Tribal Languages of Jharkhand are either the scheduled languages belonging to the Indo-Aryan family or their dialects or those of the Munda and the Dravidian language families. There are several tribal languages of Jharkhand, among which certain are dominating the region. Even in recent times, to conciliate the tribal people of the state, Jharkhand government has made acquaintance with 4 prime tribal languages obligatory for its government executives. And the four tribal languages are Kurukh, Mundari, Santali and Ho. The languages are discussed in brief below:
Kurukh Language
Kurukh is a Dravidian language and it is spoken by almost two million Oraon and Kisan tribal people of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal. Some Kurukh speakers are also residing in South India. This language, related to Brahui and Malto, has been enlisted in UNESCO"s list of endangered languages.
Mundari Language
Mundari is a Munda language of the Austro-Asiatic language family spoken by the Munda people of eastern India; predominantly Assam and Jharkhand. It is closely related to Santali language. Mundari Bani, a script to write Mundari, was invented by Rohidas Singh Nag. It has also been written in Devanagari, Odia, Bengali and Latin languages.
Santali Language
Santali is the most widely-spoken language of the Munda subfamily of the Austro-Asiatic languages. It is spoken mainly in the Indian states of Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Odisha, Tripura and West Bengal. It is a recognized regional language of India per the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. Earlier, Santali was mainly an oral language until Ol Chiki was developed by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in 1925. Ol Chiki is alphabetic, which shares none of the syllabic properties of the other Indic scripts; it is widely used to write Santali in modern days.
Ho Language
Ho is a Munda language of the Austro-Asiatic language family spoken primarily in India by about 1.04 million people. This old tribal language is spoken by the Ho, Munda, Kolha and Kol tribal communities of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal. Ho is written in Warang Citi, Devanagari, Latin, Oriya, Telugu and Bengali scripts; sometimes native speakers prefer to use the Ho script as well.