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Language is the vehicle of any culture and culture is the lifeline for sublimity of any society. Nothing could be said for sure as to how language came into existence Possibly this is in existence since man arrived on the face of the earth It is therefore as old as the human species. Most human activity depends upon involvement of more than one person. A common language enables human beings to work together in an infinite variety of ways. Language has made development of all human activity possible and so is the development of science, religion, commerce, governance, art, literature and philosophy. The language learning process is deliberate and conscious which includes sound pattern, words and grammatical structures. The people of India speak many languages and dialects which mostly are varieties of about 14 principal languages. There is a wide variance in the number of people speaking each language. Again some of the languages are called "tribal" or "aboriginal" but the number of persons who use them may be larger than those that speak some of the European languages. Indian schools teach 58 different languages. The country has newspapers in 87 languages, 71 radio programs and films in 15 languages. The Indian languages belong to four language families; Indo-European, Dravidian, Mon-Khmer and Sino-Tibetan. Indo-European and Dravidian languages are used by a large majority of India's population. The language family divide roughly into geographic groups. In the northern and central India the Indo -European group of languages is spoken mainly while in the Southern India the Dravidian group of language is spoken. Some ethnic groups in Assam and other parts of eastern India speak languages of Mon-Khmer group. People of the northern Himalayan region and near the Burmese border speak Sino Tibetan languages. Speakers of 54 different languages of the Indo-European family make up about three-quarters of India's population. Twenty Dravidian languages are spoken by nearly a quarter of the people. Speaker of Mon-Khmer languages and 98 Sino -Tibetan languages together make up about 2 percent of the population. The changes in and the development of most of the Indian languages is a continuous process and introduction of new words is an ongoing system of development where adoption of foreign vocabulary from another Indian language is not shied off. While the above jugglery of statistics is of academic importance the language spoken by 8.29% of Indian population is of endemic importance. Of this the most researched is the Mundari group of languages spoken by the Santals of Jharkhand and its nearby areas.It was the missionaries who started writing their language at first with the Bengali script followed by Roman Script aided with some diacritical marks. It is said that the Santals are more tenacious of their language than many of other tribes to whom they are racially allied. Thousands years of foreign aggression on this land has not corrupted their language. Troisi has complemented this when he said" They have managed to keep their language in so far as their grammar and the agglutinating principle is concerned, astonishingly free from foreign influence. Their vocabulary, however, has met with a different fate. A lot of words from other languages have been adopted and adapted to Santal ideas and linguistic rules"
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The Cause as to why it was left out
Cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious factors are the ingredients and material for a common bondage for the building of a society. These are sources of solidarity and catalytic agents for the development. India being a country of diversity, the recognition and fostering of different identities by the ruling sectors and by the indigenous elite with perpetual similar school of thought, ethnicity serves as an element of support for hegemony of dominant classes and of the State. This also contributes to form strategies, policies and the continuance of the class domination. Researchers feel that diversity becomes particularly "subversive" in the realm of culture where the resilience of indigenous styles demonstrates the limits of hegemonic forces. As a result thereof in a number of multi-ethnic societies, the language of indigenous inhabitants and ethnic minorities are marginalised or their existence is denied at the expense of forcing the language of these in power as the official one. The reasons are understandable in the context of the fact that while the language of the neighbors of the Santals continued to make progresses the language was left defined as alien and the one spoken by the "primitive man". As a result thereof, the rich language with a emotive linkage with large populace was apathetically left to the mercy of history for obvious political reasons after independence and prior to that period it was the continuous brush with the authorities to retain their ethnicity which had frozen it in the embryo stage for a painfully long period. Indians, as a people, are immune to the presence of our aboriginal population as forming an element distinct from the ordinary body politic.

As a contribution of the British psyche, the present day Indians have a tendency to look upon the Indigenous people particularly living in isolation and self contained communities as a distinct group both culturally as well as ethnically. They are looked upon as lesser human beings in the Indian notion of caste. This has affected the man to man relation and aboriginal continued to be a subject matter of anthropological dissection. On the other way around, development is a two way process and not all the responsibility can be bestowed on the State to uplift and make available the gains of development to every individual people unless they are receptive and make sincere efforts to buy mileage out of the developmental cycle. Here the concept of ethnicity as nurtured by the Santal psyche played truant. They are at times irrationally alarmed to judge that at any new whiff of fresh air to be harmful to their culture and as such is best abhorred. The language as also the people had therefore had a long and lonely journey down the lanes of history where destiny played a decisive role. Truly this again is a santali trait.
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The Santals are great storytellers. The Santal folktales are symbolic of their character, traditions, religious beliefs and social customs. In the daily life of a Santal the folklore, riddles, and puzzles have very important role. After nightfall, the children gather round the grandmother or the grandfather and hear the oft-repeated folk stories. Similarly, in the grazing grounds, the Santal boys sit together and one of them recite one story and then another does the same. The young girls assemble for some festival in a santal house and one of them refers to a story and the others will ask her to recite the tale. In this way from generation to generation folk stories of the santals have been repeated and are preserved. The folktales cut across the barriers of the provinces and it is strange that some of them one could hear in Assam or in Kerala. The stories give Santals a feeling of self-confidence in his relations with the outside world. Therefore in most of stories the weak triumph over the strong. The youngest son or daughter prospers, the eldest son passes his life by shouldering responsibilities alone while his wife suffers. The poor little sister of the household with the help of frogs and snakes manages to accomplish the task set by her jealous sister in law. The simple outwits the clever. The poor prosper and the wealthy lose their reaches. Interestingly, animals account for a large number of stories where they adopt the role of clever men, jealous wife or a lovelorn suitor to compare with the basic human instincts. The language of such a massive strength was however limited to the spoken world. The study of their language as an element of expression of their culture was done for the anthropological interests alone. People of other castes pick up their language only to be accessible to them in business matters for the barter of goods or for employing them as agricultural or farm labourers. Further, as a two way channel the adivasis also found it beneficial to know the language of their cultivating neighbourers. However all these were temporary phases for limited transactions and were blissfully forgotten with the passage of time. Fortunately therefore the Santals maintained the century old traditions of story telling for the bulk of their cultural inputs continued to be transmitted so for generations.

