Meitei (/ˈmeɪteɪ/),[7] also known as Manipuri (/ˌmænɪˈpʊəri/, /mʌ-/; ꯃꯅꯤꯄꯨꯔꯤ ꯂꯣꯟ),[8] is a Tibeto-Burman language of northeast India. It is spoken by around 1.8 million people, predominantly in the state of Manipur, but also by smaller communities in the rest of the country and in parts of neighbouring Myanmar and Bangladesh. It is native to the Meitei people, and within Manipur it serves as an official language and a lingua franca. It was used as a court language in the historic Manipur Kingdom and is presently included among the 22 scheduled languages of India.
Meitei is a tonal language whose exact classification within Sino-Tibetan remains unclear. It has lexical resemblances to Kuki and Tangkhul.[9]
Meitei is the most widely spoken Sino-Tibetan language of India and the most spoken indigenous language of northeast India after Assamese and Bengali.[10][11] There are 1.76 million Meitei speakers in India according to the 2011 census. The majority of these, or 1.52 million, are found in the state of Manipur, where they represent just over half of its population. There are smaller communities in neighbouring Indian states, such as Assam (168,000), Tripura (24,000), Nagaland (9,500), and elsewhere in the country (37,500).[12] Additionally, there are around 200,000 L2 speakers.[citation needed] The language is also spoken by smaller groups in neighbouring Myanmar[13] and Bangladesh.[1] Meitei is not endangered: its status has been assessed as safe in Ethnologue (where it is assigned to EGIDS level 2 "provincial language"),[1] but is considered vulnerable in UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.[14]
Name
The name Meitei or its alternate spelling Meithei is preferred by many native speakers of Meitei over Manipuri.[15] The term is derived from the Meitei word for the language Meitheirón (Meithei + -lon 'language', pronounced /mə́i.təi.lón/).[15][16] Meithei may be a compound from mí 'man' + they 'separate'.[15] This term is used by most Western linguistic scholarship.[15] Meitei scholars use the term Meit(h)ei when writing in English and the term Meitheirón when writing in Meitei.[15] Chelliah (2015: 89) notes that the Meitei spelling has replaced the earlier Meithei spelling.[17]
The language (and people) is also referred to by the loconym Manipuri.[15] The term is derived from name of the state of Manipur.[15] Manipuri is the official name of the language for the Indian government and is used by government institutions and non-Meitei authors.[15] The term Manipuri is also used to refer to the different languages of Manipur and people.[15] Additionally, Manipuri, being a loconym, can refer to anything pertaining to Manipur state.
The term Meetei is used by Meitei speakers who want political autonomy from India, so-called "revivalists".[15]
Speakers of Meitei language are known as "Kathe" by the Burmese people, "Moglie" or "Mekhlee" by the people of Cachar, Assam (Kacharis and Assamese) and "Cassay" by the Shan people and the other people living in the east of the Ningthee River (or Khyendwen River). "Ponna" is the Burmese term used to refer to the Meiteis living inside Burma.[18]
Dialects
The Meitei language exhibits a degree of regional variation; however, in recent years the broadening of communication, as well as intermarriage, has caused the dialectal differences to become relatively insignificant. The only exceptions to this occurrence are the speech differences of the dialects found in Tripura, Bangladesh and Myanmar.[19] The exact number of dialects of Meitei is unknown.[20]
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 the standard variety—and is viewed as more dynamic than the other two dialects.[clarification needed] The brief table below compares some words in these three dialects:[21]
Standard Meitei Loi Pangal English translation
chaaba chaapa chaaba to eat
kappa kapma kappa to weep
saabiba saapipa saabiba to make
thamba thampa thamba to put
chuppiba chuppipa chuppiba to kiss
Devi (2002)[22] compares the Imphal, Andro, Koutruk, and Kakching dialects of Meitei.
Status
Further information: Meitei language movement § Scheduled language movement, Meitei classical language movement, and Meitei associate official language movement
See also: Languages with official status in India
The Emblem of Manipur uses Meitei language, written in Meitei script.
