasalization, and checked plosives. In Roman transcription these could be represented more readily through diacritics. The phonology of Santali was also analyzed by other authors, including Byomkes Chakrabarti in Comparative Study of Santali and Bengali and Baghrai Charan Hembram in A Glimpse of Santali Grammar.
A Language-Based Design (1925–Present)
Ol Chiki’s distinctiveness lies partly in the relationship between its letter names and their shapes. Each letter’s name is, or is derived from, a common Santali word or another frequent element of the language. These may be nouns, demonstratives, adjectives, or verb roots. The character’s form is based on a simplified drawing connected to the meaning of that word or element.
The letter ol, representing the sound /l/, illustrates this principle. Its shape was originally derived from a simplified outline drawing of a hand holding a pen, because ol is also the Santali word for “writing.”
Unicode and Contemporary Development (2008–Present)
Ol Chiki was added to the Unicode Standard in April 2008 with Unicode version 5.1. Its Unicode block is U+1C50–U+1C7F. Digital publishing commonly uses the Chhapa print style, while Usara remains largely associated with handwriting.
Since 2017, Santali graphic designer, typographer, and film producer Sudip Iglesias Murmu has worked on design principles for a lowercase alphabet. This proposal would give Ol Chiki a two-case or bicameral format. The innovation has not been officially accepted.
Scripts and Writing Systems
Ol Chiki
Ol Chiki has 30 letters and is written from left to right. Its design is intended to evoke natural shapes, while the names and forms of the letters are linked to Santali vocabulary. The script is unicameral in both its print and cursive styles.
A key structural feature is that Ol Chiki is an alphabet rather than an abugida. Vowels therefore have equal representation with consonants. This was especially significant for writing Santali, whose phoneme inventory was not fully represented by the Indic scripts previously used for it.
Earlier Scripts Used for Santali
Before Ol Chiki, Santali appeared in Bangla, Devanagari, Kalinga, and Latin script. These systems did not always supply suitable letters for Santali sounds. Bodding’s Roman transcription used diacritics to represent pronunciation features such as glottalization, nasalization combined with glottalization, and checked plosives.
Print and Cursive Styles
The two styles of Ol Chiki are Chhapa and Usara. Chhapa, meaning “print,” is used for publication and is the more common form in digital fonts, books, and newspapers. Usara, also called Usara Ol, is the cursive style. Its name is associated with being “quick,” and it is used for handwriting.
The styles differ in some details. In print writing, the diacritic ahad is used with ᱜ, ᱡ, ᱦ, ᱫ, and ᱵ. In cursive writing these forms can create ligatures with ᱽ. Usara also seldom uses certain letter-shapes formed by combining ᱦ and the four semi-consonants ᱜ, ᱡ, ᱫ, and ᱵ with ahad. These are generally written in the shorter form ᱷ.
Unicode does not maintain a distinction between Chhapa and Usara, just as it normally does not distinguish print and cursive variants of a script.
Geographic Distribution
Historical Spread
Ol Chiki was created for Santali and is associated with Santali writing in India. The script’s first publicization occurred at a Mayurbhanj State exhibition in 1939. The historical account does not provide a detailed map of the script’s regional spread.
Modern Distribution
Santali is recognized as an official regional language in India, and Ol Chiki is its official writing system. Chhapa is used in printed books and newspapers, while Usara is used mainly for handwriting. The circulation of Usara documents is described as negligible, despite the style’s potential for rapid writing.
Literary Heritage
Works Connected with the Script
Raghunath Murmu’s Ol Chemed explains and teaches the Ol Chiki script. It is also the work in which the existence of the Chhapa and Usara styles was described by the script’s creator.
Dictionaries and Linguistic Studies
Paul Olaf Bodding’s A Santal Dictionary is a widely followed and respected reference work produced through his study of Santali and his use of Roman transcription. Other linguistic studies mentioned in connection with Santali phonology include Byomkes Chakrabarti’s Comparative Study of Santali and Bengali and Baghrai Charan Hembram’s A Glimpse of Santali Grammar.
