This page brings together basic information about the Gunjala Gondi script and its use for the Gondi language. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern, printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Gunjala Gondi using Unicode.
CAUTION: The examples and their IPA pronunciations are largely reverse-engineered from Gondi terms written in Devanagari, Telugu, or Oriya. While care was taken to produce correct results, there may be some small deviations from standard spellings in the Gondi script. The examples should, nevertheless, serve to illustrate how the script works.
Gunjala Gondi ( 𑵶𑶍𑶕𑶀𑵵𑶊 𑵶𑶓𑶕𑶂𑶋 𑵵𑶋𑶅𑶋) is a South Asian abugida used for the Gondi language in India’s northern Telangana, eastern Maharashtra, southeastern Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh regions. It used to write manuscripts dated ~1750 that were discovered in 2006 in Gunjala, a Gond village in the Indian state of Telangana. Subsequently, interest has been growing in revitalisation of the script. Some publications exist, and teaching materials are used in some villages with a high Gondi population. (This is unrelated to the Masaram Gondi created in 1918.)
Gondi is a language spoken by almost 3 million people, of which about 300,000 speak Adilabad Gondi, 150,000 speak Aheri Gondi, and around 2.1 million speak Northern Gondi. The language is taught only in the early grades of primary schools, but the State Education Department has recognized the language and has been active in promoting it for primary education. The language has been developed to the point that it is used and sustained by institutions beyond the home and community.eth It is commonly written using the Telugu or Devanagari scripts.
The Gunjala Gondi script is an abugida, ie. each consonant contains an inherent vowel sound. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern Gunjala Gondi orthography.
Text runs left to right in horizontal lines. There is no case distinction. Words are separated by spaces.
Gunjala Gondi represents native consonant sounds using 30 basic letters. There is no extension mechanism to cater for non-native sounds. Each consonant has a top bar that joins with those alongside.
There are no dedicated medial consonants. Syllable codas are written using ordinary letters or the combining marks anusvara or visarga.
The inherent vowel is killed by an invisible virama in consonant clusters, but word-final codas are not marked. All conjuncts are conjoined rather than stacked. RA has no special behaviour for medials and codas.
The inherent vowel for Gunjala Gondi is pronounced a. So la is written by simply using the consonant letter.
eg.
𑵱𑶓𑵵𑵬𑵵
𑵱,𑶓,𑵵,𑵬,𑵵
Since Gunjala Gondi consonants normally include an inherent vowel, the orthography has ways to indicate a consonant that is not followed by a vowel sound. See novowel.
Post-consonant vowels
Post-consonant vowels are all written using combining marks.
All vowel signs are typed and stored after the base consonant, whether or not they precede it when displayed. The glyph rendering system takes care of the positioning at display time. Conjuncts are treated as indivisible units when it comes to rendering vowel signs.
Six of the vowel signs are spacing marks, meaning that they consume horizontal space when added to a base consonant.
Certain vowel signs ligate in a predictable way with the preceding consonant letter. See cvligs.
Plain vowels
𑵱𑶋
ki
Gunjala Gondi uses the following vowel signs for plain vowels.
𑶋,𑶌,𑶍,𑶎,𑶐,𑶓,𑶊
eg.
𑵱𑶋𑶉𑶗𑵱𑶊𑵺𑶊
𑵱𑶍𑶂𑶐𑶈
Gunjala Gondi has no vowel signs for short versions of e and o.
Diphthongs
Two additional vowel signs represent the diphthongs ai and au.
𑶑,𑶔
eg.
𑵰𑶑𑵸𑵰
𑶅𑶔𑶂𑵰
Vowel length
Vowel length in Gunjala Gondi is indicated by choosing the appropriate vowel sign or letter.
Standalone vowels
Gunjala Gondi represents standalone vowels using 10 independent vowel letters, including one for the equivalent of the inherent vowel.
𑵢,𑵣,𑵤,𑵥,𑵧,𑵪,𑵠,𑵡,,𑵨,𑵫
eg.
