Kolkata: The Kolkata-based Jadavpur University has completed the digitalisation of thousands of rare papers written in Santhali language. The Santhal people used to converse in their language but did not develop alphabets leaving now scope to write it. Later, the Santhali language got a written form thanks to Christian missionaries.
As per records, the first Santhali language grammar book was printed and published in 1869 AD at a printing press set up at the Lutheran Mission in Santhal Pargana. Then more books were published in the Santhali language from the same press. Then in West Bengal, Raghunath Murmu created the Santhali alphabet known as Alochiki. Later, the Alochiki script got official recognition.
This entire work took a proper shape under the supervision of Dr Rahi Saren, Professor, Department of Oceanography, Jadavpur University. He and his team collected these papers from various sources in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. These collections belong to the period from 1890 to 1975 and have been digitised.
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Dr. Rahi Saren said, "We started this work in 2020. Papers were printed about 100 years ago. While doing this work we came across many rare books, informative papers and journals. Such things are not printed anymore. Over 5,000 pages have been digitised so far."
Financial support for this work came from funding from the British Library's programme for protecting endangered archives. Once this work is completed, it will be easily available online absolutely free to research students and those who wish to read about the subject. Jadavpur University's Dr. Amrites Biswas, who was associated with this work, said, "The School of Cultural Texts and Records department of Jadavpur University has done this work. We had to keep in mind while digitising these papers to maintain their archival quality."
A special type of camera and some special technology have to be used. After the entire work is done, the digital version of these papers will be kept in the digital archive of the British Library of Great Britain as well as Jadavpur University. Jadavpur University has done this digitalisation for the first time in West Bengal, Dr Amrites said.
