Gondi has typically been written in
Devanagari script
Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ancient '' Brāhmī'' script. It is one of the official scripts of India an ...
or
Telugu script
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 ...
, 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.
Nonetheless, most Gonds are unaware of their well developed language and do not use any script now. The
Gunjala Gondi Lipi has witnessed a surge in prominence, and well-supported efforts are being undertaken in villages of northern
Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...
to widen its usage.
Munshi Mangal Singh Masaram script
In 1918, Munshi Mangal Singh Masaram, a Gond from Balaghat district of
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...
, designed a script for Gondi based on Brahmi characters found in other descendant Indian scripts. However, this script is not widely used, even though a few publications have been made available by his followers and supporters.
Unicode
Masaram Gondi script was added to the
Unicode
Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
Standard in June, 2017 with the release of version 10.0.
The Unicode block for Masaram Gondi is U+11D00–U+11D5F:
Gunjala Gondi Lipi
This script is the subject of ongoing linguistic and historical research. Discovered manuscripts have been dated up to 1750, and discuss information from as early as the 6th–7th centuries. Much of the information reveals independence initiatives by the Gond Rajas and encounters with the British. Also, the names of the days of the week, the months, the Gond festivals have been discovered in this Gondi script.
Unicode
Gunjala Gondi lipi was added to the
Unicode
Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
Standard in June, 2018 with the release of version 11.0.
The Unicode block for Gunjala Gondi is U+11D60–U+11DAF:
References
External links
Gondi script
{{list of writing systems
Abugida writing systems
Gondi language
Languages of Madhya Pradesh