79. Gondi

(Gōndi)

Gondi is a Central Dravidian language with about 2 million speakers mainly in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattishgarh.
Few Gondi speakers are able to write their language and there is no written literature in Gondi. There is a rich oral tradition though. When written, the Devanagari or Telugu scripts are generally used for Gondi, while the Gond script, which was created by Munshi Mangal Singh Masaram of Balaghat district, Madhya Pradesh in 1928, is little used today.

Gondi alphabet (1928)

This is Munshi Mangal Singh Masaram's script for Gondi

Gond alphabet (2010)

This is a script for Gondi devised by Professor Prasanna Sree of Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India


Information provided by Professor Prasanna Sree of Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India

Link

Information about the Bagatha people and language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondi_language
Details of the Gondi script
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3841.pdf