Toto is a member of the Kiranti branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is spoken mainly in Totopara, a village in the Alipurduar district of West Bengal in the northeast of India. There are also some speakers of Toto in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal.
In 2014 there were about 1,400 speakers of Toto, which is classified as a critically endangered language. Most families speak Toto at home, but the children are taught in Bengali as school, and Bengali and Nepali are increasingly used by Toto people outside the home.
The Himalayan Languages Project is working to document Toto.
Toto is written with the Bengali alphabet. There is also a Toto alphabet, which was invented in 2015 by Dhaniram Toto. It is currently used to a limited extent in literature, education and computing.
Download an alphabet chart for Toto (Excel)
Details supplied by Biswajit Mandal (biswajitmandal[dot]bm90[at]gmail[dot]com)
iyuM borko siMtenko gebeta ipu dambe ajaso cabe yuMmihe. abiko bassata apecua keitu diDu nimiheabiyaakokeitubihiMeMtapafourweretheythateggs accverykamusa enahe. ako siMeko oMbeta ipu daS'ua puyare yuMmihe ako puya so aja dambe chabe biya cucuMpa yuMcnamihe. hatraMto keitu tuipuMko noita daS'uapuiwaha ajako keitui upu camehe
Among the spreading branches of a banyan tree lived acrow and his wife, the crow-hen. In the nest were four little eggs which the parents guarded with great care. In a hollow of that tree-trunk lived a black snake whom the crows feared greatly. Every time the crow-hen laid her eggs the snake crawled up to the nest and ate them up
Source: https://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-documents/lsi/lsi_wb/5TOTO.pdf
Information about Toto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toto_language
https://www.ethnologue.com/language/txo
https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/toto1302
https://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-documents/lsi/lsi_wb/5TOTO.pdf
http://languageinindia.com/june2014/chibiramtotophonology1.pdftoto
https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19330-toto-script.pdf
Athpare, Bahing, Bantawa, Belhare, Chamling, Dhimal, Dumi, Khaling, Limbu, Sunwar, Toto, Wambule, Yakkha
Atong, Bengali, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Bodo, Bhumij, Chittagonian, Garo, Hajong, Karbi, Kharia, Khasi, Koch, Kokborok, Kurmali, Malto, Manipuri, Mundari, Noakhailla, Rangpuri, Sadri, Santali, Sylheti, Toto, Tanchangya
Page last modified: 23.04.21
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