Gunjala Gondi Lipi 𑵶𑶍𑶕𑶀𑵵𑶊 𑵶𑶓𑶕𑶂𑶋 𑵵𑶋𑶅𑶋 | |
---|---|
Script type | |
Time period | c. 1750-Present |
Direction | Left-to-right |
Languages | Gondi |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Sister systems | Unknown, strong resemblance with Modi |
ISO 15924 | |
ISO 15924 | Gong(312),Gunjala Gondi |
Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Gunjala Gondi |
U+11D60–U+11DAF |
The Gunjala Gondi lipi or Gunjala Gondi script is a script used to write the Gondi language, a Dravidian language spoken by the Gond people of northern Telangana, eastern Maharashtra, southeastern Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. [1] Approximately a dozen manuscripts in the script were recovered from Gunjala, a Gond village in Adilabad district of Telangana, by a team of researchers from the University of Hyderabad, led by Professor Jayadheer Tirumala Rao. [2] The script and preliminary font were unveiled in early 2014. [3]
The manuscripts have been dated to approximately Year 1750, based on knowledge from Gondi pundits and researchers at the Center of Dalit and Adivasi Studies and Translation (CDAST). [4] The information contained in the manuscripts includes that of the names of the months and days, a horoscope chart, grammar, and numbers. Additionally, manuscripts were found on "knowledge of the seasons, history, and the Gondi code of ethics and literature." Of the historical information that has been discovered, the following cases have been reported: the 6th-7th century trade relationship between the Pardhan community and civilizations in Myanmar; the origins of the Indravelli mandal; the early eighteenth century rebellions of the Chandrapur Gond kings against the British, with the support of the Rohilla community, all of this among other pieces of information.
The characters themselves, while bearing resemblance to similar phonemes found in other Indian scripts, are in a different, "native" order, as the script starts with the letter "ya" instead of the traditional "ka" for other Indian scripts. The script includes 12 vowels and 25 consonants. [5]
The script has seen a very welcoming response by the various government agencies in Andhra Pradesh, at the national level, and local agencies in the region. [6] The existence of the manuscripts has allegedly been known for 5–9 years, but were not prioritized until 2013, when Prof. Jayadheer Tirumala Rao discovered that only four elders in the village were still able to read the script. Currently, approximately eighty students are able to read the script, with students devising stories and elder Kotnak Jangu writing an autobiography. Plans are in place for the expansion of the script to fifteen other government schools in villages with a high Gond population. A reader for the script in Telugu was released for Standard I students. [7] Efforts are being undertaken to get the script into the Unicode standard. In 2015, a Unicode proposal was written by Anshuman Pandey from the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. [8] The proposal was approved by the Unicode Technical Committee in November 2015. [9]
The Gunjala Gondi script was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2018 with the release of version 11.0. [10]
The Unicode block for Gunjala Gondi is U+11D60–U+11DAF and it contains 63 characters:
Gunjala Gondi [1] [2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
U+11D6x | 𑵠 | 𑵡 | 𑵢 | 𑵣 | 𑵤 | 𑵥 | 𑵧 | 𑵨 | 𑵪 | 𑵫 | 𑵬 | 𑵭 | 𑵮 | 𑵯 | ||
U+11D7x | 𑵰 | 𑵱 | 𑵲 | 𑵳 | 𑵴 | 𑵵 | 𑵶 | 𑵷 | 𑵸 | 𑵹 | 𑵺 | 𑵻 | 𑵼 | 𑵽 | 𑵾 | 𑵿 |
U+11D8x | 𑶀 | 𑶁 | 𑶂 | 𑶃 | 𑶄 | 𑶅 | 𑶆 | 𑶇 | 𑶈 | 𑶉 | 𑶊 | 𑶋 | 𑶌 | 𑶍 | 𑶎 | |
U+11D9x | 𑶐 | 𑶑 | 𑶓 | 𑶔 | 𑶕 | 𑶖 | 𑶗 | 𑶘 | ||||||||
U+11DAx | 𑶠 | 𑶡 | 𑶢 | 𑶣 | 𑶤 | 𑶥 | 𑶦 | 𑶧 | 𑶨 | 𑶩 | ||||||
Notes |
Telugu script, an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write the Telugu language, a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as well as several other neighbouring states. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. The Telugu script is also widely used for writing Sanskrit texts and to some extent the Gondi language. It gained prominence during the Eastern Chalukyas also known as Vengi Chalukya era. It shares extensive similarities with the Kannada script, as both of them evolved from the Bhattiprolu and Kadamba scripts of the Brahmi family.
The Gondi (Gōṇḍī) or Gond people, who refer to themselves as "Kōītōr", are an ethnolinguistic group in India. Their native language, Gondi, belongs to the Dravidian family. They are spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha. They are listed as a Scheduled Tribe for the purpose of India's system of reservation.
