The World's Wrtiting Systems

SECTION 56

Scripts for Munda Languages

Norman Zide

Sorang Sompeng

We know less about Sorang Sompeng than about the other two scripts; the one history
and description of this script is found in a short paper by Khageshwar Mahapatra

612

TABLE 56.1: The Characters ofSorang Sampeng with Transliterations

f s

y

i

C

B

S

s t b c d g

i f

S

3

3

h

m li 1 n V p

I

3

-0

Is

f

y r h k j n

^ 1^

I

2

a e i u £

(1978-79). Sora has been written in a Roman-based script originated by Baptist mis-
sionaries, and also in Telugu and Oriya characters. Mahapatra describes controversy
between the promoters of Oriya and those of Telugu for the predominant influence on
the Sora people living between the Oriya- and Telugu-speaking populations in what
later became the Orissa-Andhra border area. Some "self-conscious tribal leaders,"
Mahapatra writes, "instead of choosing a side to merge themselves, endeavoured to
maintain their identity by inventing a new script for themselves." Malia Gomango, an
influential leader of the non-Christian Sora, led the movement for a separate script,
and "inspired his son-in-law, Mangei Gomango," to devise a proper script for Sora.
Mangei, "an educated person . . . conversant in Oriya, Telugu and English," retreated
to the hills, where on June 18, 1936, he received in a vision the 24 letters of Sorang
Sompeng. He founded a religious order dedicated to Akshara Brahma. The script was
widely taught, though it is unclear to what extent it is used; all the publications listed
by Mahapatra are by Mangei, though the press has also issued many ephemera.

The 24 characters are arranged in a four-row by six-column diagram, with the
six vowels in the bottom row. (The shwa vowel is "inherent" in the letter.) The letters
get their names from 24 gods in the Sora pantheon, e.g. s for Sundan, t for Tsnod; no
rationale is apparent for the ordering. The names of the consonant characters are de-
rived by adding a^to the consonant sound, i.e. sa \ ta \ etc. Mahapatra suggests that
the general shapes of the characters owe something to English cursive letter shapes;
perhaps the loops and curlicues were influenced by the Telugu script.

Divine providence does not guarantee a script linguistic efficiency. Mangel's
script does not represent the phonemes of Sora (table 56.2 ) as well as it might in an
efficient writing system. But it should be noted that we don't know as much about the

TABLE 56.2:

Sora Phonemes

P t

c

k

?

i

i

u

b Cl

J

g

e

9

m n

P

q

e

a

3

rt

1

w

PART IX: SCRIPTS INVEiNTED IN MODERN TIMES

script as we need to, so we may be missing morphophonemic and, perhaps, dialecto-
logical information built into Mangei's writing system. Sorang Sompeng uses the h
symbol for the glottal stop [?] (there is no aspiration in Sora outside loanwords), but
seems not to write glottal stop in some of the instances where it does occur. The ret-
roflex [r] is written rd. Mahapatra claims that there is no use for c and v in Sora. The
letter / is used for [i] and [i], and o for [o] and [o]. Consonant clusters are written not
with conjunct characters (as in the Indie scripts), but by simply juxtaposing consonant
letters, so the reader must recognize the presence or absence of [s] in any particular
instance. There is no halarita-like "killer" diacritic.

THE WORLD'S
WRITING SYSTEMS '^'^'IT^''

William Bright

618 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

Bibliography

SORA

Barisa dnobleganji [Proverbs in Saora]. n.d. Bible Society of India and Ceylon.
Mahapatra, Khageshwar. 1 978-79. '"SoraN SompeN': A Sora Script." Unpublished conference pa-
per (Delhi, Mysore). Oriya version in his Oria lipi o bhdsd, pp. 147-55. Cuttack, 1977.
Mattiu [Matthew]. 1961. Bible Society of India and Ceylon.
Three booklets in the Sorang Sotnpeng script. 1965, 1967.

THE WORLD'S
WRITING SYSTEMS ^^^^^^„r'^>^

William Bright