Meitei is notendangered: its status has been assessed as safe byEthnologue (where it is assigned toEGIDS level 2 "provincial language").[2] However, it is consideredvulnerable by UNESCO.[9]
During the 19th and 20th centuries, different linguists tried to assign Meitei to various sub-groups. Early classifierGeorge Abraham Grierson (1903–1924) put it inKuki-Chin, Vegelin and Voegelin (1965) in Kuki-Chin-Naga, and Benedict (1972) in Kuki-Naga.Robbins Burling has suggested that Meitei belongs to none of those groups.[18] Current academic consensus agrees withJames Matisoff in placing Manipuri in its own subdivision of the Kamarupan group—a geographic rather than a genetic grouping.[17] However, some still consider Meitei to be a member of theKuki-Chin-Naga branch.[19]
The earliest known Meitei language compositions is the ritual songOugri (ꯑꯧꯒ꯭ꯔꯤ), which was used in religious and coronation ceremonies ofKangleipak. It may have existed before theCommon Era.[22]Numit Kappa (Meitei: ꯅꯨꯃꯤꯠ ꯀꯥꯞꯄ,transl: The Shooting of the Sun), a religious epic that tells the tale of how the night was divided from the day, was also composed in the first century.[23]
Poireiton Khunthok (Meitei: ꯄꯣꯢꯔꯩꯇꯣꯟ ꯈꯨꯟꯊꯣꯛ,transl: The Immigration of Poireiton) is a 3rd-century narrative work describing the establishment of a colony in Kangleipak by a group of immigrants led byPoireiton, the younger brother of the god of the underworld.[24]
TheYumbanlol, acopper plate manuscript was composed in the 6th century or 7th century CE for the royal family of Kangleipak. It is a rare work ofdharmashastra, covering sexuality, the relationships between husbands and wives, and instructions on how to run a household.[25]
TheKhencho (ꯈꯦꯟꯆꯣ), an early Meitei work of poetry was composed by the beginning of the 7th century CE.[26] Although it is obscure and unintelligible to present-day Meiteis, it is still recited as part of theLai Haraoba festival.[27]
One of the best-preserved early Meitei language epigraphic records is acopper plate inscription dating to the reign of King Khongtekcha (r. c. 763 – 773 CE).[28] During the same time period, Akoijam Tombi composed thePanthoibi Khonggul (ꯄꯥꯟꯊꯣꯏꯄꯤ ꯈꯣꯡꯀꯨꯜ), an account of the romantic adventures of thedeified Meitei princessPanthoibi.[29]
Second Millennium CE
The first page of Loyumba Shinyen, the 11th-12th century Meitei-language constitution of Kangleipak.
Before 1675 CE, the Meitei language experienced no significant influence from any other languages.[20] Beginning in the late 17th century, Hindu influence on Meitei culture increased, and the Meitei language experienced some influences from other languages, on itsphonology,morphology (linguistics),syntax andsemantics. At the same time, the Hinduised KingPamheiba ordered that theMeitei script be replaced by theBengali-Assamese script.[20]
The majority of Meitei speakers, about 1.5 million[33] live in the Indian state of Manupur. Meitei is the official language of theGovernment of Manipur as well as itslingua franca.[5]
Districts of Barak Valley – Meitei speaking population settlement areas of Assam
There are nearly 170,000 Meitei-speakers in Assam,[33] mainly in theBarak Valley, where it is the third most commonly used language after Bengali and Hindi.[34] Manipuri is also spoken by about 9500 people in Nagaland, in communities such asDimapur,Kohima,Peren andPhek.[3][33] Meitei is asecond language for variousNaga andKuki-Chin ethnic groups.[3]
Areas with significany numbers of Meitei speakers in Bangladesh
Myanmar has a significant Meitei speaking population in the states ofKachin andShan and the regions ofYangon,Sagaing, andAyeyarwady, among others.[36]
Name
According to theEthnologue, the alternative names of Meitei language areKathe, Kathi, Manipuri, Meetei, Meeteilon, Meiteilon, Meiteiron, Meithe, Meithei, Menipuri, Mitei, Mithe, Ponna.[3]
The nameMeitei or its alternate spellingMeithei is preferred by many native speakers of Meitei overManipuri.[37] The term is derived from the Meitei word for the languageMeitheirón (Meithei +-lon 'language', pronounced/mə́i.təi.lón/).[37][38]Meithei may be a compound frommí 'man' +they 'separate'.[37] This term is used by most Western linguistic scholarship.[37] Meitei scholars use the termMeit(h)ei when writing in English and the termMeitheirón when writing in Meitei.[37] Chelliah (2015: 89) notes that theMeitei spelling has replaced the earlierMeithei spelling.[39]
The language (and people) is also referred to by the loconymManipuri.[37] The term is derived from the name of the state ofManipur.[37]Manipuri is the official name of the language for theIndian government and is used by government institutions and non-Meitei authors.[37] The termManipuri is also used to refer to the differentlanguages of Manipur and to the people.[37] Additionally,Manipuri, being a loconym, can refer to anything pertaining to the Manipur state.
