Santali Language
Santali [sat] is by far the largest of the Munda languages and the only one with recognition by the Indian government as an official language. This Kherwarian North Munda language is spoken mainly in the states of Jharkhand and Orissa, with pockets of speakers found in adjacent areas of West Bengal and north and eastward as far as southeastern Nepal and western Bangladesh. As a result of the Santal diaspora of the 19th century, Santali is also commonly found across the entire span of India, as far away as Assam in the northeast or even the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Santali has been written in no fewer than four scripts, Devanagari (Hindi), Oriya, Roman, and the indigenous Ol Ciki or Ol Cemet’ script. Due to its official status and at least six million speakers, Santali is the only language of the Munda family that is probably not to be considered threatened or endangered. A sample of Santali lexicon and sentences are offered here.

Bhumij Language

Bhumij speakers still number perhaps over 100,000 but they are rapidly adopting Hinduism and abandoning their ancestral Kherwarian North Munda tongue in favor of a local Indo-Aryan variety. The Bhumij today are scattered throughout the Kherwarian area in the states of Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal. Although ethnically distinct and their language in severe decline, the Bhumij have been wrongly united with the Mundari and the Munda (who in fact are linguistically identical with the Mundari in all official lists of languages), so their ISO 639-3 code is [unr/unx] like that of Mundari [unr] and Munda [unx]. This underscores the problems that have arisen due to one organization being allowed to corner the market on what is a language and what is not, with dire consequences for communities wrongly excluded. Thus, while Mundari and Munda are the same language with only a local difference in name, they are each given ISO 639-3 codes, while the linguistically and ethnically distinct Bhumij on the other hand do not get one. A small fraction of the Bhumij materials we have are offered here.