Telangana is a state in India situated in the southern-central part of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It was the eleventh largest state and the twelfth most populated state in India as per the 2011 census. On 2 June 2014, the area was separated from the northwestern part of United Andhra Pradesh as the newly formed state of Telangana, with Hyderabad as its capital. Telugu, one of the classical languages of India, is the most widely spoken and the primary official language of the state.
Uniscribe is the Microsoft Windows set of services for rendering Unicode-encoded text, supporting complex text layout. It is implemented in the dynamic link library USP10.DLL. Uniscribe was released with Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer 5.0. In addition, the Windows CE platform has supported Uniscribe since version 5.0.
Gondi (Gōṇḍī), natively known as Koitur, is a South-Central Dravidian language, spoken by about three million Gondi people, chiefly in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and by small minorities in neighbouring states. Although it is the language of the Gond people, it is highly endangered, with only one fifth of Gonds speaking the language. Gondi has a rich folk literature, examples of which are wedding songs and narrations. Gondi people are ethnically related to the Telugus.
The Tākri script is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. It is derived from the Sharada script formerly employed for Kashmiri. It is the sister script of Laṇḍā scripts. It has another variant Dogra Takri employed in Jammu region. There are numerous varieties present throughout Himachal Pradesh. Until the late 1940s, the adapted version of the script was the official script for writing Dogri in the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Throughout the history, different kingdoms of what now forms Himachal Pradesh used their own variety to maintain their records. The Takri script used in Sirmour in Himachal Pradesh and in the adjacent region of Jaunsar-Bawar in Uttarakhand has some distinction.
The Śāradā, Sarada or Sharada script is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. The script was widespread between the 8th and 12th centuries in the northwestern parts of Indian Subcontinent, for writing Sanskrit and Kashmiri. Although originally a signature Brahminical script created in the valley, it was more widespread throughout northwestern Indian subcontinent, and later became restricted to Kashmir, and is now rarely used, except by the Kashmiri Pandit community for religious purposes.
Komaram Bheem (1901–1940), alternatively Kumram Bheem, was a revolutionary leader in Hyderabad State of British India from the Gond tribes. Bheem, in association with other Gond leaders, led a protracted low intensity rebellion against the feudal Nizams of Hyderabad in the eastern part of the princely state during the 1930s, which contributed in the culmination of the Telangana Rebellion of 1946.
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Adilabad district is a district in the northern area of Telangana, India. It is known as the gateway district to South and Central India. The district's headquarters is the town of Adilabad.
Telugu language policy is a policy issue in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, with 84 percent of the population reporting Telugu as their first language in Andhra Pradesh prior to the creation of the State of Telangana. Telugu-language advocates decry a lack of incentivisation and government support for the language, and press for their linguistic rights for Telugu's greater recognition and promotion.
Telugu is a Unicode block containing characters for the Telugu, Gondi, and Lambadi languages of Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In its original incarnation, the code points U+0C01..U+0C4D were a direct copy of the Telugu characters A1-ED from the 1988 ISCII standard. The Devanagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam blocks were similarly all based on their ISCII encodings.
Gondi has typically been written in Devanagari script or Telugu script, but native scripts are in existence. A Gond by the name of Munshi Mangal Singh Masaram designed a Brahmi-based script in 1918, and in 2006, a native script that dates up to 1750 has been discovered by a group of researchers from the University of Hyderabad.
Gunjala is a village in the Adilabad district of Telangana, India.
Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district is a district in the Indian state of Telangana. The town of Asifabad is its district headquarters and kagaznagar as its largest town. It is named after Gond tribal leader Kumuram Bheem. It was earlier part of Adilabad district and it became a new district in 2016. The district share boundaries with Adilabad, Nirmal, Mancherial districts and with the state boundary of Maharashtra. It is the second most backward district in India, according to the 2018 NITI Aayog ranking.
Masaram Gondi is a Unicode block containing characters from the Masaram Gondi script, which was designed for writing Gondi in 1918 by Munshi Mangal Singh Masaram, a Gond from Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh, India.
Gunjala Gondi is a Unicode block containing characters of Gunjala Gondi script used for writing the Adilabad dialect of the Gondi language.
Motiravan Kangali was an Indian linguist and author from the Gond community. He is known for his work on the origins and development of the Gondi language, and particularly for his creation of a script for it. Kangali authored Gondi dictionaries in English, Hindi and Marathi. He also aided efforts for the standardization and preservation of Gondi grammar while authoring several books on Gond society, culture and religion.
Sakini Ramachandraih was an Indian vocal folk singer and Dhol player from the Bhadradri town in the Telangana State in India. He was known for his expertise in "Kanchumelam-Kanchuthalam" an art form particularly identified with the Koya tribal community in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. This art form is almost on the verge of extinction and Ramachandraih was the only surviving practitioner of the art who could narrate the history of the sacred festival "Sammakka Sarakka Jathara" in both the Telugu and Koya languages in its totality. In the year 2022, the Government of India honoured Ramachandraiah by conferring the Padma Shri award for his contributions to art.
Jayadheer Tirumala Rao is a professor, poet, and historian from Telangana, India. He has been researching about tribal people and their culture for more than 35 years.