What is the News ?

Recently, a dictionary called Toto Shabda Sangraha has been created with the aim of preserving a language from becoming extinct.

Facts About:

• It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family and is the native language of the Toto tribal community. Toto is typically written using the Bengali script.
• Remarkably, a script for Toto was developed by a prominent community member named Dhaniram Toto as recently as 2015.
• Toto is spoken by a relatively small population of around 1,600 individuals residing in parts of West Bengal that border Bhutan.

Key Highlights of the Toto Shabda Sangraha:

• This dictionary has been meticulously compiled by Bhakta Toto, who serves as both a bank employee and a poet. It has been jointly published by a trust and Bhasha Samsad.
• The dictionary serves as a significant step towards preserving the Toto language, which has primarily been an oral tradition, by documenting its vocabulary in written form.
• To facilitate wider understanding, Toto words will be translated into Bengali and English and presented using the Bengali script, as the Toto script is still in its early stages of development, and community members are more familiar with the Bengali script.