𑵣𑵸𑵰𑶈
𑵶𑶔𑵤𑵺
𑵠𑵱𑶗𑵱𑵵
𑵧𑵺𑶋
Vowel sounds to characters
This section maps Gondi vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Gunjala Gondi orthography.
Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc. Light coloured characters occur infrequently.
Plain vowels
i
vowel sign𑶋
standalone𑵢
iː
vowel sign𑶌
standalone𑵣
u
vowel sign𑶍
standalone𑵤
uː
vowel sign𑶎
standalone𑵥
eː
vowel sign𑶐
standalone𑵧
o:
vowel sign𑶓
standalone𑵪
a
inherent voweleg. 𑵱𑶓𑵵𑵬𑵵
standalone𑵠
aː
vowel sign𑶊
standalone𑵡
Diphthongs & rhymes
ai
vowel sign𑶑
standalone𑵨
au
vowel sign𑶔
standalone𑵫
Vowel absence
Vowel absence principally occurs either when a consonant is a syllable coda, or when a consonant is part of a consonant cluster.
Given that consonants normally include an inherent vowel, the orthography needs a way to indicate when a consonant is not followed by a vowel. The absence of a vowel sound can be visually indicated in one of the following ways.
Create a conjunct. The non-final consonant in a cluster is reduced to a ‘half-form’.
Coda diacritics. Some codas can be written using combining marks.
To produce a conjunct, 𑶗 is added between the consonants in the cluster. When a conjunct is formed, the virama itself is not displayed.
eg.
𑵱,𑶗,𑶉,𑵱𑶗𑶉
Conjuncts can include a sequence of consonants, each separated by a virama.
Whereas other indic script tend to stack or ligate conjuncts, Gunjala Gondi leaves the consonants side-by-side, and breaks the connection of the non-final consonant with the head stroke (this is the ‘half-form’).
The above list contains all the consonant letters in the Unicode block. There doesn't appear to be a mechanism for extending the repertoire (eg. via nuktas, or other methods).
Most codas are written using normal consonant letters, but Gunjala Gondi also uses two combining marks for codas. Word-medial codas that occur before another consonant are written as conjuncts (see clusters).
Examples of ordinary consonants used for word-final codas.
eg.
𑶅𑶊𑵵
𑵵𑶓𑵺
Examples of codas as part of a consonant cluster.
eg.
𑵬𑶐𑶂𑶗𑵱𑶊
𑵠𑶈𑶗𑵽𑶋
Coda diacritics
Two combining characters can follow a consonant or vowel to produce a final consonant sound in a phonetic syllable.
𑶕,𑶖
𑶕 represents a homorganic nasal before a plosive. It is commonly pronounced ŋ, but before retroflex and palatal stops it is pronounced ɳ and ɲ, respectively.
eg.
𑶀𑶋𑶕𑵱𑶊
𑵠𑶕𑵻𑶐
𑶖 is rarely used and is usually a silent hangover from Sanskrit, representing a final h.
The anusvara and visarga are always typed and stored after any a base letter and any accompanying vowel sign.
eg.
𑵻𑶎𑶕,𑵻,𑶎,𑶕
Consonant length
Geminated consonants appear to be common in Gondi. They are written as conjuncts, in the same way as any consonant cluster (see clusters).
eg.
𑵠𑵱𑶗𑵱𑵵
𑵺𑵺𑶗𑵺𑶊
Consonant sounds to characters
This section maps Gondi consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Gunjala Gondi orthography.
Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc. Light coloured characters occur infrequently.
p
𑶅
pʰ
𑶆
b
𑵮
bʰ
𑵯
t
𑵳
tʰ
𑵴
t͡ʃ
𑵻
t͡ʃʰ
𑵼
ʈ
𑵽
ʈʰ
𑵾
d
𑵸
dʰ
𑵹
d͡ʒ
𑶀
d͡ʒʰ
𑶁
ɖ
𑶂
ɖʰ
𑶃
k
𑵱
kʰ
𑵲
ɡ
𑵶
ɡʰ
𑵷
s
𑶉
h
𑶇
𑶖Coda. Used mainly for Sanskrit words.
m
𑵰
n
𑵺
ɳ
𑶕Before a retroflex consonant.
