Meitei language

Manipuri
Meithei
Meiteilon
Region	Northeast India, Bangladesh, Burma
Ethnicity	Meetei, Meitei and Meitei-Pangal people
Native speakers	1.25 million (2010)[1] to 1.5 million (2001 census)[2]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Manipuri
Writing system	Eastern Nagari script (Bengali alphabet) Meithei alphabet (historical)[3]
Official status
Official language in	India (Manipur)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	mni
ISO 639-3	Either: mni – Manipuri omp – Old Manipuri
Linguist list	omp Old Manipuri
Glottolog	mani1292[4]

Manipuri^[5][6] /mənᵻˈpʊri/ or Meithei (Meitei, Meetei) /ˈməɪtəɪ/^[7] or Meiteilon is the predominant language and lingua franca in the southeastern Himalayan state of Manipur, in northeastern India. It is the official language in government offices. Meitei is also spoken in the Indian states of Assam and Tripura, and in Bangladesh and Burma (now Myanmar). It is currently classified as a vulnerable language by UNESCO.^[8]

Meitei is a Sino-Tibetan language whose exact classification remains unclear. It has lexical resemblances to Kuki and Tangkhul Naga.^[9]

Meitei has proven to be an integrating factor among all ethnic groups in Manipur who use it to communicate among themselves. It has been recognised (as Manipuri) by the Indian Union and has been included in the list of scheduled languages (included in the 8th schedule by the 71st amendment of the constitution in 1992). Meitei is taught as a subject up to the post-graduate level (Ph.D.) in universities of India, apart from being a medium of instruction up to the undergraduate level in Manipur. Education in government schools is provided in Meitei through the eighth standard.^[10]

Dialects

Meitei contains various dialects; however, in more recent years the broadening of communication, as well as intermarriage, has caused the differences between these dialects to become nearly insignificant. The only exceptions to this occurrence are the speech differences of the dialects found in Tripura, Bangladesh and Myanmar.^[11] The exact number of dialects of Meithei is unknown.^[12]

The three main dialects of Meitei include: Meitei proper, Loi and the Pangal. Differences found within Meitei's dialects are primarily characterised by the extensions of new sounds and tonal shifts. Meithei proper is considered, of the three, to be the standard dialect—and is considered to be more dynamic than the other two dialects . Slight variations in dialects can be seen in the following table:^[13]

Phonology

Tone

The Meitei language makes heavy use of intonation, with marked controversy over whether there are two or three types of tones used in speech.^[14]

Assimilation

Assimilation of sounds occurs in noted instances when the preceding syllable ends in a nasal sound or occasionally a semivowel sound, and the following syllable ends in either a nasal, semivowel, or vowel sound; additionally this will occur on suffixes and enclitics.^[14]

Velar deletion

A velar deletion is noted to occur on the suffix -lək when following a syllable ending with a /k/ phoneme.^[14]

Phonemes

Meitei makes use of the following sounds:^[15]

Note: the central vowel /ɐ/ is transcribed as <ə> in recent linguistic work on Manipuri. However, phonetically it is never [ə], but more usually [ɐ]. It is assimilated to a following approximant: /ɐw/ = /ow/, /ɐj/ = [ej].

Writing systems

Meithei script

Meitei has its own script, which was used until the 18th century. Its earliest use is not known. Pamheiba, the ruler of the Manipur Kingdom who introduced Hinduism, banned the use of the Meithei script and adopted the Bengali script. Now in schools and colleges the Bengali script is gradually being replaced by the Meithei script. The local organisations have played a major role in spreading the awareness about its own script.

Many Meitei documents were destroyed at the beginning of the 18th century during the reign of Hindu converted King Pamheiba, under the instigation of the Bengali Hindu missionary, Shantidas Gosai.

Between 1709 and the middle of the 20th century, the Meitei language was written using the Bengali script. During the 1940s and 1950s, Meitei scholars began campaigning to bring back the Old Manipuri alphabet. In 1976 at a writers conference, all the scholars finally agreed on a new version of the alphabet containing a number of additional letters to represent sounds not present in Meitei when the script was first developed. The current Meitei alphabet is a reconstruction of the ancient Meithei script.

