Mundari language

Mundari (Mundari Bani: 𞓧𞓟𞓨𞓜𞓕𞓣𞓚, romanised: Muṇḍārī, IPA: Mundari pronunciation: [muɳɖaːriː]) is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken by the Munda tribes native to the Chota Nagpur Plateau region in India with over 1.5 million native speakers. It is closely related to Ho and Santali, and along with Bhumij, is one of the four major Munda languages. Mundari is an additional official language in the state of Jharkhand, and has significant speakers in eastern Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal and northern Rangpur Division of Bangladesh. In India, Mundari is recognised as a significant minority language. However, its speakers are often bilingual in Hindi or the local state language.

Mundari is an agglutinative language characterised by its complex morphology, where multiple affixes are added to roots to convey grammatical relationships. While historically transmitted through oral tradition, Mundari is now written using several scripts, most notably Mundari Bani, invented by Rohidas Singh Nag specifically to write Mundari. It has also been written in the Devanagari, Odia, Bengali, and Latin writing systems.

Mundari has been classified as a vulnerable language according to the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. It remains a subject of extensive linguistic study due to its unique grammatical structure and its role in understanding the migration patterns of Austroasiatic speakers in South Asia.