Ol Chiki Script

The Ol Chiki script was invented by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in the first half of the 20^thcentury . The meaning of Ol Chiki is the writing symbol or the writing script. This script is also known as Ol Cemet, Ol script, Ol ciki Script and also Ol. In Santali,Ol means writing and Cemet means learning . So, Ol Cemet means The learning of writing. Indeed, Ol Cemet is the title of the book, written by Pandit Raghunath Murmu for teaching the Ol Chiki to the beginners. Santali is a language with its own special characteristics, and has a literature which dates back to the beginning of the 15th century and since then, it has been in various phases of its development in the subsequent centuries. Language is an instrument of group culture and identity. The script is a mechanism to propagate and preserve a language, which is necessary for the very survival of cultural communities. Naturally, he felt that Santals with their rich cultural heritage and tradition, also need a separate script to preserve and promote their language. Towards this goal, he wrote over 150 books covering wide spectrum of subjects such as grammar, novels, drama, poetry, and story in Ol Chiki as a part of his extensive programme for culturally upgrading the Santal community. Darege Dhan, Sidhu-Kanhu, "Bidu Chandan" and "Kherwal Bir" are among the most acclaimed of his works.

Ol Chiki is alphabetic, and does not share any of the syllabic properties of the other Indic scripts. It is used for writing Santali which belongs to the Munda group languages of the Austro-Asiatic family. One of the interesting feature of the Ol Chiki script is that it makes use of signs and symbols long familiar to the Santals. The very ingenuity in shaping the symbols of the letters and arranging the letters in the script has been greatly helpful in transmission of the script. A large number of words in the Santali language are derived from natural sounds. Letters of Ol Chiki script are also derived from the physical environment and what surrounds the people - hills, rivers, trees, birds, bees, plough, sickle - the list is endless

On commenting about Ol Chiki, Zide (1996)  observes, One ingenious - scientific and unique feature of Ol Cemet that certainly increases the efficiency of writing Santali is the deglottalizing ohot This neatly preserves the morphophonemic relationship between the glottalized and the voiced equivalent: The former occurs in words at certain word-internal preconsonantal junctures, whereas the latter occurs prevocalically, but never morpheme-initially in these alterations. Thus ok is the name of a letter that represents both [k]and [g]. Two further diacritics include a horizontal loop added at the top right of the character for aspiration of consonants, and a raised dot for vowel nasalization.

Here is true type Ol Chiki free fonts. This is given as it is without any warranty.I developed three type Ol Chiki fonts. Key board mapping and other details are given. You can down load this fonts from here.

click here to download

When you Left-click on the font Download file here  and  a "save file" screen will pop up. Then select the folder into which you want to save the zipped file. You save it one folder.
With WinZip, unzip the font. Please note down the folder where you saved the unzipped file.
 Now you go to the Windows 95/98/NT Desktop

Step 1.  Double-click the "My Computer"
Step 2. The "My Computer" window will open.
Step 3. Double-click the "Control Panel"
Step 4. The "Control Panel" window will open. Step 5. Double-click the "Fonts"
Step 6. The "Fonts" window will open showing you the installed fonts.  Step 7. Click on "File" and when the pop-down window appears select "Install New Fonts". 

Step 8. The "Add Fonts" window will appear.

Then this default window will come. Now navigate the folder where you have saved the unzipped file. After the font is loaded, they will be shown in the white text box labelled "List of Fonts". You can click on the  font, press the OK button. The font(s) will then be installed. Then close the all windows and start Microsoft word and start working. Before you can install new version of the same font, you must delete the old font using the delete window.