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The Meitei script (Meitei: ꯃꯩꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Meitei mayek), also known as the Kanglei script (Meitei: ꯀꯪꯂꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Kanglei mayek)[5] or the Kok Sam Lai script (Meitei: ꯀꯣꯛ ꯁꯝ ꯂꯥꯏ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Kok Sam Lai mayek), after its first three letters[6][7] is an abugida in the Brahmic scripts family used to write the Meitei language, the official language of Manipur, Assam and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is first known from engravings on 6th century CE coins and copper plate inscriptions.[8] as verified by the various publications of the National Sahitya Akademi.[1] It was used until the 18th century, when it was replaced by the Bengali alphabet. A few manuscripts survive. In the 20th century, the script was revived and is again being used.[9] Beginning in 2021, the Government of Manipur began to use the Meitei alongside the Bengali-Assamese script, per the Manipur Official Language (Amendment) Act, 2021.[10]
Since Meitei does not have voiced consonants, there are only fifteen consonant letters used for native words, plus three letters for pure vowels. Nine additional consonants letters inherited from Indic languages are available for writing loan words. There are seven vowel diacritics and a final consonant (/ŋ/) diacritic. The names of the twenty-seven letters are based on parts of the human body.[11]
The Old Manipuri script also appears on coins issued during the reigns of Meitei Kings, Ura Konthouba (c. 568-653 CE) and Ayangba (c. 821-910 CE). These coins are presently preserved in the Mutua Museum in Imphal.[1]
The origin of the official script of Manipur is derived from religious book Wakoklon Puya.[14] But, there has been some controversy regarding the origin of the Meitei script. The Meitei script is a Brahmic abugida. According to Singh (1962), an archaic form of the script had developed by the 11th century, and it was in use until the early 18th century, when it was replaced by the Bengali script.[15] By contrast, Tomba (1993) claims that the script is a development of c. 1930, with all supposedly older documents being deliberate forgeries.[16] According to K.S. Singh and Mahoharan (1993), as per the modifications of the phonemic distributions of Meitei language, the script belongs to the Tibetan group of scripts.[2]
The earliest stone inscription, found in the village of Khoibu, Manipur, is also believed to date to time of Ura Konthouba. This inscription is presently kept in the Manipur State Museum, Imphal.[1]
Another early copper plate Meitei inscription dates to the 8th century CE, inscribed during the reign of King Khongtekcha (c. 721 AD). It was discovered by scholar Yumjao from Phayeng in 1935. It is one of the earliest known examples of Meitei literature.[17][18][19]
In 1980, a modernized version of the writing system was approved by Manipuri law for use in educational institutions.[21][22] The modernised version of the Meitei script was encoded in Unicode in 2009.
in 2022, a joint meeting consensus of the Meetei Erol Eyek Loinasillol Apunba Lup, the All Manipur Working Journalists' Union and the Editors' Guild, Manipur agreed that Meitei language newspapers would switch from the Bengali script to the Meitei script from 15 January 2023.[23][24][25][26][27]
Letters
One of the unique features of this script is the use of body parts in naming the letters.[28] Every letter is named after a human body part in the Meitei language. For example, the first letter "kok" means "head"; the second letter "sam" means "hair"; the third letter "lai" means "forehead", and so on.[29] This association appears in the book Wakoklon Heelel Thilel Salai Amailon Pukok Puya, which details how each script originated received its nomenclature and which is widely considered to be the source of the Meitei script.[30] Some letters have a second form (lonsom) that is used at the end of a word and are used to indicate stop consonants.
In Meitei Mayek, vowels are not listed separately before the consonants, unlike in most Brahmic scripts. Instead, they appear within the main sequence of the script, making it structurally different from scripts like Devanagari.
Independent vowels are used only when a word starts with a vowel, just like in most Indic scripts. Otherwise, vowels appear as diacritics attached to consonants.
Meitei Mayek has seven independent vowel letters, including ⟨ꯑ⟩, which is used as a default vowel carrier, similar to ⟨अ⟩ in Devanagari:
ꯑ
IPA: /ə/
ꯏ
IPA: /i/
ꯍ
IPA: /u/
ꯑꯣ
IPA: /o/
ꯑꯦ
IPA: /e/
ꯑꯨ
IPA: /uː/
ꯑꯩ
IPA: /ai/
Examples:
ꯑꯣꯏ (oina) – ‘like’
ꯑꯦꯛꯁꯥ (eiksha) – ‘eye’
ꯑꯨꯄꯥꯜ (upal) – ‘high, above’
Since Meitei Mayek preserves independent vowels, it functions similarly to Brahmic scripts in terms of structure, even though the vowel ordering differs from most Indic alphabets.
Possibly, ꯎ /uː/ can be used as an alternative to ꯑꯨ (ū). Examples:
ꯎꯌ (uŋ) meaning "sound" or "noise."
ꯎꯕ (ub) meaning "to give."
Vowel diacritics
Syllables are written by adding vowel diacritics (cheitap eeyek) to consonants.
^Some of the meanings rendered by some letters (characters) are different according to different sources. So, if found different, they're added together in the same section.[34][35][36][37]
^ abChelliah, Shobhana Lakshmi (2011). A Grammar of Meithei. De Gruyter. p. 355. ISBN9783110801118. Meithei Mayek is part of the Tibetan group of scripts, which originated from the Gupta Brahmi script
^Watham, S.; Vimal, V. (2013). "Transliteration from Hindi Script to Meetei Mayek: ( A Rule Based Approach )". S2CID16339978. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
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.
External links
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