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Meitei, also known as Manipuri, is a Tibeto-Burman language of northeast India. It is the official language and the lingua franca of Manipur and one of the official languages India. Meitei is the most widely-spoken Tibeto-Burman language of India and third the most used language of northeast India after Assamese and Bengali. There are 1.76 million Meitei native speakers in India according to the 2011 census. Most of these, or 1.52 million, are found in the state of Manipur, where they represent majority 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). The language is also spoken by smaller groups in neighbouring Myanmar and Bangladesh.
The Paite people are an ethnic group in Northeast India, mainly living in Manipur and Mizoram. The Paites are recognized as a scheduled tribe in these two states. They are part of the Kuki-Zo people, but prefer to use the Zomi identity. "Guite" is a major clan of the Paite people.
Bishnupriya Manipuri, also known as Bishnupriya Meitei or simply as Bishnupriya, is an Indo-Aryan lect belonging to the Bengali–Assamese linguistic sub-branch. It is a creole of Bengali language and Meitei language and it still retains its pre-Bengali features. It is spoken in parts of the Indian states of Assam, Tripura and Manipur as well as in the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh. It uses the Bengali-Assamese script as its writing system. Bishnupriya Manipuri, being a member of the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, was evolved from Magadhi Prakrit. So, its origin is associated with Magadha realm. The Government of Tripura categorised Bishnnupriya Manipuri under the "Tribal Language Cell" of the State Council of Educational Research and Training. Its speakers are also given the "Other Backward Classes" status by the Assam Government and notably, there is no legal status of the Bishnupriyas in Manipur. In the 2020s, the Bishnupriya speaking people started demanding that the Assam Government should give them the status of "indigenous people" of Assam and treat the same like other indigenous communities of the state.
The Kuki people are an ethnic group in the Northeastern Indian states of Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, as well as the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar. The Kukis form one of the largest hill tribe communities in Northeast India, along with the adjoining regions of Bangladesh and Myanmar. In Northeast India, they are present in all states except Arunachal Pradesh. The Chin people of Myanmar and the Mizo people of Mizoram are kindred tribes of the Kukis. Collectively, they are termed the Zo people.
Zo is a Northern Kuki-Chin-Mizo language originating in western Burma and spoken also in Mizoram and Manipur in northeastern India.
The Kuki-Chin–Naga languages are a geographic clustering of languages of the Sino-Tibetan family in James Matisoff's classification used by Ethnologue, which groups it under the non-monophyletic "Tibeto-Burman". Their genealogical relationship both to each other and to the rest of Sino-Tibetan is unresolved, but Matisoff lumps them together as a convenience pending further research.
The Kuki-Chin languages are a branch of 50 or so Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Speakers of these languages are Mizo in Mizoram, Kuki people in Manipur, and Chin people in Myanmar.
The Zo people is a term to denote all the speakers of the Kuki-Chin languages who inhabit northeast India, western Myanmar, and southeastern Bangladesh. The Mizo, Chin, and Kuki people are the main ethnic groups.
Vaiphei is a Sino-Tibetan language belonging to the Kuki-Chin linguistic subbranch of the Tibeto-Burman group of languages. It is spoken mainly in the Myanmar minutely in Manipur-KukiZogam, Mizoram, Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura. The dialect spoken in Myanmar exhibits a least partial mutual intelligibility with the other Mizo/Kukish dialects of the area including Thadou, Hmar, Paite, Simte, Kom and Gangte languages.
Gangte is a Sino-Tibetan language of Kuki-Chin linguistic sub branch of Northeastern India. Its speakers primarily live in Manipur and the adjacent areas of Meghalaya and Assam. The language appears to be homogeneous with no known dialectal variation and exhibits at least partial mutual intelligibility with the other Chin-Kuki-Mizo dialects of the area including Thadou, Hmar, Vaiphei, Simte, Kom and Paite languages. The speakers of this language use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.
The Kharam people, also known as the Kharam Naga, are a Tibeto-Burmese ethnic group inhabiting the Northeast Indian state of Manipur. They are recognised as a Scheduled Tribe (STs) by India. They use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.
Simte is a Kuki-Chin language of India. It is spoken primarily by the Simte in Northeastern India, who are concentrated in Manipur and adjacent areas of Mizoram and Assam. The dialect spoken in Manipur exhibits partial mutual intelligibility with the other Kuki-Chin dialects of the area including Thadou, Hmar, Vaiphei, Paite, Kom and Gangte. It is written in Latin script.
Aimol, also known as Aimual, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Aimol people of Manipur, India. It is considered endangered and has less than 9,000 speakers worldwide as per 2011 census. The speakers of this language use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.
Chothe is a Sino-Tibetan language of Kuki-Chin subgroup of northeastern India. It may be intelligible with Aimol. The speakers of this language use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.
Monsang is an unclassified Sino-Tibetan language spoken in the Northeast of India. Scott DeLancey, et al. (2015) classifies Monsang as a "Northwest Naga" language. The speakers of this language use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.
Moyon is a Sino-Tibetan language of Southern Naga linguistic sub branch. It is spoken by the Moyon peoples in Manipur, India and in Burma. The speakers of this language use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.
Sorbung is a recently discovered Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Manipur, northeastern India. Although the speakers are ethnically Tangkhul, it appears to be a non-Tangkhulic Kuki-Chin language, as it shows strong links with what was called 'Southern Tangkhul' in Brown (1837), which was also a non-Tangkhulic language spoke by ethnic Tangkhul.
Kuki Students' Organisation (KSO) is a generic name of an organisation comprising many Kuki student bodies in India. It functions under a general headquarters, with districts and other branches at different states and cities of northeast India and mainland India. During the Manipur violence they launched Thingkho le Malcha, an evening daily newspaper in English.
Kharam is a Southern Naga language of India. Peterson (2017) classifies the closely related Purum language as part of the Northwestern branch of Kuki-Chin. According Ethnologue, Kharam shares a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Purum. The speakers of this language use Meitei language as their second language (L2) according to the Ethnologue.
Meitei language, the sole official language and the lingua franca of Manipur, one of the scheduled languages of India, one of the recognised educational and literary languages of Assam and Tripura states, has its speakers spread across entire India.
References
- 1 2 Thadou–Kuki at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ↑ Mahapatra, Bijaya P.; Padmanabha, P. (December 1989). The Written Languages of the World: A Survey of the Degree and Modes of Use : Book 2, Non-Constitutional Languages. Pr De L'Universite Laval. p. 1311. ISBN 978-2-7637-7196-0.
- ↑ "Meitei | Ethnologue". Ethnologue . Retrieved 3 May 2023.
- ↑ "Just 4 people keep a language alive". The Hindu. 18 July 2012. Retrieved 7 April 2013.
- ↑ Singh, Chungkham Yashawanta (1995). "The linguistic situation in Manipur" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 18 (1): 129–134. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
- ↑ "Just 4 people keep a language alive". The Hindu. 18 July 2012.
- ↑ Haokip, Marykim (2014). Grammar of Thadou-Kuki: A Descriptive Study. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University.
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