Speakers of Meitei language are known as"Kathe" by theBurmese people,"Moglie" or"Mekhlee" by the people ofCachar, Assam (Dimasas andAssamese) and"Cassay" by theShan people and the other peoples living in the east of theNingthee River (or Khyendwen River)."Ponna" is the Burmese term used to refer to theMeiteis living insideBurma.[40]
Dialects
The Meitei language exhibits a degree of regional variation; however, in recent years the broadening of communication, as well as intermarriage, has caused thedialectal differences to become relatively insignificant. The only exceptions to this occurrence are the speech differences of the dialects found in Tripura, Bangladesh and Myanmar.[41] The exact number of dialects of Meitei is unknown.[42]
The three main dialects of Meitei are: Meitei proper, Loi and Pangal. Differences between these dialects are primarily characterised by the extensions of new sounds and tonal shifts. Meitei proper is considered to be thestandard variety—and is viewed as more dynamic than the other two dialects.[43] The brief table below compares some words in these three dialects:[44]
Meitei language was the court language of the historicManipur Kingdom,[47] and before it merged into the Indian Republic.[48] TheSahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, recognised Meitei as one of the major advanced Indian literary languages in 1972, long before it became an official language in 1992.In 1950, theGovernment of India did not include Meitei in its list of 14 official languages.[49] Alanguage movement, spearheaded by organisations including theManipuri Sahitya Parishad and the All Manipur Students' Union demanded that Meitei be made an official language for more than 40 years, until Meitei was finally added to theEighth Schedule to the Constitution of India in 1992.[50][51]
The Meitei language is one of the 13 official languages of the India used to administer police, armed services, and civil service recruitment exams.[56][57]
Since 2020, theAssam Government has made an annual grant of₹5 lakh (equivalent to₹5.9 lakh or US$7,000 in 2023) to theManipuri Sahitya Parishad (Manipuri Language Council). It also invested₹6 crore (equivalent to₹7.1 crore or US$840,000 in 2023) in the creation of a corpus for the development of the Meitei language.[63]
Since 1998, theGovernment of Tripura has offered Meitei language as a "first language" subject at primary level in 24 schools throughout the state.[69]
Note: the central vowel /ɐ/ is transcribed as <ə> in recent linguistic work on Meitei. However, phonetically it is never [ə], but more usually [ɐ]. It is assimilated to a following approximant: /ɐw/ = [ow], /ɐj/ = [ej].
Phonological processes
A velar deletion is noted to occur on the suffix -lək when following a syllable ending with a /k/ phoneme.[72]
Meitei has adissimilatory process similar toGrassmann's law found in Ancient Greek andSanskrit, though occurring on the second aspirate.[74] Here, an aspirated consonant is deaspirated if preceded by an aspirated consonant (including/h/,/s/) in the previous syllable. The deaspirated consonants are then voiced between sonorants.[citation needed]
/tʰin-/
pierce
+
/-kʰət/
upward
→
/tʰinɡət/
pierce upwards
/tʰin-/ + /-kʰət/ → /tʰinɡət/
pierce {} upward {} {pierce upwards}
/səŋ/
cow
+
/kʰom/
udder
→
/səŋɡom/
milk
/səŋ/ + /kʰom/ → /səŋɡom/
cow {} udder {} milk
/hi-/
trim
+
/-tʰok/
outward
→
/hidok/
trim outwards
/hi-/ + /-tʰok/ → /hidok/
trim {} outward {} {trim outwards}
Writing systems
Meitei script
Depiction of the 18th century historic burning of texts written in Meitei script.
TheMeitei script (ꯃꯩꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ,Meitei mayek)[75] is one of theofficial scripts of the Indian Republic. Meitei mayek is also known as Kanglei script (ꯀꯪꯂꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ)[76] or kok sam lai script (ꯀꯣꯛ ꯁꯝ ꯂꯥꯏ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ,romanized:kok sam lai mayeke), after its first three letters.[77][78] Its earliest known appearance is on 6th century coins.[79] It was used until the 18th century, when it was replaced by theBengali script, and then revived in again massively in the 20th.[80] In 2021, the use of Meetei Mayek to write Manipuri was officially adopted by theGovernment of Manipur, alongside Bengali script.[81]
The Roman alphabet has been used in medium for teaching basic Meitei as a second language teaching by the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur.[82][83] More recently, the Board has issued a directive that no more Manipuri textbooks using the Latin alphabet be published.[84] Meitei language editions of theBible in Roman script are very commonly used by theChristians in Manipur.[85]
Sentences in the Meitei language use thesubject–object–verb word order (SOV). For example, in the sentenceEi chak chai (ꯑꯩ ꯆꯥꯛ ꯆꯥꯢ), which translates toI eat rice, the gloss is "ei" (I), "chak" (rice), "chai" (eat).
