Greet all my Santhali brothers & sisters: CM

Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday expressed her best wishes to the Santhali brothers and sisters on the occasion of Santhali Language Day.

In her post on X (formerly Twitter), Banerjee said: “I greet all my Santhali brothers and sisters on the occasion of Santhali language day. I also pay respect to all those whose long fight for the language and efforts managed to secure recognition.”

After coming to power, the Mamata Banerjee government has brought significant development in the lives of tribal people. Socio-economic changes have taken place among the tribal people through a host of social security schemes introduced and run by the Bengal government.

The Bengal government under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee had released the trilingual Olchiki dictionary. There was a demand by the Santhal community to prepare a proper trilingual (Santhali-English-Bengali) dictionary for the preservation, protection and development of the said language in the state. It was the Mamata Banerjee government that gave special stress on the overall development of the tribal community.

The Tribal Development department provided all infrastructural support and guidance to the Santhali Academy in this endeavour. A trilingual dictionary in Olchiki script (Santhali-English-Bengali) has been composed by the Academy under the guidance and supervision of the experts of Santhali Academy. It is a comprehensive dictionary with 24,550 Santhali words in Olchiki script, Santhali alphabets in the dictionary and numerical in Santhali from 1-100, measurement of mass, length and volume used in Santhali, names of the month and day in the Santhali language along with names of the colours in the Santhali language along with scientific (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Geography, History etc) terminologies in Santhali and English language, idioms in Santhali language with their uses and familial relations in Santhali. The combination of the three languages — Santhali (in Olchiki), English and Bengali along with the usage of Santhali words has given a new dimension to the dictionary.

Meanwhile, it may be mentioned that Chief Minister Banerjee pays homage to the language martyrs on International Mother Language Day every year on February 21.