Learn Ol Chiki

Ol Chiki scripts has 30 letters out. The roman transliteration is given below the Ol Chiki letters. First column consist of vowels remaning consists of consonant and semiconsonants.

o    T    g    f     l
A           AT           AG         ANG           AL

a    k    j    m     w
AA         AAK        AAJ        AAM          AAW

i    s    h    Q     r
I             ISH           IH           INY         IR

u    c    D    M     y
U           UCH        UD          UNN         UY

e    p    d    n    z
E             EP           EDD        EN          ERR

O    t    b    v    H
O           OTT          OB          ONG       OH

Consonant :

T, f, l, k, m, w, s, h, Q, r, c, M, y, p, d, n, z, t, v these are the full consonant used for writing Ol Chiki. The character   H  is combined with other consonants to generate additional consonants.



Semi Consonant:

There are four semi-consonants, viz.,   g, j,D,b.   Ahad ( x ) is used to make them full consonants if they are not followed by a vowel. If they are followed by a vowel, then the vowel itself is sufficient to make them full consonants. Again, the pronunciation of semi-consonant  is used by all Santals in their speech all over India.  


Vowels:

Ol Chiki character set gives only 6 vowels ( o, a, i, u, e, O ). Gahla tudag( " . " ) is used to generate the additional vowels from   o. , a. , e.  The combination of mu  tudag  and gahla  tudag gives rise to mu-gahla tudag.



Diacritics:

There is five basic diacritics Mu tudag( " N "), Gahla tudag( " . " ), Rela( " ~ "  ),  Pharka( " _ " ) and Ahad ( x).  The combination of mu tudag  and gahla tudag gives rise to another diacritic mu - gahla  tudag( " : " ), which has  frequent use in writing. Pharka is sometimes used to separate closely pronounced words. It is particularly used to show that a vowel does not get combined with  the semi-consonant preceding it. That is, a semi-consonant does not become full consonant even though it  is followed by  a vowel as there is a Pharka between them. Rela is used to lengthen the pronunciation of vowels, i.e.,  it used to generate long vowels.




Punctuation:

The main punctuation mark used is the single vertical line. This mark as end of sentences. In Santali, it is called "muchad" and also there is another frequent used diacritic is comma "," called  "keched".   Ranal – a grammer book written by Pandit Raghunath Murmu mentioned about this two punctuations and name also extracted from that book.


Digits:

Ol Chiki use decimal system, 0-9 basic digits  are   1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9



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