Updated 25 May, 2023
This page brings together basic information about the Nag Mundari (Mundari Bani) script and its use for the Mundari language. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern, printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Mundari using Unicode.
๐๐๐จ๐๐-๐ฑ: ๐๐๐๐ค๐จ ๐๐๐ช๐ ๐ข๐๐ข๐ค๐ฎ ๐ง๐๐จ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ข๐๐๐๐๐ฃ ๐ข๐๐ฃ๐ค๐๐๐ฆ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฃ๐ค ๐๐๐จ๐๐ง ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐๐ค๐๐ค ๐๐ก๐๐จ๐๐ก ๐๐๐๐ฆ ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐๐๐ฃ๐ ๐จ๐๐ง๐๐ข๐๐จ๐. ๐๐จ๐ข๐๐ฆ๐ข๐ค ๐๐ค๐ฅ๐ ๐๐๐๐ฆ ๐๐๐ฎ๐ญ ๐๐ค๐ช๐ค๐ฆ ๐๐๐ญ๐๐ฃ๐ค๐๐๐ ๐ค๐จ๐ค๐ง๐ข๐ ๐จ๐๐ง๐๐ข๐๐จ๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐จ๐ข๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ค ๐๐๐ฆ๐ค๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ค๐ข๐ ๐๐๐ฆ๐๐ฃ ๐๐๐ข๐๐๐๐๐๐.
The Mundari language is spoken in northeast India, primarily in the states of Jharkand, West Bengal, and Odisha, by around 1.1 million people.@Ethnologue,https://www.ethnologue.com/language/unr/. Mundari may be written in Devanagari, Bengali, and Oriya scripts, as well as Nag Mundari (also known as Mundari Bani). The Unicode proposal describes a 'huge' surge of interest in recent years in the script, with schools teaching Mundari Bani as well as workshops many Munda-inhabited districts. The state government of Odisha runs the Multilingual Education (MLE) Programme for tribal children to teach children their mother tongue. Mundari is one of the languages covered in their programme.m It is estimated that approximately 10% of Mundari speakers can read Mundari Bani.wm
๐ง๐๐จ๐๐๐ฃ๐
The script was invented by Rohidas Singh Nag (1934 - 2012) in the latter half of the 20th century. A significant reform of the script took place in 2008, and all material printed today uses that version of the orthography. The reform simplified or changed the shape of some letters, and added symbols for ษณ and w. The Unicode proposalwm,7-8 has a table showing the differences.
The Nag Mundari script is an alphabet. Both consonants and vowels are indicated by letters, and the script is mostly quite straightforward. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern Mundari orthography.
Mundari text runs from left to right in horizontal lines. Words are separated by spaces. The orthography is unicameral.
Mundari represents consonants using 22 basic letters, plus one diacritic. โฏ consonants
An unusual feature of Nag Mundari is that the sound w is written using a diacritic below the letter representing the following vowel. This applies for standalone vowels as well as for syllable onset clusters. โฏ onsets
Another unusual feature of Mundari is that word-final b and d may be pronounced as checked sounds หbฬฅ(แต) or หdฬฅ(โฟ). This can be signalled by placing the special letter ๐ซ before the consonant. โฏ finals
A diacritic can be used to extend the repertoire when close transcription of words from neighbouring languages is desired. โฏ extendedC
There are no conjunct forms or ligatures. Gemination is not a feature of the Mundari language, but ๐ซ may be used to indicate gemination in close transcriptions of neighbouring languages.> โฏ clusters โฏ clength
The Mundari orthography is an alphabet that writes vowels using 5 vowel letters. Diacritics indicate vowel length and nasalisation; they are placed above and to the right side of the base, and may overlap following letters. The use of these diacritics varies from one author to another. โฏ vowels
Standalone vowel sounds are written using the normal vowel letters. โฏ standalone_vowels
Punctuation includes that used for the Latin script. Mundari has its own set of digits. โฏ phrase
Line-breaking and justification are primarily based on inter-word spaces.
The following represents the general repertoire of the Mundari language.
Click on the sounds to reveal locations in this document where they are mentioned.
Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.
Vowels can be long or short, but length is not phonemically contrastive.o,100
Vowels following a nasal, following dอกz (optional), or preceding ษณ are normally nasalised. Nasalisation is not contrastive, either.o,100
Aspiration only occurs in the Naguri and Kera dialects.wl
Checked consonants are a special feature of Mundari phonology. They may occur in morpheme-final position as หbฬฅ(แต) or หdฬฅ(โฟ). These are pronounced by closing the glottis while articulating the stop, then the glottal stop is released (in monosyllabic words only) with an optional nasal release.
Mundari has no tones.
See page 101 of Osada for detailed information about where sounds appear in words.
w and j never occur in word-initial position.o,101
The standard vowel sounds for Mundari are written as follows.
๐ญ indicates vowel length (see vlength).
๐ฌ indicates nasalisation (see nasalisation).
These diacritics are placed above and to the right side of the base, and may overlap following letters. Their use varies from one author to another.
Standalone vowel sounds are simply represented using ordinary vowel letters.
1E4ED is used to indicate long vowels, but not all long vowels are so marked.
๐๐ช๐๐ญ
๐๐๐ญ๐
Nasalisation of vowels is indicated using 1E4EC.