Meitei is the sole official language of the Government of Manipur. It is used for all official purposes, except for some interstate cases. Meitei is included among the languages that stand apart of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India, thus granting it the status of a "scheduled language".[23][24]
In 2021, there were changes to the Manipur Official Language Act by the Government of Manipur as follows:
"Manipuri Language" means Meeteilon written in Meetei Mayek and spoken by the majority of Manipur population: Provided that the concurrent use of Bengali Script and Meetei Mayek shall be allowed in addition to English language, for a period upto 10(ten) years from the date of commencement of this Act.
— The Manipur Official Language (Amendment) Act, 2021 (Amendment to the Section 2 of the "Manipur Official Language Act, 1979", for clause "f")[25]
It was the court language of the historic Manipur Kingdom (Meeteileipak),[26][27] and was declared as such in the kingdom's 1947 Constitution, before it merged into the Indian Republic.[28][29][30][31][32] Meitei was recognised by the National Sahitya Akademi as one of the major Indian languages in 1972.[33][34]
The Meitei language has been recognised (under the name Manipuri) by the Indian Union and was included in the list of scheduled languages (included in the 8th schedule by the 71st amendment of the constitution in 1992). It has been recognised by the National Sahitya Academy for its rich literary traditions. Besides being a medium of instructions in the educational institutions in Manipur, it is taught as a subject up to the post-graduate level (Ph.D.) in major universities of India, including Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, Gauhati University, and University of North Bengal.[35][36]
Language movements
In the modern era, several Meitei language movements have been in existence, including the linguistic purism movement, scheduled language movement, classical language movement, associate official language movement. There is a proposal for the language to be granted the elite status of "Classical Languages of India".[37][38][39] Besides, it is also proposed to be recognised as an "associate official language" of the Government of Assam. According to Leishemba Sanajaoba, the present titular king of Manipur and a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha from Manipur state, by recognising Meitei as an associate official language of Assam, the identity, history, culture and tradition of Manipuris residing in Assam could be able to get protected and preserved.[40][41][42]
In the Prime Minister's Office
Further information: Prime Minister's Office (India) and Prime Minister of India
Meitei language is selected as one of the 11 Indian languages, out of the 22 official languages of the Indian Republic, to be made available in the official website of the Indian Prime Minister's Office.[43]
In the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
Meitei language is selected as one of the 14 Indian languages, out of the 22 official languages of the Indian Republic, to be made available in the Press Information Bureau (PIB) by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India (GOI). The Meitei language versions of the press releases are presently available in Bengali script, but there is plan of changing the script into Meitei script (Manipuri script) in due course of time.[44][45]
In the Staff Selection Commission
Meitei language is one of the 13 Indian languages, out of the 22 official languages of the Indian Republic, selected by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) of the Government of India, to be made available in the conduction of the Multi-Tasking (Non-Technical) Staff examination across the country. The Staff Selection Commission is one of the biggest job recruiting agencies belonging to the Indian Government. It mainly recruits people to "Group B" (Non-Gazetted Posts) and "Group C" (Non-Technical Posts) in diverse governmental ministries and departments.[46][47]
In the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
Meitei language is selected as one of the 5 Indian languages, for publishing information on the Indian heritage by the Indian Government's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology sponsored "Northeast Heritage" Web, besides Hindi and English.[48][49]
In the National Education Policy