Since the early 1980s, the Meitei alphabet has been taught in schools in Manipur.

It is a syllabic alphabet in which consonants all have an inherent vowel /a/. Other vowels are written as independent letters or by using diacritical marks that are written above, below, before or after the consonant they belong to. Each letter is named after a part of the human body.

There are some texts from the Maring and Limbu tribes of Manipur, which were written in the Meithei script.

Latin script

There exists an informal, but fairly consistent practical spelling of Meithei in Latin script. This spelling is used in the transcription of personal names and place names, and it is extensively used on the internet (Facebook, blogspots, etc.). It is also found in academic publications, for the spelling of Manipuri book titles and the like (examples can be seen in the References, below). This spelling on the whole offers a transparent, unambiguous representation of the Manipuri sound system, although the tones are usually not marked. It is "practical" in the sense that it does not use extra-alphabetical symbols, and can therefore be produced easily on any standard keyboard. The only point of ambiguity is found in the spelling of the vowels /ɐ/ and /a/, which are usually both written "a", except when they occur before an approximant (see table below). The vowel /a/ is sometimes written as "aa" to distinguish it from /ɐ/.

Grammar

Number agreement

Agreement in nouns and pronouns is expressed to clarify singular and plural cases through the addition of the suffixes -khoi (for personal pronouns and human proper nouns) and -sing (for all other nouns). Verbs associated with the pluralised nouns are unaffected. Examples are demonstrated below:^[16]

When adjectives are used to be more clear, Meithei utilises separate words and does not add a suffix to the noun. Examples are show in the chart below:^[16]

Compound verbs

Compound verbs are created by combining root verbs each ending with aspect markers. While the variety of suffixes is high, all compound verbs utilise one of two:^[17]

Aspect markers appear as suffixes that clarify verb tense and appear at the end of the compound verb. Overall, the formula to construct a compound verb becomes [root verb] + [suffix] + [aspect marker]:^[17]

Compound verbs can also be formed utilising both compound suffixes as well, allowing utterances such as pithokningle meaning "want to give out".

Number words

Linguistic tradition

The culture involved with the Meitei language is rooted deeply with pride and tradition based on having respect to the community elders. Young children who do not know about the tales that have been passed on from generation to generation are very rare. Regarding the history behind the ancient use of proverbs that defines the way conversation is held with the Meitei language, it is a way of expressing and telling stories and even using modern slang with old proverbs to communicate between one another.^[18]

The Meitei language is known to be one of the oldest languages in northeastern India and has a lengthy 2000-year period of existence. It had its own script. The history behind the Meitei language itself comes primarily from the medieval period of northeastern India.^[19]

See also

• Languages of India
• List of languages by number of native speakers in India
• List of Manipuri poets
• Sahitya Akademi Award to Manipuri Writers

References

• 1. A Short History of Kangleipak (Manipur) Part-I, by Chingtamlen, 2005
• 2. A Short History of Kangleipak (Manipur) Part-II, by Chingtamlen, 2007
• 3. A Short History of Kangleipak (Manipur) Part-III, by Chingtamlen, 2008
• 4. The Meetei and the Bishnupriya, by Chingtamlen, 2008

Culture

• Brara, N. Vijaylakshmi. (1998). Politics, society, and cosmology in India's North East. Delphi: Oxford University Press.
• Budha, W. (1992). Indigenous games of the Meiteis. Manipur: Wangkeimayum Publications.
• Kshetrimayum, Otojit. (2014). Ritual, Politics and Power in North East India: Contexualising the Lai Haraoba of Manipur. Delhi: Ruby Press & Co.
• Singh, M. Kirti. (1988). Religion and culture of Manipur. Delhi: Manas Publications.
• Singh, M. Kirti. (1993). Folk culture of Manipur. Delhi: Manas Publications.
• Singh, Saikhom Gopal. (2014). The Meeteis of Manipur: A Study in Human Geography. Delhi: Ruby Press & Co.

