Script
Mundari Bani — our own script, our own identity
This script was not made by any king or government — it was created by Rohidas Singh Nag of Mayurbhanj, starting as a schoolboy drawing letters with mud on walls. It is a true alphabet: every letter has its own sound, there are no ligatures, and it is written left to right. Every word in Mundari Bani on this site is also given in Roman letters, so that everyone can read it.
Schoolboy Rohidas Singh Nag began making his first letters with mud on walls.
The first set of 35 letters was ready.
The script was simplified to 27 letters and published; it was later presented before Odisha Chief Minister Janaki Ballabh Patnaik.
The first book in Mundari Bani — handwritten — was printed.
The Bharat Munda Samaj and the Mundari Samaj Sanwar Jamda revised the script together with Nag. This 2008 form is the one in Unicode — letters in books older than that may look slightly different.
In September 2022 the “Nag Mundari” block, U+1E4D0–U+1E4FF, was included in Unicode 15.0. On this site the font is kept inside the site itself, so Bani shows on every device.
First, read these words
These Bani forms are attested in the sources:
| 𞓧𞓟𞓨𞓜𞓕𞓣𞓚 | Muṇḍārī | Mundari (the language) |
| 𞓧𞓟𞓨𞓜𞓕𞓣𞓚 𞓗𞓕𞓨𞓚 | Mundari Bani | The Mundari script |
| 𞓞𞓐𞓪𞓐 𞓖𞓕𞓦𞓕𞓣 | horo jagar | “The language of human beings” — the language's own name |
| 𞓤𞓔𞓦𞓕 | Eṅga | Mother |
| 𞓕𞓭𞓑𞓟 | Apu | Father |
| 𞓐𞓪𞓕𞓭 | oṛā | House |
| 𞓗𞓟𞓒𞓟𞓔 | buluŋ | Salt |
Note: in this script there is no “hidden vowel” inside a consonant — where there is no vowel, no vowel letter is written at all. That is why buluŋ reads cleanly without any vowel signs.
The 27 letters — five rows
Each row begins with a vowel, and the name of every consonant in that row begins with the same vowel — like the O row: O, OP, OL, OY, ONG. Click any letter and its sound and details will appear on the right (below, on mobile).
Digits — Leneka (0–9)
Ten (10) is written with two digits — 𞓱𞓰, Gel — in the decimal system, just like in English.
The 5 tone marks (diacritics)
A real text — Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 (first, in Mundari Bani)
In Mundari Bani:
𞓛𞓐𞓗𞓤𞓨 𞓞𞓐𞓪𞓐 𞓢𞓐𞓢𞓤𞓮 𞓧𞓕𞓨𞓕𞓣𞓔 𞓐𞓜𞓐𞓙 𞓐𞓢𞓝𞓚𞓓𞓕𞓣 𞓢𞓐𞓣𞓤𞓓𞓕𞓦 𞓑𞓕𞓚𞓝𞓚 𞓗𞓕𞓗𞓐𞓝 𞓣𞓤 𞓖𞓐𞓨𞓐𞓧 𞓖𞓐𞓣𞓐𞓔𞓤𞓝𞓤 𞓕𞓡𞓕𞓨𞓕𞓡 𞓐𞓜𞓐𞓦 𞓗𞓐𞓣𞓕𞓗𞓐𞓣𞓚 𞓨𞓕𞓧𞓕𞓢𞓕𞓨𞓕
In Roman letters:
Soben hoḷo ko manaraŋ oḍoḥ oktiyar koreyaʔ paiti babot re jonom joroŋgete aḍanaḍ oḍoʔ borabori namakana.
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” — This Bani text is taken from the Wikipedia article on Mundari.