Testifying the revival of Adivasi scripts, linguists on Saturday unveiled a wedding invitation written in the Gondi script.
According to Jayadhir Tirumala Rao, a visiting professor at the Center for Dalit and Adivasi Studies (CDAST) at University of Hyderabad here, the script came to light only in 2006 following a State-Centre coordinated survey.
In 2010, there were only four people who could use the script.
The number has now swelled to hundreds after efforts were made by linguists to revive it, Prof. Rao said.
“Adivasi scripts are all endangered. We discovered the Gondi script in a few manuscripts five years ago. Members of the Gondi community are now learning the script,” he said.
Prof. Rao and his team of researchers, including R.S. Sarraju, V. Krishna (both of the Department of Hindi at UoH), G. Manoja of Palamuru University and font designer Sridhara Murty Srikantam, are also working on bringing out a font for Gondi.
The wedding invitation was dubbed the first attempt to spread word about the script’s revival. Prof. Rao also said the script could be extended to speakers of Koya, another Adivasi language.
The Gunjala-Koyatur script is named after Gunjala village of Adilabad district where Gondi language users reside.
Prof. Rao and his team also sought to clarify that Gondi, and another script called ‘Modi’, were different. It was earlier suggested in some quarters that the scripts may be the same, given that they appear similar. ‘Modi’ is a script that is said to be used for accounting purposes in Maharashtra.
Adivasi scripts are all endangered. We discovered the Gondi script in a few manuscripts five years ago. Members of the Gondi community are now learning the script
Prof. Jayadhir Tirumala Rao
Linguist