Sample Text
A sample of Ol Chiki is provided in the Santali version of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It begins:
ᱡᱚᱛᱚ ᱞᱮᱠᱟᱱᱚ ᱢᱳᱱᱚ ᱟᱨᱚ ᱚᱫᱷᱤᱠᱟᱨᱚ ᱨᱮᱭᱟᱠᱚ ᱟᱫᱷᱟᱨᱚ ᱨᱮ ᱢᱩᱪᱳᱛᱚ ᱫᱷᱟᱵᱤᱪᱚ ᱥᱣᱚᱛᱚᱱᱛᱨᱚ ᱟᱨᱚ ᱥᱩᱢᱟᱱᱚ ᱠᱳ ᱦᱩᱭᱩᱠᱚᱟ ᱾
The accompanying English text states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
Grammar and Phonology
Alphabetic Structure
The most important structural feature described for Ol Chiki is its alphabetic organization. Vowels and consonants receive equal representation, unlike in an abugida where consonant letters commonly carry an inherent vowel. The script was developed in response to the phonological needs of Santali.
Aspirated Consonants
Aspirated consonants are written as digraphs with the letter ᱷ. Examples include ᱛᱷ for /tʰ/, ᱠᱷ for /kʰ/, ᱪᱷ for /cʰ/, ᱴᱷ for /ʈʰ/, and ᱵᱷ for /bʱ/. Other combinations represent /gʱ/, /jʱ/, /dʱ/, /ɖʱ/, and /ɽʱ/.
Marks and Punctuation
Ol Chiki uses several marks placed after the letters they modify. These are not combining characters. Western-style punctuation includes the comma, exclamation mark, question mark, and quotation marks.
The period is not used because it can be confused visually with the găhlă ṭuḍăg mark, ᱹ. Instead, Ol Chiki uses short dandas. The single mucăd, ᱾, marks a minor break, while the double mucăd, ᱿, marks a major break.
Influence and Legacy
A Dedicated Santali Writing System
Ol Chiki provided Santali with a writing system designed around its own sounds and vocabulary. Earlier scripts could not represent all of Santali’s phonemes accurately without modification. The script’s letterforms also express a connection between writing and the everyday language, since their shapes derive from meanings associated with Santali words and morphemes.
Digital Use
Google’s Noto Sans Ol Chiki and Microsoft’s Nirmala UI support the script. Chhapa is the principal style used in keyboarding, typesetting, digital fonts, books, and newspapers. Usara has digital typefaces as well, but remains largely limited to pen-and-paper writing.
Proposed Lowercase Forms
Sudip Iglesias Murmu’s proposed lowercase forms aim to make Ol Chiki keyboarding more efficient and to harmonize Chhapa and Usara. The proposal would introduce a bicameral arrangement comparable to the uppercase and lowercase systems found in many Roman-alphabet languages. It remains an unofficial innovation.
Modern Status
Official Recognition
Ol Chiki is the official writing system for Santali. Santali is recognized as an official regional language in India.
Preservation and Development
The script continues to be used in publication and handwriting, and its inclusion in Unicode supports digital representation. The existence of Chhapa typefaces makes Ol Chiki available for modern publishing. At the same time, Usara’s limited circulation and lack of separate Unicode standardization remain issues in the script’s continued development.
Learning Resources
Ol Chemed, written by Raghunath Murmu, explains and teaches Ol Chiki. Digital fonts such as Noto Sans Ol Chiki and Nirmala UI provide additional resources for typing and typesetting. The script’s structure, letter names, and pictorial associations also connect learning the alphabet with Santali vocabulary.
Conclusion
Ol Chiki represents a deliberate effort to create a writing system suited to Santali’s sounds and linguistic structure. Invented by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in 1925 and publicized in 1939, it differs from the Indic scripts previously used for Santali because it is a true alphabet, giving vowels equal status with consonants. Its 30 letterforms are also distinctive in concept: their shapes are associated with the meanings of Santali words and other common language elements. Chhapa print and Usara cursive provide complementary ways to write the script, while Unicode has enabled its use in digital environments. Proposed lowercase forms show that Ol Chiki remains an active subject of typographic development. Together, its alphabetic structure, meaningful designs, and continuing digital evolution define its importance in Santali literacy and written culture.