Toto
𞊒𞊪𞊒𞊪,টোটো
The word "Toto" in Toto andBengali script
Region	West Bengal
Ethnicity	Toto
Native speakers	1,411 (2014)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Kiranti (?) Dhimalish Toto
Writing system	Bengali script andToto script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	txo
Glottolog	toto1302
ELP	Toto
Map of the Toto language
Toto is classified as Critically Endangered language by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger[2]

You may needrendering support to display the TotoUnicode characters in this article correctly.

Toto (Bengali:টোটো,Toto:𞊒𞊪𞊒𞊪) is aSino-Tibetan language spoken on the border ofIndia andBhutan, by the tribalToto people inTotopara, West Bengal along the border withBhutan. It is also spoken in Subhapara, Dhunchipara, and Panchayatpara hillocks on India-Bhutan border inJalpaiguri district,West Bengal (Ethnologue).

Toto is listed as acritically endangered language byUNESCO, with perhaps 1,000 speakers.^[3] However, most families in the community speak Toto at home. Most children learn Toto at home, although they useBengali in school.

Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) set out to conduct a study on language of the Toto tribe, whose population has dwindled to 1,536, they did not realize that the language is more endangered than the tribe itself. Researchers as well the members of the Toto community admit that the language is under threat and the influence of other languages, particularlyNepali and Bengali, is increasing day by day.^[4]

A rare language spoken by barely 1,600 people now in a small pocket of West Bengal bordering Bhutan has taken a significant step towards preservation with the publication of its first dictionary. Toto, a Sino-Tibetan language of the indigenous Toto people, had long survived only through oral tradition. Although a script was devised in 2015 by community leader and Padma Shri awardee Dhaniram Toto, most speakers continue to use the Bengali script, or write directly in Bengali. Even Mr. Toto’s own work, ‘Dhanua Totor Kathamala’, was published in Bengali. On October 7th, 2023, the Calcutta Comparatists 1919 released Toto Shabda Sangraha, a trilingual dictionary that records Toto words in the Bengali script with meanings in both Bengali and English. “This is a landmark publication for the community, which has never had a printed collection of words or even a basic primer. Until now, their language existed only orally,” said Dr. Mrinmoy Pramanick, Assistant Professor of Comparative Indian Language and Literature at the University of Calcutta, Coordinator of Centre for Translation and Literary Geography and founder of Calcutta Comparatists 1919, a trust dedicated to protecting marginal languages from extinction.^[5][6][7]

Calcutta Comparatists 1919, set up in September 2020 (with “1919” marking the year Sir Asutosh Mookerji introduced vernacular studies at University of Calcutta), also launched another book, “Totoparar Chotora”, alongside the dictionary. This book presents writings, sketches, and pencil drawings by school children from Totopara. Through their own words and images, the young contributors offer a rare window into the community’s culture, everyday life, and worldview. Explaining the larger aim of the initiative, Dr Mrinmoy Pramanick said, “With every decade, India loses languages and the knowledge bound up in them. I wanted to use my position to organise collaborative workshops, encourage translations, and bring marginal languages into academic curricula so that they gain visibility and survive.” He further noted that while Dhaniram Toto was awarded the Padma Shri in 2023, Calcutta Comparatists 1919 had honoured him earlier, in August 2022.^[8]

Dr Mrinmoy Pramanick also leads an MA course titled Language Situation in India and Other Literature of West Bengal and coordinates The Centre for Translation and Literary Geography where students and researchers engage directly with languages such as Toto, Sadri, Limbu, Lodhas, Kharia, Lepcha, and Shabar, alongside others that remain outside mainstream discourse.Dr. Pramanick is also leading a larger effort to document and translate the cultural wealth of the Totos. He currently serves as the Project Director of an Indian Council of Social Science Research–Eastern Regional Centre (ICSSR-ERC) sponsored project titled Translating and Documenting Toto Cultural Texts. Under this initiative, he and his team of researchers and scholars - Malyaban Ganguly, Dishari Mukherjee, Avijit Halder, Sudeshna Ghose, Shreya datta, Ayan Ghosh, Oudarjya Pramanik are working with the community, expected to significantly benefit the Totos by preserving and sharing their knowledge systems. Several newspapers The groundwork for these publications was laid much earlier. In 2022 August 1st, Dr. Pramanick, along with scholars Ayan Ghosh, Biswajit Das, Avijit Halder and Dishari Mukherjee, travelled to Totopara on their own initiative. Their field visit, conducted outside any formal project framework back then, allowed them to interact directly with the Toto community, gather oral narratives, and document cultural practices. This voluntary engagement eventually led to the creation of substantial resources such as the dictionary and the children’s volume, Totoparar Chotora.^[9]