ɲ
𑶕Before a palatal consonant.
ŋ
𑶄
𑶕Coda.
ʋ
𑵭
r
𑶈
l
𑵵
ɭ
𑵿
j
𑵬
Symbols
𑶘 is a sacred symbol.
Encoding choices
This section offers advice about characters or character sequences to avoid, and what to use instead. It takes into account the relevance of Unicode Normalisation Form D (NFD) and Unicode Normalisation Form C (NFC). It also takes into account Unicode's Do Not Emit guidelines.
Although usage is recommended here, content authors may well be unaware of such recommendations. Therefore, applications should look out for the non-recommended approach and treat it the same as the recommended approach wherever possible.
Codepoint sequences
Combining marks always follow the based character. The anusvara and visarga always follow any vowel sign, regardless of the displayed position.
Numbers
Digits
Gunjala Gondi has a set of native, decimal digits
𑶠,𑶡,𑶢,𑶣,𑶤,𑶥,𑶦,𑶧,𑶨,𑶩
Text direction
Gunjala Gondi text runs left to right in horizontal lines.
Do letters in this script join with each other by default? Is the basic shape of a letter radically changed? Is it sometimes not cursive? Are there any special features to note? Are Unicode joiner and non-joiner characters needed to override default joining behaviours?
Within a Gunjala Gondi word, spacing glyphs are typically joined together with a head stroke. Text is commonly written on lined paper, where the headstroke is aligned with these lines. The rest of the character effectively hangs from the line. Here is an example of the headstrokes creating an unbroken line across the word.
eg.
𑵱𑶋𑶉𑶗𑵱𑶊𑵺𑶊
The top bar extends across or through most spacing letters, including both consonants and vowels, but a couple of letters create a gap in the line (while still joining at either side). Such a letter can be seen in the following example.
eg.
𑵬𑶐𑶂𑶗𑵱𑶊
Characters that create these gaps include digits and the following:
𑶂,𑶄
Alignment of the top bar may be appropriate when mixing text of different sizes (see initials). Also, when Hindi text is mixed with another script that also has a top bar, such as Bengali, the top bars of both scripts may need to be aligned.
Context-sensitive shaping & positioning
Gunjala Gondi requires context-sensitive shaping and positioning of glyphs. Here, we mention some examples.
Base characters can carry multiple combining marks.
Combining marks need to be positioned appropriately relative to their base letters. For example, the horizontal position of the anusvara is different in the following cases.
cf.
𑵱𑶋𑶕,𑵱𑶍𑶕
Conjuncts need to change the shape of the non-final consonant letters in a cluster and hide the virama (see clusters).
eg.
𑵱,𑶗,𑶉,𑵱𑶗𑶉
Certain vowel signs need to ligate with their base consonants. See cvligs just below.
Consonant-vowel ligatures
The vowels 𑶓, 𑶊, and 𑶔 ligate with the consonant letter they follow, diverting the stroke of the consonant that would reach up to the top bar and merging it with the vowel glyph.
𑶆,𑶓,𑶆𑶓
𑶆,𑶊,𑶆𑶊
𑶆,𑶔,𑶆𑶔
𑵺,𑶊,𑵺𑶊
Examples of consonant letters ligating with vowel signs.
Typographic units
Word boundaries
Words are separated by spaces.
Graphemes
tbd
Phrase, sentence, and section delimiters are described in phrase.
Punctuation & inline features
Phrase & section boundaries
Gunjala Gondi mostly uses ASCII punctuation, but dandas have also been used. They are shared from the Devanagari Unicode block. The following items are mentioned in the Unicode proposal.
phrase
:
sentence
.
other
0964
0965
The specific roles of the two dandas are not made clear.
