Bhumij language

Bhumij is an Austroasiatic language belonging to the Munda subfamily, related to Ho, Mundari, and Santali, primarily spoken by Bhumij peoples in the Indian states Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal. As per the 2011 census, only 27,506 people out of 911,349 Bhumij people spoke Bhumij as their mother tongue, as most Bhumijas have shifted to one of the regional dominant languages. Thus the language is considered an extremely endangered language.

History
Bhumij speakers have traditionally lived throughout the Kherwarian area in the modern states of Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal. While spoken by very few Bhumij people today, it was much more widespread historically. Those who lived east in Dhalbhum mostly shifted to the Bengali language and lost their local tongue, while those who lived around the Chota Nagpur Plateau held on to their language. However, the number of Bhumij speakers has significantly declined since the early 20th century. This decline attributed to the classification of Bhumij as a dialect of Mundari language and the language replacement within the Bhumj nation.

Bhumij was mainly an oral language until the development of the Ol Onal script by the Ol Guru Mahendra Nath Sardar between 1981-1992.

According to Ethnologue Bhumij is dialect of Mundari language. Bhumij tribal people have protested for greater recognition and government funding for Bhumij-language education and public broadcasting resources.

Geographic distribution
The highest concentrations of Bhumij language speakers are in East Singhbhum and Seraikela Kharsawan districts of Jharkhand, the Jangal mahals region of West Bengal (Jhargram, Bankura and Purulia districts) and Mayurbhanj district of Odisha.

Official status
In January 2019, Bhumij was accorded the status of second language in the state of Jharkhand.

States like Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar have a large number of Bhumij people, yet the Bhumij language has not been given the status of a state language in these states so far.

Writing system
Bhumij language has been written in Ol Onal script, invented between 1981 and 1992 by Mahendra Nath Sardar. The Bengali script, Odia script and Devanagari are also used to write the language.