Khasi language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Khasi Khasi |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | India, Bangladesh | |
| Total speakers: | 865,000 mainly in Meghalaya, India (1997) | |
| Language family: | Austro-Asiatic Mon-Khmer Northern Mon-Khmer Khasian Khasi |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | kha | |
| ISO 639-3: | kha | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Khasi is an Austro-Asiatic language spoken primarily in Meghalaya state in India. Khasi is part of the Mon-Khmer group of languages, and is distantly related to the Munda branch of the Austroasiatic family, which is found in east-central India.
Although most of the 865,000 Khasi speakers are found in Meghalaya state, the language is also spoken by a number of people in the hill districts of Assam bordering with Meghalaya and by a sizable population of people living in Bangladesh, close to the Indian border.
Khasi is rich in folklore and folktale, and behind most of the names of hills, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, birds, flowers, and animals there is a story.
[edit] Script
In the past, the Khasi language had no script of its own. William Carey attempted to write the language with the Bangla (Bengali) script between 1813 and 1838. A large number of Khasi books were written in the Bangla script, including the famous book Ka Niyiom Jong Ka Khasi or The Rule of the Khasis, which is an important manuscript of the Seng Khasi religion. The Welsh missionary, Thomas Jones, in 1841 wrote the language in the Roman script. As a result, the orthography of the language in Roman script is quite similar to that of Welsh orthography. As it was more easily adapted to the Khasi language than was the Bangla script, the Roman script for Khasi was adopted.
[edit] Alphabet
- Capital letters A, B, K, D, E, G, Ng, H, I, Ï, J, L, M, N, Ñ, O, P, R, S, T, U, W, Y.
- Small letters a, b, k, d, e, g, ng, h, i, ï, j, l, m, n, ñ, o, p, r, s, t, u, w, y.