๐ง๐๐ฌ
Mundari is not a tonal language.
This section maps Mundari vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Nag Mundari orthography. Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.
1E4DA
๐๐ฌ
๐๐ญ
1E4DF
๐๐ฌ
๐๐ญ
1E4E4
1E4E4 1E4EC
1E4E4 1E4ED
1E4D0
1E4D0 1E4EC
1E4D0 1E4ED
1E4D5
1E4D5 1E4EC
1E4D5 1E4ED
The sound w is written by adding the combining mark 1E4EE to the vowel that follows. It is used this way for onset consonant clusters such as ๐ข๐๐ฎ kสทa, ๐ข๐ฎ๐ kสทi, etc., but the sources imply that it is also used for sounds such as ๐๐ฎ wa, ๐๐ฎ wi, etc., although Osadao,101 says that w never occurs word initially.
๐จ๐๐๐ฌ๐๐ฎ ๐ข๐๐ง๐๐จ๐๐๐
Observation: This doesn't appear to be common. Most sources show this diacritic centred below the vowel letter, rather than placed to the right as it appears in the Noto font used for this page.
If a writer wants to closely transliterate Devanangari, Bengali, or Odia they may extend the Mundari Bani repertoire using 1E4EF. For example, ๐๐ฏ can be used to specify Devanagari ष U+0937 DEVANAGARI LETTER SSA, Bengali ষ U+09B7 BENGALI LETTER SSA, or Oriya ଷ U+0B37 ORIYA LETTER SSA.wm,5
There are no special mechanisms to indicate the absence of a vowel.
Mundari syllables can begin with a consonant cluster, but they are just written using the relevant letters, except for CสทV, as described just above, where the medial glide is written using a combining mark on the vowel letter.
Syllable-final consonants are also generally just represented by ordinary letters, but again there is an exception.
Final b or d in Mundari may be pronounced 'checked'. These checked sounds are written using ๐ซ before the consonant.
๐๐๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐
Some authors don't use this.wm,5
is an alternative shape which can be found in recent texts.
Mundari has no conjunct forms for consonant clusters.
๐ง๐๐จ๐๐๐ฃ๐
Consonant gemination isn't common in Mundari, but may occur in words from other, neighbouring languages when they are transcribed. ๐ซ can be used for this.
This section maps Mundari consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Nag Mundari orthography. Uppercase is not shown. Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.
Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc.
๐
๐
๐ซ๐ when checked in final position.
๐
๐ก
๐ซ๐ก when checked in final position.
๐ฉ
๐
๐ข
๐ฆ
๐
๐
๐
๐
๐
๐ง
๐จ
๐
๐ฅ
๐
๐ฎ placed below the letter representing the following vowel sound.
๐ฃ
๐ช
๐
๐
Mundari has its own set of digits, with a decimal base.
Digits may also be written using Latin, Devanagari, Bengali, or Oriya number shapes.wm,6
Mundari text is written horizontally, with lines that flow from top to bottom.
This section brings together information about the following topics: writing styles; cursive text; context-based shaping; context-based positioning; font styles; case & other character transforms.
You can experiment with examples using the Mundari character app.
Mru letters are not joined, and are not cased.
There are no conjuncts in Mundari, and no shaping is needed for letters.
Mundari does have a few combining marks, and these need to be combined with the base appropriately. Some marks may be far enough to the right to slightly overlap the following letter as well.
Observation: Phonetic transcriptions of words show many that have long, nasalised vowels. It is not clear whether the script shows 2 combining marks together in such a case โ no such combinations were spotted in the online resources linked to below.
tbd
In Mundari text, grapheme clusters typically correspond to whole syllables. Where combining marks appear, the combination of base and combining mark still fits within the definition of a grapheme cluster.
Words are separated by spaces.
Some compounds and reduplicative phrases are linked by a hyphen, which is called eched.
๐๐๐งโ๐จ๐
๐๐๐ฃ๐๐โ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐
See type samples.
Phrase and section boundaries in Mundari use ASCII punctuation.
phrase |
, ; : |
---|---|
sentence |
. ? ! |
Mundari commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.
start | end | |
---|---|---|
standard |
See type samples.
Mundari texts may use quotation marks around quotations. Of course, due to keyboard design, quotations may also be surrounded by ASCII double and single quote marks.
start | end | |
---|---|---|
initial | ” [U+201D RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK] | |
nested | ’ [U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK] |
tbd
tbd
tbd
tbd
tbd
The principal line-break opportunities are inter-word spaces.
Full justification may be achieved by altering the width of inter-word spaces.
tbd
tbd
Mundari Bana uses the 'alphabetic' baseline.
In printed text, Mundari Bani has no ascenders or descenders, and all letters and digits are the same height. Combining marks appear above and below the letters.
To give an approximate idea, fig_baselines compares Latin and Mundari glyphs from the only available Unicode-encoded font at the time of writing: Noto Sans Nag Mundari. The height of Mundari letters is set to the Latin x-height, however the combining marks, especially above letters, push out beyond the Latin extensions.
tbd
tbd
This section is for any features that are specific to Mundari and that relate to the following topics: general page layout & progression; grids & tables; notes, footnotes, etc; forms & user interaction; page numbering, running headers, etc.