The real documentation of the Santali language came into being in the early nineteenth century. Till that time it was a matter of great surprise as to how a homogenous group of people who jealously guard the flavour of earthly culture could afford to do without a script of their own. The Santals speak an independent language known as Santali. It belongs to the Munda family of languages, which Peter W.Schmidt classified as belonging to the Austro-Asiatic language group. Santali is the most important of all the Munda group of languages. Correrson has characterized it as a remarkably uniform language. Its grammar developed by Skrefsrud was published in 1873 and this is till the leading authority and is unsurpassed in correctness and consistent orthography. The Santals are the largest tribe in India to retain an aboriginal language to the present day. They have to alarge extent adopted the Roman Script, using certain diacritical marks to denote sounds differing from those which those letters have in English. It is tragical that the Santals who are the most researched had no records of their own. The records were initiated on their behalf by the ethnographic accounts collected by travelers, missionaries and British administrators. E. G. Mann who was an Assistant Commissioner in the newly formed district of Santal Paraganas titled the first book on Santals published in 1867. Carstairs, L.S.S.O'Malley, Hunter and Archer, which contain good accounts of the Santals, their land, customs and habits, followed this. But the Christian missionaries, who had left invaluable data on the Santals and were the first to initiate an interest in the Santal Language and culture, made the greatest impact.
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The question as to why the Santals could not develop their own language has long been researched. In the earlier times anthropologists usually perceived tribes as territorial groups adhereing to oral traditions that is, groups that do not have scripts or written texts. The constant intermingling with other cultures not only resulted in the encroachments into the erstwhile territories of the tribes as there is not only encroachments into the erstwhile territories of the tribes, but there is much more of the creation of sectors for interaction, intermingling and exchange between tribes and others. The Santals have been persistenent and made sustained attempt to create and revive a script for this language that is called Olciki. This is almost a singular example of a tribe claiming to have a script of their own primarily because of their large numbers, the significance of their participation in polity and their very rich linguistic and literary heritage. ( Bhattacharya/2003/Tribes in India ; Process of Transition ) The Santals are painfully resigned to the fact that their fate have been subjected to age old tendencies of manipulations and so is their language. But it eventually contributed to the efforts in crystallization of the ' identity' from the perspective of the mainstream in which they have been helped by the serious inrests of the missionaries, scholars and administrators in exploring the depths of Santali language. They understand well that unless a political commitment asserts itself they would continue to be at the mercy of the alien culture and language. They feel to have been slighted for no rhyme or reason. However, owing to their subtle tendency of being outwardly looking and a deadly positive guided by an orthodox attitude, they have enormous expectations from the new set up of having a separate and independent state. This has, for the present, attributed them with some identity and they on their part have reciprocated with attaching a sense of belonging to the change. A spirit of impatience however is apparent, as the populace having long been put to neglect desires results instantly. However, the concept is not altogether misplaced. Change in the present political scenario in the country takes time. However, this can be hastened if priorities are deciphered intelligently. Reasonably the following areas needs effective intervention :

(a) There is an urgent need to look for primary teachers from the local populace who can undertake their jobs with a sense of devotion. Existing teachers are required to be trained in the local language so that they can efficiently impart education. There is also a need to train the parents of the school going children to provide adequate infrastructural support to the children in their studies at home. The parents need to be persuaded on ensuring that they send their wards to schools regularly and there is need for interaction between the parents and the teachers at regular intervals.

(b) OL -CHIKI script invented by Pandit Raghunath Murmu is becoming popular day by day among Santals for its emotional reasons. However, 'Roman', ' Devnagri' and 'Bengali' scripts continue to be in use till a greater consensus emerges.

(c) Effects of education and the benefits thereof are communicated by undertaking wide publicity campaigns and for that matter help of NGOs in conducting seminars be obtained.

(d) In the regional language text books as contained in the curriculum; the teacher should know the tribal language and should be able to explain the contents of the text books in the local languages.

(g) The gloriuos history of Santals are important for inclusion in the text books but alongside the history of the country should be put in proper perspective and be disseminated with the same amount of pride that is attached to the tribal history. A strong and persuasive attitude should be adopted in teaching arithmetic so that the benefits of the subject are adopted at ease in the daily life.

(h) A serious and practical approach may be undertaken so that the local language could be adopted for all government matters especially when the government interacts with the members of the public. Higher echelons of the bureaucracy are required to be trained appropriately to transact their daily businesses in the local languages. In the initial stages the Government may publish a periodical journal in the local language to update the masses about the developmental activities undertaken. A close watch may be kept on conduits and to the extent possible, all activities of the Government be entrusted to the locals so that the sense of belonging with the masses is maintained.

(i) A comprehensive and practicable approach be undertaken so as to make available the benefits of the judiciary to the masses so that the handicap of the language does not deter them from approaching and appreciating the systematic and time tested judicial system.

(j) The progress achieved by other sister states in the country in various developmental activities be conveyed so that a more systematic and purposeful lifestyle becomes a tendency with the masses.

(k) A scientific approach and benefits of perspective planning in all stages of life be explained through short films, light literature and in the form of anecdotes.
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