Story of the Wancho Script
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Story of the Wancho Script
Language is the inheritance of words, and a script ensures the continuity of this inheritance. The Wanchos are a Naga tribe who live in Eastern Arunachal Pradesh. Wancho has 55,000 speakers spread around Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Myanmar.
Scripts are culturally evolved by the same processes that shape human societies and their multiple languages. The Latin script is used to write all European, South American, and modern African languages, with minor modifications. Similarly, the Arabic script is used to write more than 60 other languages. However, no attempt was made to linguistically describe Wancho, as its orthography did not fit either the Latin or the Devanagari script.
Wancho men celebrating the Oriah festival at Longding, Arunachal Pradesh.
Image Source: YouTube
Banwang Losu, creator of the Wancho Script
Image Source: Banwang Losu
Eventually, Banwang Losu, a Wancho schoolteacher from Longding, Arunachal Pradesh, developed a script for the Wancho language. The Wancho script is an invention made possible solely through the dedication of its creator.
Laizi or Laili, the Wancho Alphabet
Image Source: YouTube
In 2001, as a class XI student, Mr Banwang Losu realised the inadequacy of the Roman and Devanagari scripts to do justice to the Wancho language. Hence, he started working on a new Wancho script. He drew on nature, which forms the core of tribal culture, as his inspiration for developing the script. It took him 11 years of diligent labour, from 2001 to 2012, to complete it. In 2019, the Wancho script was added to the Unicode Consortium and registered for use on the internet, made possible through the joint efforts of Banwang Losu and Michael Everson, who also served as the fontographer. The script also includes a typeface and an animated primer on YouTube, developed by the first Wancho animator, Wangdan Wampan, a National Institute of Design (NID) graduate. Though the Wancho script may be used by all Wancho and other tribal languages of the region, Mr Losu focused on the Northern Wancho.
Mr Losu drew inspiration from Nature to develop the Wancho Script
Image Source: YouTube
Wancho is a tonal language, and a slight change in sound changes the entire meaning. A sound-intensity graph and diacritical marks were added to the Wancho script to represent the changing meanings of sounds accurately. The use of diacritics as tone markers was particularly important to display the intensity of a sound. Specific markers were also created to capture the language’s phonetic peculiarities. In this way, the Laizi or Laili (in the Wancho alphabet) was created. It has forty-four letters, five vowels, and twenty-nine consonants.
Ngun, the Wancho Symbol for Currency, was also developed by Banwang Losu
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 2013, Mr Losu authored the book “Wancho Script,” published by the Partridge Penguin imprint, and also created a primer and workbooks for use in schools. He also organised a Wancho Literary Mission Team, Teachers’ Training workshop, and Wancho Language Certification courses, with some initiatives aided by the Government of Arunachal Pradesh and other local bodies.
Mr Banwang Losu is teaching the Wancho Script to students.
Image Source: YouTube
Mr Banwang Losu’s efforts have made the Wancho identity firmer through its linguistic affirmation, because the written script is a particularly potent claim around which a community can create and belong every day.
Keeping languages alive sustains culture and traditions, and a script is an effective catalyst for this purpose. It is an effective tool for revitalising languages and their dialects, fostering a unique indigenous identity. Given that it is the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, 2022-2032, the story of the Wancho script is more salient than ever.