Meitei language is one of the 28 languages selected across the world, besides French, Sanskrit, Tamil, etc. to be used in teaching and learning in grades (1-5) by the "Unified District Information System for Education Plus" (UDISE+), as per the reports of the Press Information Bureau (PIB). It is a part of the National Education Policy 2020 started by the Union Cabinet of India.[50][51]
Phonology
Tone
The Meitei language is a tonal language. There is a controversy over whether there are two or three tones.[52]
Segments
Meitei distinguishes the following phonemes:[53]
Consonants
Labial Dental/Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop voiceless unaspirated p t tʃ k ʔ
aspirated pʰ tʰ kʰ
voiced unaspirated b d dʒ ɡ
breathy-voiced bʱ dʱ ɡʱ
Fricative s h
Flap ɾ
Lateral l
Approximant w j
Vowels
Front Central Back
High i u
Mid e ɐ o
Low a
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.[52]
Meitei has a dissimilatory process similar to Grassmann's law found in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit, though occurring on the second aspirate.[54] 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
/səŋ/
cow
+
/kʰom/
udder
→
/səŋɡom/
milk
/hi-/
trim
+
/-tʰok/
outward
→
/hidok/
trim outwards
Writing systems
Meitei script
Further information: Meitei script, Meetei Mayek (Unicode block), Meetei Mayek Extensions (Unicode block), Wikipedia:Meitei script display help, Meitei keyboard, and Meitei inscriptions
A Meitei language stone inscription in Meitei script about a royal decree of a Meitei king found in the sacred site of God Panam Ningthou in Andro, Imphal East, Manipur
The Meitei script (ꯃꯩꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Meitei Mayek), also known as the Meetei script (ꯃꯤꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Meetei Mayek),[55] used for writing in Meitei language, is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. Also known as the Kanglei script (ꯀꯪꯂꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ/ꯀꯪꯂꯩ ꯏꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Kanglei Mayek/Kanglei Iyek)[56][57] and the Kok Sam Lai script (ꯀꯣꯛ ꯁꯝ ꯂꯥꯏ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Kok Sam Lai Mayek),[b][58][59] its earliest known epigraphic evidence of existence dates back to the 6th century CE coins issued by Meitei kings, engraving the Meitei letters,[60] as verified by the National Sahitya Akademi.[61] It was used until the 18th century, when it was replaced by the Bengali script, and reused again massively in the 20th century.[62] Starting from 2021, Meitei script (officially known as Meetei Mayek[c]) was officially used by the Government of Manipur, along with the Bengali script, to write the Meitei language, as per "The Manipur Official Language (Amendment) Act, 2021".[63]
Naoriya Phulo script
Main article: Naoriya Phulo script
Latin script
Elementary Manipuri (Roman Script) is one of the subjects offered to the students by the The Board of Secondary Education Manipur, BSEM.[64][65] It is a subject categorised under the "Subjects In Lieu Of First Language", for being used in lieu of "Manipuri".[66] It is a commonly opted subject to the students of the hill people of Manipur.[67]
The Meitei language editions of the Bible in Roman script is very commonly used by the Christians of Manipur.[68]
There exists an informal, but fairly consistent practical spelling of Meitei in Latin script.[citation needed] 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 Meitei 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 Meitei 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/.[citation needed]
IPA Practical
/m/ m
/n/ n
/ŋ/ ng
/b/ b
/d/ d
/dʒ/ j
/ɡ/ g
/bʱ/ bh
/dʱ/ dh
/dʒʱ/ jh
/ɡʱ/ gh
/p/ p
/t/ t
/tʃ/ c or ch
/k/ k
/ʔ/ ’
/pʰ/ ph (rarely f)
/tʰ/ th
/kʰ/ kh
/s/ s or sh
/h/ h
/ɾ/ r
/l/ l
/w/ w
/j/ y
/ɐ/ a
/ɐj/ ei
/ɐw/ ou
/a/ a or aa or ā
/aj/ ai
/aw/ ao
/e/ e
/i/ i (rarely ee)
/o/ o
/oj/ oi
/u/ u (rarely oo)
/uj/ ui
Bengali script
The term "Manipuri Lon" and its endonym "Meitei Lon", literally meaning "Manipuri language" and "Meitei language" respectively, written in the Eastern Nagari script (Bengali script)
Meitei in Bangladesh and India currently uses the Bengali script, alongside the Meitei script.[1]
Grammar
Sentences in the Meitei language use the format Subject + Object + Verb (SOV). For example, in the sentence Ei chak chai (ꯑꯩ ꯆꯥꯛ ꯆꯥꯢ), which translates to I eat rice, the gloss is "ei" (I), "chak" (rice), "chai" (eat).