Nouns
Nouns and pronouns are marked for number in Meitei. The plural is indicated by 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:[88]
Noun (Meitei)
Noun (English)
Example (Meitei)
Example (English)
angaang
baby
angaang kappi
Baby cries.
angaangsing
babies
angaangsing kappi
Babies cry.
When adjectives are used to be more clear, Meitei utilises separate words and does not add a suffix to the noun. Examples are show in the chart below:[88]
Adjective (Meitei)
Adjective (English)
Example (Meitei)
Example (English)
ama
one
mi ama laak'i
A person comes.
khara
some
mi khara laak'i
Some persons come.
mayaam
many
mi mayaam laak'i
Many persons come.
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:[89]
Suffix
English translation
-thok
out/ come out
-ning
To wish/ want/ desire
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]:[89]
Language
Root verb
Suffix
Aspect marker
Combined form
Meitei
tum
-thok
-le
tumthokle
English
sleep
out/ come out
perfect aspect
has started sleeping
Meitei
tum
-ning
-le
tumningle
English
sleep
want
perfect aspect
has felt sleepy
Compound verbs can also be formed utilising both compound suffixes as well, allowing utterances such aspithokningle meaning "want to give out".
Various annual events are organised to promote, protect and develop Meitei language, in the sovereign states of India and Bangladesh in particular as well as in other parts of the world in general.
In 2021, Rudali Huidrom, a Manipuri researcher of the EBMT/NLP laboratory,Waseda University,Japan, created atext corpus named "EM Corpus" (shortened form of "Emalon Manipuri Corpus"). It is the first comparabletext to text corpus built for Meitei language (mni) and English language (eng) pair from sentences. The writing system used for Meitei language in this corpus isBengali script. It was crawled and collected fromthesangaiexpress.com – the news website of "The Sangai Express", a daily newspaper ofManipur from August 2020 to 2021. In version 1, she created the monolingual data, having 1,034,715 Meitei language sentences and 846,796 English language sentences. In version 2, she created the monolingual data, having 1,880,035 Meitei language sentences and 1,450,053 English language sentences.[107][108]
EM-ALBERT is the first ALBERT model available for Meitei language. EM-FT is alsoFastText word embedding available for Meitei language. These resources were created by Rudali Huidrom and are now available at free of cost at the European Language Resources Association catalogue (ELRA catalogue) under CC-BY-NC-4.0 licence.[107][108]
A screen shot ofGoogle Translate translating a sentence from English language into Meitei language
On 11 May 2022,Google Translate added Meitei-language (under the name"Meiteilon (Manipuri)") during its addition of 24 new languages to the translation tool. The writing system used for Meitei language in this tool isMeitei script.[109][110][111]
English:All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
^The Meitei-language translation of the passage of the Article 1 has two foreign words present, "ꯏꯖꯖꯠ" ("iːdʒət") and "ꯍꯛ" ("hə́k"), meaning "dignity" and "rights" respectively, as given in the source website. The original Meitei-language terms for "dignity" and "rights" are "ꯏꯀꯥꯏ ꯈꯨꯝꯅꯕ" ("í.kai kʰum.nə.bə") and "ꯐꯪꯐꯝ ꯊꯣꯛꯄ" ("pʰəŋ.pʰəm tʰok.pə") respectively.
^Singh, Ningthoukhongjam Khelchandra."Poireiton Khunthokpa".History of Old Manipuri Literature (in English and Manipuri). Imphal: Ningthoukhongjam Khelchandra Singh. pp. 121, 122.
^Ningoma, M. S. (1996).Manipur Dialects. Sealang Projects.
^Devi, L. Manimala. 2002. A comparative study of Imphal, Andro, Koutruk and Kakching dialects of Meiteiron. (Doctoral dissertation, Canchipur: Manipur University; 273pp.)
^Thomas, C. Joshua; Gopalakrishnan, Ramamoorthy; Singh, R. K. Ranjan (2001).Constraints in Development of Manipur. Regency Publications [for Policy Alternatives for the North-East and Conflict Elimination Awareness]. pp. 54–55.ISBN978-81-87498-30-8.
^George, K. M. (1992).Modern Indian Literature, an Anthology: Surveys and poems. India:Sahitya Akademi. p. 258.ISBN978-81-7201-324-0.H. Anganghal Singh's Khamba Thoibi Sheireng (Poem on Khamba Thoibi, 1940) is a national epic of the Manipuris based on the story of Khamba and Thoibi of Moirang. The poet composes the whole epic in the Pena Saisak style of folk ballads sung by minstrels or bards popular in Manipur.
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.ISBN0-19-564331-3.
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 Meiteipi 'grandmother'".Studies in Language.28 (2):363–386.doi:10.1075/sl.28.2.04che.
Chelliah, Shobhana L. (2015). "Is Manipur a linguistic area?".Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics.2 (1):87–109.doi:10.1515/jsall-2015-0004.S2CID130962163.
Singh, Ningthoukhongjam Khelchandra. (1964).Manipuri to Manipuri & English dictionary.
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