TheHimalayan Languages Project is working on the first grammatical sketch of Toto.

In an important initiative toward language preservation, Adamas University is developing an AI-driven Toto–Bangla–English trilingual language learning application, under Indian Council of Social Science Research funded project, to support digital archiving and promote revitalization through accessible, technology-based tools. The project is led by Principal Investigator Dr. Ambalika Guha and Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Sajal Saha, with team members Debanjan Ballav and Hritwick Chakraborty.

Toto consists of 25 segmental phonemes, of which 19 are consonants and six are vowels. The phonemes of this language are as follows:

There are six vowel phonemes in the Toto language: /i/, /e/, /ə/, /a/, /o/, /u/. They can be classified:

• horizontally into three groups as front unrounded, central unrounded and back rounded vowels;
• vertically into four groups as close, close-mid, open-mid and open.

There are eight diphthongs realized in Toto, these are:

• /eu/ — occurring in initial and medial positions,
• /au/, /ou/ — occurring only in the medial position,
• /ei/, /əi/, /ai/, /oi/ — occurring in medial and final positions, and
• /ui/ — occurring in all positions.^[1]

The following minimal pairs establish the phonetics status of the vowel:

/i/~/e/

/iŋ/ 'brother in-law', vs. /eŋ/ 'ginger'

/ciwa/ 'tear', vs. /cewa/ 'cut' (cloth)

/i/~/a/

/guJi/ 'owl', vs. /guJa/ 'pocket'

/nico/ 'fire', vs. /naco/ 'two'

/i/~/u/

/Jiya/ 'rat', vs. /Juya/ 'bird'

/ei/~/əi/

/e/~/a/

/lepa/ 'brain', vs. /lapa/ 'jungle betel leaf'

/kewa/ 'birth', vs. /kawa/ 'sound'

/e/~/o/

/je/ 'grass', vs. /jo/ 'breast'

With regards to consonants, Toto has an inventory of sevensonorants (nasals and liquids) and twelveobstruents (stops and fricative), eight of which are contrastive in voicing. It also distinguishes the voiceless obstruents /t/ and /p/ with theiraspirated equivalents /tʰ/ and /pʰ/, respectively.^[1]

Below are some Toto words from van Driem (1995), who uses these words to suggest that Toto may be aSal language.^[10]

The Toto personal pronouns are (van Driem 1995):^[10]

The Toto numerals are (van Driem 1995):^[10]

Analphabetic script developed for the language by community elder and author,Dhaniram Toto, was published in 2015, and has seen limited but increasing use in literature, education, and computing; most significantly, the Toto alphabet was added to theUnicode Standard in September, 2021. Prior to the publication of this script, Dhaniram Toto and other members of the community (whose literacy rate as per sample survey carried out in 2003 was just 33.64 per cent) penned books and poems in theBengali script.^[4]

The Toto alphabet was added to theUnicode Standard in September, 2021 with the release of version 14.0.

The Unicode block for Toto is U+1E290–U+1E2BF:

• Dhimalish comparative vocabulary list (Wiktionary)

• India's Tribal People Fast Becoming Lost for Words
• About Toto People
• Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
• World Oral Literature Project
• Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 16th Edition (2009)
• [1]

• Kiranti languages
• Languages of India
• Languages of Bhutan
• Endangered languages of India

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Toto-language text
• Ill-formatted infobox-language images
• ISO language articles citing sources other than Ethnologue
• Articles containing uncoded-language text
• Scripts with ISO 15924 four-letter codes
• CS1: long volume value