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:[69]
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:[69]
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:[70]
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]:[70]
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 as pithokningle meaning "want to give out".
Number words
Numeral Word Etymology Meitei Script
1 a-ma ~ a-maa "1" ꯑꯃꯥ
2 a-ni Proto-Tibeto-Burman *ni ꯑꯅꯤ
3 a-húm PTB *sum ꯑꯍꯨꯝ
4 ma-ri PTB *li ꯃꯔꯤ
5 ma-ngaa PTB *ŋa ꯃꯉꯥ
6 ta-ruk PTB *luk ꯇꯔꯨꯛ
7 ta-ret PTB *let ꯇꯔꯦꯠ
8 ni-paan "2-less" ꯅꯤꯄꯥꯟ
9 maa-pan "1-less" ꯃꯥꯄꯟ
10 ta-raa "10" ꯇꯔꯥ
11 taraa-maa-thoi "ten + 1-more" ꯇꯔꯥꯃꯥꯊꯣꯏ
12 taraa-ni-thoi "ten + 2-more" ꯇꯔꯥꯅꯤꯊꯣꯏ
13 taraa-húm-doi "ten + 3-more" ꯇꯔꯥꯍꯨꯝꯗꯣꯏ
14 taraa-mari "ten +4" ꯇꯔꯥꯃꯔꯤ
15 taraa-mangaa "ten +5" ꯇꯔꯥꯃꯉꯥ
16 taraa-taruk "ten +6" ꯇꯔꯥꯇꯔꯨꯛ
17 taraa-taret "ten +7" ꯇꯔꯥꯇꯔꯦꯠ
18 taraa-nipaan "ten +8" ꯇꯔꯥꯅꯤꯄꯥꯟ
19 taraa-maapan "ten +9" ꯇꯔꯥꯃꯥꯄꯟ
20 kun ~ kul "score" ꯀꯨꯟ ~ ꯀꯨꯜ
30 *kun-taraa > kun-thraa "score ten" ꯀꯨꯟꯊ꯭ꯔꯥ
40 ni-phú "two score" ꯅꯤꯐꯨ
50 yaang-khéi "half hundred" ꯌꯥꯡꯈꯩ
60 hum-phú "three score" ꯍꯨꯝꯐꯨ
70 hum-phú-taraa "three score ten" ꯍꯨꯝꯐꯨꯇꯔꯥ
80 mari-phú "four score" ꯃꯔꯤꯐꯨ
90 mari-phú-taraa "four score ten" ꯃꯔꯤꯐꯨꯇꯔꯥ
100 chaama "one hundred" ꯆꯥꯃ
200 cha-ni "two hundreds" ꯆꯥꯅꯤ
300 cha-hum "three hundreds" ꯆꯥꯍꯨꯝ
400 cha-mri "four hundreds" ꯆꯥꯃ꯭ꯔꯤ
500 cha-mangaa "five hundreds" ꯆꯥꯃꯉꯥ
1,000 lisíng ama "one thousand" ꯂꯤꯁꯤꯡ
10,000 lisīng-taraa "ten thousands" ꯂꯤꯁꯤꯡꯇꯔꯥ
1,00,000 licha "one hundred-thousand" ꯂꯤꯆꯥ
10,00,000 licha-taraa "ten hundred-thousands" ꯂꯤꯆꯥꯇꯔꯥ
1,00,00,000 leepun "one ten-million" ꯂꯤꯄꯨꯟ
10,00,00,000 leepun-taraa "ten ten-millions" ꯂꯤꯄꯨꯟꯇꯔꯥ
1,00,00,00,000 leepot "one billion" ꯂꯤꯄꯣꯠ
10,00,00,00,000 leepot-taraa "ten billions" ꯂꯤꯄꯣꯠꯇꯔꯥ
1,00,00,00,00,000 leekei "one hundred-billion" ꯂꯤꯀꯩ
10,00,00,00,00,000 leekei-taraa "ten hundred-billions" ꯂꯤꯀꯩꯇꯔꯥ
1,00,00,00,00,00,000 pu-ama "one ten-trillion" ꯄꯨ ꯑꯃꯥ
Literature
Main article: Meitei literature
Among the various Tibeto-Burman languages, the most important and in literature certainly of much greater importance than Newari, is the Meitei or Manipuri language.
— Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, Padma Vibhushan awardee Indian Bengali scholar[71][72][73]
The Numit Kappa, a Classical Meitei epic text written during the 1st century, based on ancient Meitei mythology and religion (Sanamahism)
Linguistic tradition
Main articles: Meitei folklore and Meitei mythology
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.[74]
The Meitei language had its own script. The history behind the Meitei language itself comes primarily from the ancient period of northeastern India.[75]
Literary Awards
Further information: Sahitya Akademi Award for Meitei, Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize for Meitei, and Yuva Puraskar for Meitei
Media
Main articles: List of Meitei-language newspapers, List of Meitei-language television channels, List of Meitei-language films, and Meitei cinema
An illustration of the Maniwood clapperboard
All the Meitei newspapers will be using the Meitei script instead of the Bengali script from 15 January 2023; 50 days ago, according to a joint meeting consensus of the "Meetei Erol Eyek Loinasillol Apunba Lup" (MEELAL), "All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union" (AMWJU) and "Editors' Guild Manipur" (EGM) in Imphal.[76][77][78][79][80]
Language Day
Main article: Meitei Language Day
The Meitei Language Day (Meitei Longi Numit; /mei-tei lon-gee noo-meet/), also known as the Manipuri Language Day (Manipuri Longi Numit; /ma-nee-poo-ree lon-gee noo-meet/), is observed on 20 August every year, in memory of the day on which the language was included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and made one of the languages with official status in India on 20 August 1992.[81][82][83][84][85]
Software
Further information: Meitei input methods
In 2021, Rudali Huidrom, a Manipuri researcher of the EBMT/NLP laboratory, Waseda University, Japan, created a text corpus named "EM Corpus" (shortened form of "Emalon Manipuri Corpus"). It is the first comparable text 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 is Bengali script. It was crawled and collected from thesangaiexpress.com - the news website of "The Sangai Express",[86] a daily newspaper of Manipur 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.[87][88]
EM-ALBERT is the first ALBERT model available for Meitei language. EM-FT is also FastText 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 license.[87][88]
A screen shot of Google 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 is Meitei script.[89][90][91]
Influence on other speech forms
Words of Meitei origin occur in other languages.
In Tangkhul
See also: Tangkhul language and Tangkhulic languages
"Tangkhul" (Meitei: ꯇꯥꯡꯈꯨꯜ, romanized: /tāng-khūl/) is a speech form as well as an ethnicity. The term "Tangkhul" got its name from the Meitei language terms, "Tang" (Meitei: ꯇꯥꯡ, romanized: /tāng/) meaning "scarce" and "Khul" (Meitei: ꯈꯨꯜ, romanized: /khūl/) meaning "village" respectively.[92] According to another theory, the term "Tangkhul" is derived from "Thankhul", meaning "Than village" in Meitei language.[93][94][95]
In Lamkang/Lamgang
See also: Lamkang language and Lamkang people