Language

• Bhat, D. N. S.; & Ningomba, S. (1997). Manipuri grammar. Munich: Lincom Europa.
• Chelliah, Shobhana L. (1990). Experiencer subjects in Manipuri. In V. M. Manindra & K. P. Mohanan (Eds.), Experiencer subjects in South Asian languages (pp. 195–211). Stanford: The Center for the Study of Language and Information.
• Chelliah, Shobhana L. (1992). Tone in Manipuri. In K. L. Adams & T. J. Hudak (Eds.), Papers from the first annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1991 (pp. 65–85). Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University.
• Chelliah, Shobhana L. (1992). Bracketing paradoxes in Manipuri. In M. Aronoff (Ed.), Morphology now (pp. 33–47). Albany: State University of New York Press.
• Chelliah, Shobhana L. (1994). Morphological change and fast speech phenomena in the Manipuri verb. In K. L. Adams & T. J. Hudak (Eds.), Papers from the second annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1992 (pp. 121–134). Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University.
• Chelliah, Shobhana L. (1997). A grammar of Meitei. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 0-19-564331-3.
• Chelliah, Shobhana L. (2002). Early Meitei manuscripts. In C. I. Beckwith (Ed.), Medieval Tibeto-Burman languages: PIATS 2000: Tibetan studies: Proceedings of the ninth seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, Leiden 2000 (pp. 59–71). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
• Chelliah, Shobhana L. (2002). A glossary of 39 basic words in archaic and modern Meitei. In C. I. Beckwith (Ed.), Medieval Tibeto-Burman languages: PIATS 2000: Tibetan studies: Proceedings of the ninth seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, Leiden 2000 (pp. 189–190). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
• Chelliah, Shobhana L. (2004). "Polysemy through metonymy: The case of Meitei pi 'grandmother'". Studies in Language. 28 (2): 363–386. doi:10.1075/sl.28.2.04che. 
• Singh, Ningthoukhongjam Khelchandra. (1964). Manipuri to Manipuri & English dictionary.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Meitei language.

Meitei language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

• Meitei Mayek (Meitei Script)
  • Manipuri/ Meitheilon: An Introduction
• Meetei Mayek Alphabet
• Learn to speak Manipuri, with the right pronunciation
• Learn Manipuri
• Learn Meithei Mayek (Meithei Script) - E-Pao.net
• Manipuri Poetry

Languages of India
Official languages	Union-level Hindi English 8th schedule to the Constitution of India Assamese Bengali Bodo Dogri Gujarati Hindi Kannada Kashmiri Konkani Maithili Malayalam Meitei (Manipuri) Marathi Nepali Odia Punjabi Sanskrit Sindhi Santali Tamil Telugu Urdu State-level only Garo Gurung Khasi Kokborok Lepcha Limbu Mangar Mizo Newari Rai Sherpa Sikkimese Sunwar Tamang
Major unofficial languages	Over 1 million speakers Angika Awadhi Bagheli Bagri Bajjika Bhili Bhojpuri Bundeli Chhattisgarhi Dhundhari Garhwali Gondi Harauti Haryanvi Ho Kangri Khandeshi Khortha Kumaoni Kurukh Lambadi Magahi Malvi Marwari Mewari Mundari Nimadi Rajasthani Sadri Surjapuri Tulu Wagdi Varhadi 100,000 – 1 million speakers Adi Angami Ao Dimasa Halbi Karbi Kharia Kodava Kolami Konyak Korku Koya Kui Kuvi Ladakhi Lotha Malto Mishing Nishi Phom Rabha Sema Sora Tangkhul Thadou

Languages of Bangladesh
Official language	Bengali
Semiofficial language	English
Indo-European	Assamese Bengali Bihari Bishnupriya Chakma Chittagonian Pali Rangpuri Rohingya Sadri Sylheti Hajong
Sino-Tibetan	Shö A'Tong Bawm Sak Kukish Falam Garo Haka Khumi Koch Kokborok Megam Meitei Manipuri Mizo Mru Pangkhu Rakhine Marma Riang Tanchangya Tippera Usoi
Austroasiatic	Khasi Koda Mundari Pnar Santali War-Jaintia
Dravidian	Kurukh Sauria Paharia
Afro-Asiatic	Arabic