Odia

Where it’s spoken

Odia (formerly spelled Oriya) is the official language of the Indian state of Odisha, where it is spoken by about 82% of the population. It is also a minority language in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh. The Odia diaspora is significant in the United States, Singapore, and the Gulf states.

What it sounds like

Odia has typical Indo-Aryan phonology with aspirated stop contrasts, retroflex consonants, and a phonemic schwa that is not deleted as readily as in Hindi. The neuter retroflex lateral ḷa, and the palatal nasal ñ, are distinctive features in spelling. Stress is generally initial.

How it’s written

The Odia script is a Brahmic abugida with rounded letterforms whose distinctive shapes evolved to minimize damage when written on palm leaves. The script lacks the headstroke seen in Devanagari and instead features curved tops on many letters. It is closely related to the Bengali script in structure.

History

Odia is one of India’s six classical languages (designated in 2014). The Madala Panji temple chronicles and 13th-century Sarala Mahabharata established the literary tradition. Modern Odia literature flourished in the 19th–20th centuries with novelists like Fakir Mohan Senapati.