"Lamkang" (Meitei: ꯂꯝꯀꯥꯡ) or "Lamgang" (Meitei: ꯂꯝꯒꯥꯡ) is a speech form as well as an ethnic group. The term is derived from the Meitei language words, "Lam" (Meitei: ꯂꯝ, romanized: /lam/[96]) meaning "land" and "Kang" (Meitei: ꯀꯡ, romanized: /kang/[97]) meaning "dry". The overall meaning of "Lamkang" is rendered as "people who settled on the dry hilly areas" by the Meitei people. In old Meitei records, the Lamkang people were termed as the "Hiroi Lamkang". The prefixed term "Hiroi" is derived from the Meitei language word for boat ("hi") and work group ("loi").[98][99]
In Anal/Anan
See also: Anāl language and Anāl people
"Anāl" (Meitei: ꯑꯅꯥꯜ) is a speech form as well as an ethnic group. The term "Anāl" (Meitei: ꯑꯅꯥꯜ, romanized: /a-nāl/) is derived from the Meitei language term "Anan" (Meitei: ꯑꯅꯥꯟ, romanized: /a-nān/) meaning "cleanliness". The Anāl people are named so by the Meitei people because of their cleanliness in comparison to other tribes.[100][101][102][103]
Sample text
The following is a sample text in Modern Meitei of the Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (by the United Nations)[104][d]:
ꯃꯤꯑꯣꯏꯕ ꯈꯨꯗꯤꯡꯃꯛ ꯄꯣꯛꯄ ꯃꯇꯝꯗ ꯅꯤꯡꯇꯝꯃꯤ, ꯑꯃꯗꯤ ꯏꯖꯖꯠ ꯑꯃꯁꯨꯡ ꯍꯛ ꯃꯥꯟꯅꯅ ꯂꯧꯖꯩ ꯫ ꯃꯈꯣꯏ ꯄꯨꯝꯅꯃꯛ ꯋꯥꯈꯜ ꯂꯧꯁꯤꯡ ꯁꯦꯡꯏ, ꯑꯐ ꯐꯠꯇ ꯈꯪꯏ, ꯑꯗꯨꯅ ꯑꯃꯅ ꯑꯃꯒ ꯂꯣꯏꯅꯕ ꯃꯇꯝꯗ ꯃꯆꯤꯟ ꯃꯅꯥꯎꯒꯨꯝꯅ ꯂꯣꯏꯅꯒꯗꯕꯅꯤ ꯫
— Modern Meitei in Meitei script
মিওইবা খুদিংমক পোকপা মতমদা নিংতম্মী, অমদি ইজ্জৎ অমসুং হক মান্ননা লৌজৈ । মখোই পুম্নমক ৱাখল লৌশিং শেঙই, অফ ফত্তা খঙই, অদুনা অমনা অমগা লোইনবদা মচীন মনাওগুম্না লোইনগদবনি ।
— Modern Meitei in Bengali script
Mioiba khudingmak pokpa matamda ningtammi amadi ijjat amasung hak mānnana leijei, makhoi pumnamak wākhal loushing shengi, apha phatta khangi, aduna amana amaga loinabada machin manāogumna loinagadabani.
— Modern Meitei in Roman transliteration, faithful to script
míːójbə kʰud̯íŋmək pókpə mət̯ə̀md̯ə níːŋt̯ə̀mmi, əməd̯i iːdʒət əməʃùng hə́k màːnənə lɐ̀jdʒɐ̀j. məkʰój púmnəmək wakʰə̀l lə̀wʃiŋ ʃèŋi, əpʱə̀ pʱə́ːt̯ə kʰə́ŋi, əd̯unə əmənə əməgə lòjnəbəd̯ə mət͡ʃìn mənáwgùmnə lójnəgəd̯əbəni'.
— Modern Meitei in IPA
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are all pure in mind, knowing right from wrong, and should be treated like brothers and sisters when they treat each other.
— Gloss, word-for-word
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.
— Translation, grammatical
See also
Portals:
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icon Languages
icon Linguistics
Languages of India
List of languages by number of native speakers in India
List of Manipuri poets
Meitei inscriptions
Meitei literature
Meitei Language Day
List of epics in Meitei language
List of Sahitya Akademi Award winners for Meitei
List of Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize winners for Meitei
List of Yuva Puraskar winners for Meitei
Vikaspedia
Footnotes
The terms, "Meitei", "Meetei" and "Manipuri" are synonymous. While "Meitei" is more popular than "Meetei", "Meetei" is the officially mentioned synonym of the term "Manipuri".
named after the first three letters "Kok" (K), "Sam" (S) and "Lai" (L) of the Meitei writing system.
The terms, "Meitei", "Meetei" and "Manipuri" are synonymous. While "Meitei" is more popular than "Meetei", "Meetei" is the officially mentioned synonym of the term "Manipuri".
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.
