When you think about languages in India, you probably think of Hindi. Yes, it’s the most widely spoken language in the massive South Asian country. But India is the world’s fourth-most linguistically diverse nation, with around 450 distinct languages within its borders. Many are Indo–European languages related to Hindi, while many others are from the Dravidian family native to southern India. Sino–Tibetan and Kra–Dai languages can be found in northeastern India, and a few divergent members of the Austroasiatic family—native to Vietnam and Cambodia—are even found in India.
That brings us to the Munda languages, the westernmost Austroasiatic languages. Collectively, the Munda languages, of which there exist approximately 20, are spoken by about 9 million people, making them a relatively influential group of languages. It is worth noting, however, that a single language, Santali, accounts for more than 75% of all Munda language speakers. Unfortunately, many Munda languages are small and poorly attested, and even the bigger ones, like Santali, are ignored on the international stage, despite their importance within India. This has led to a lack of translation services for the Munda languages—something that we at TranslationServices.com are endeavoring to change with our new Munda translation team.
If you’re looking for professional translation for a Munda language, reach out today to see a free quote!
Exploring India’s unique Munda languages
The Munda languages are mostly concentrated in northeastern India, with speakers living in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and West Bengal, as well as the sovereign nation of Bangladesh. Korku, the absolute westernmost Munda language, is found as far west as Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The biggest Munda languages, in order of number of speakers, are Santali (7.4 million speakers), Mundari (1.6 million speakers), Ho (1.4 million speakers), Korku (727,000 speakers), and Sora (410,000 speakers).
The Munda languages distinguish not two but three grammatical numbers: singular, dual, and plural. They also grammatically differentiate animate and inanimate objects and use different words for “we” depending on whether the listener is included in the utterance. All Munda languages demonstrate a strict adherence to a subject-object-verb word order, with placing the verb at the end of a sentence. They’re also case-heavy, with Munda languages typically featuring seven to eight noun cases that communicate grammatical information about how a noun is used in a sentence. Verbs are marked for both subject and object, with suffixes for the subject and infixes for the object, meaning the object marker comes first.
Our team is passionate about translating Munda languages
Not many translation companies can proudly declare they have a Munda translation team—but we can! We owe it all to our hard-working and passionate Munda translators, native speakers of the various Munda languages we’re so proud to serve. From Bangladesh all the way to Maharashtra, we’ve located the best translators we could find for Santali, Mundari, Ho, Korku, Sora, and other Munda languages, and they’re eager to share their language expertise to help you further your projects.
Our Munda translators work both with translation into Munda languages and from Munda languages, so whether you’re an Indian native looking to communicate with people from other countries or someone from abroad who wants to cultivate a new audience in India, our team is here to help. In addition to our dedication to quality and accuracy, we also pride ourselves on our flexibility, which is why we’ve worked so hard to find translators of Munda languages who specialize in different types of translation, such as corporate translation, scholarly translation, literary translation, and localization. And it doesn’t stop there—we’ve even located Munda translators who have expertise in supplementary fields, which means we can even translate content with technical language.
We love providing reliable translation services to and from the Munda languages. If that’s what you’re looking for, get in touch today!