The most common language in India is Hindi—most people could have probably guessed that. You may have also heard of other major languages spoken in India, such as Tamil or Bengali. But did you know that this South Asian powerhouse nation is home to more than 450 languages? Most languages spoken in India are Indo–European, like Hindi, or Dravidian, like Tamil—but the country’s northeast is characterized by remarkable linguistic diversity from several different language families. That’s where Santali comes in.
With more than 7.6 million native speakers, according to the 2011 Indian census, Santali is a major language in this vibrant corner of the world. It’s been included as one of India’s 22 scheduled languages, affording it privileges that most of India’s indigenous languages can’t enjoy, and it’s been declared an official language by two Indian states, namely Jharkhand and West Bengal. However, Santali remains a minority language, with larger languages in the region, such as Bengali or Odia, posing a threat to the language’s future wellbeing. This is reflected in the comparatively low availability of translation resources for Santali, but here at TranslationServices.com, we want to give Santali the recognition it deserves with our new Santali translation team.
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What makes Santali so special?
With native speakers found in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, Santali is a relatively influential language in the region, with a notable presence in the Indian states of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Tripura, Bihar, and Mizoram. But it’s not like Hindi, Bengali, or most other major languages in India—rather, Santali comes from the Austroasiatic language family, otherwise concentrated in Vietnam and Cambodia. In fact, Santali is the third-biggest language in the family, following Vietnamese and Khmer.
Santali comes from a special Austroasiatic branch called the Munda family, the western-most group of Austroasiatic languages. It uses a default word order of subject-object-verb, which it probably adopted from the completely unrelated languages that surround it, as most other Austroasiatic languages are subject-verb-object, like English. Also unlike Vietnamese and Khmer, which are highly isolating languages with minimal inflection, Santali uses a number of suffixes to express grammatical information, including three numbers (singular, dual, and plural) and eight cases. Like Dravidian languages, Santali also has separate words for “we” with the listener included and “we” with the listener excluded, a feature not found in major Austroasiatic languages like Vietnamese, Khmer, or Mon.
Our Santali translators draw on extensive experience to deliver high-quality translations.
We take pride in the high quality of our Santali translations, which come courtesy of our many talented Santali translators. As native speakers of this unique Austroasiatic language, our translators are passionate about breaking down language barriers and helping forge deeper connections between the Santal people and the rest of the world. They use their language skills to produce high-quality translations both to and from Santali, and since we’ve hired translators from all over the Santali-speaking world, from various states in India as well as parts of Bangladesh and Nepal, they also represent numerous dialects of Santali.
Indeed, we care about flexibility on our Santali translation team, and not just in the dialects we cover—we’ve also worked to ensure that our translators cover a wide range of translation domains. That way, whether you’re looking for Santali business translation, Santali academic translation, Santali literary translation, Santali localization, or any other type of Santali translation, you can find what you’re looking for with our diverse team. Many of our Santali translators are even experts in different fields, which means they can seamlessly translate even esoteric or highly technical documents with language that laypeople wouldn’t understand.
Why not get started with your Santali translation project today? Send us a message telling us what your vision is, and we’ll show you what our Santali translators can do.