Editing Ol Chiki script (section)

==History==
The Ol Chiki script was created in 1925 by [[Raghunath Murmu]] for the [[Santali language]], and publicized first in 1939 at a [[Mayurbhanj State]] exhibition.<ref name="Hembram">{{cite book|last1=Hembram|first1=Phatik Chandra|title=Santhali, a Natural Language|date=2002|publisher=U. Hembram|page=165|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XIlkAAAAMAAJ|language=en}}</ref> Unlike most Indic scripts, Ol Chiki is not an [[abugida]], but is a true alphabet: giving the [[vowels]] equal representation with the [[consonants]].

[[File:Raghunath Murmu portrait.png|thumb|[[Raghunath Murmu]], Creator of Ol Chiki script]]

Before the invention of Ol Chiki script, Santali was written in Bangla, Devanagari, Kalinga and [[Santali Latin alphabet|Latin]] script. However, Santali is not an [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indo-Aryan]] language and Indic scripts did not have letters for all of Santal's [[phonemes]], especially its [[stop consonant]]s and [[vowels]], which make it difficult to write the language accurately in an unmodified Indic script.

For example, when missionary and linguist [[Paul Olaf Bodding]], a Norwegian, studied the Santali language and needed to decide how to transcribe it (in producing his widely followed and widely respected reference books such as ''A Santal Dictionary''), he decided to transcribe Santhali in the Roman alphabet: despite his observation that Roman script lacks many of the advantages of the Indic scripts, he concluded that the Indic scripts could not adequately serve the Santali language because the Indic scripts lack a way to indicate important features of Santali pronunciation (such as [[glottalization]], combined glottalization and [[nasalization]], and [[checked plosive]]s, which can be more easily represented in the Roman alphabet through the use of diacritics.<ref name="A Glimpse of Santali Grammar page 05">{{cite book |last1=Hembram |first1=Baghrai Charan |url=https://bharatavani.in/bharatavani/santali/book?post_category=book&id=A%20Glimpes%20of%20Santali%20Grammar |title=A Glimpse of Santali Grammar |date=2012 |publisher=Noha Trust Bahalda Mayurbhanj odisha |page=05 |language=en |access-date=2022-06-23 |archive-date=2022-09-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220930123205/https://bharatavani.in/bharatavani/santali/book?post_category=book&id=A%20Glimpes%20of%20Santali%20Grammar |url-status=live }}</ref>

The phonology of the Santali language had also been similarly analyzed by various other authors, including [[Byomkes Chakrabarti]] in ''Comparative Study of Santali and Bengali'' and Baghrai Charan Hembram in ''A Glimpse of Santali Grammar''. However, the Ol Chiki alphabet is considered (by many Santali) to be even more appropriate for the language, because its letter-shapes are derived from the sounds of common Santali words and other frequent Santali morphemes:{{efn|smallest unit of meaningful speech sound|name=morphe}} nouns, demonstratives, adjectives, and verb roots in the Santali language.<ref name="A Glimpse of Santali Grammar, page 01">{{cite book |last1=Hembram |first1=Baghrai Charan |url=https://bharatavani.in/bharatavani/santali/book?post_category=book&id=A%20Glimpes%20of%20Santali%20Grammar |title=A Glimpse of Santali Grammar |date=2012 |publisher=Noha Trust Bahalda Mayurbhanj odisha |page=01 |language=en}}</ref> 
In other words, each Santali letter's name is, or is derived from, a common word or other element of the Santali language, and each letter's shape is derive from a simple drawing of the meaning of that word or other element. For example, the Santali letter “ol” (representing the sound /l/) is written with a shape originally derived from a simplified outline drawing of a hand holding a pen, because the name of this letter is also the Santali word for “writing.”