Meitei language

Meitei
মৈতৈ
Spoken in	Northeast India, Bangladesh, Burma
Ethnicity	Meitei people
Native speakers	1.4 million  (2000)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) Kukish ? Meitei
Writing system	Eastern Nagari (currently) Meitei Mayek (formerly)[1]
Official status
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-2	mni
ISO 639-3	mni

Meitei-lon (মৈতৈলোন্), also Meitei-lol (মৈতৈলোল্) and Manipuri (মণিপুরি) (and sometimes, the 19th century British term, Meithei (মৈথৈ), which is the name of the people, not of the language), 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-lon is also spoken in the Indian states of Assam and Tripura, and in Bangladesh and Burma (now Myanmar).

Meitei is a Tibeto-Burman language whose exact classification remains unclear, though it shows lexical resemblances to Kuki and Tangkhul Naga.^[2]

Meitei-lon has proven to be a large integrating factor among all ethnic groups in Manipur who use it to communicate among themselves.

Meitei-lon has been recognized, 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-lon 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.

Sounds

Meiteilon is a tonal language.

Grammar

Numbers

1 - ama, 2 - ani, 3 - ahum, 4 - mari, 5 - manga, 6 - taruk, 7 - taret, 8 - nipan, 9 - mapan, 10 - tara

Some basic words

water - ising, fire - mei, dog - hui, fish - nga, food - chak, far -lappah, face - mai sky- atiya, soil- leibak, air- nungsit(in poetic- malangba,namiba), knife- thang sori, sword- thangsang, spear- ta, father- ipa, mother-ima

I-Ei, He-Mahak(in case of male), She-Mahak(in case of female) , You-Nahak/ adombu(with respect), This-Mashi, That-Madu

Writing

Meitei-lon has its own script named Meitei-mayek, which was popularly used until the 18th century. Its earliest use is dated between the 11th and 12th centuries C.E. Subsequently, and particularly with the advent of British Rule in 1891, the Eastern Nagari script (commonly known as the Assamese / Bengali script) was forced upon the people. This script is, however, still in use today. Efforts are being made to popularise the Meitei Mayek script and is showing significant improvement in the recent decades.

There are some texts from the Maring and Limbu tribes of Manipur which were also written using Meitei Mayek.

See also

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

References

1. ^ A Manipuri Grammar, Vocabulary, and Phrase Book - 1888 Assam Secretariat Press
2. ^ Burling, Robbins. 2003. The Tibeto-Burman Languages of Northeastern India. In Thurgood & LaPolla (eds.), The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 169-191. London & New York: Routledge.

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.
• Singh, M. Kirti. (1988). Religion and culture of Manipur. Delhi: Manas Publications.
• Singh, M. Kirti. (1993). Folk culture of Manipur. Delhi: Manas Publications.

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 Meithei. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 0-19-564331-3.
• Chelliah, Shobhana L. (2002). Early Meithei 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 Meithei. 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 Meithei 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

• Meitei language at Ethnologue
• Entry for Meitei at Rosetta Project
• Meetei Mayek (Meitei Script)
  • Manipuri/ Meiteilon: An Introduction
• Meetei Mayek Alphabet
• Learn to speak Manipuri, with the right pronunciation
• Learn Manipuri
• Learn Meitei Mayek (Meitei Script) - E-Pao.net
• Manipuri Poetry
• Contemporary Poetry In Manipuri
• Seirangba Marup, the language based Yahoo Group of Manipuri Art and Literature
• KokSum.com, A Mobile friendly News Aggregator on Manipur. Made it easy as KOK-SUM.