Khasi language

Template:Short description Template:Use Indian English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Template other Khasi () is an Austroasiatic language with just over a million speakers in north-east India, primarily the Khasi people in the state of Meghalaya. It has associate official status in some districts of this state. The closest relatives of Khasi are the other languages in the Khasic group of the Shillong Plateau; these include Pnar, Lyngngam and War.

Khasi is written using the Latin script. In the first half of the 19th century, attempts to write Khasi in Bengali-Assamese script met with little success.

Geographic distribution and status

Khasi is natively spoken by Template:Sigfig people in India (as of 2011). It is the first language of one-third of the population of Meghalaya, or Template:Sigfig, and its speakers are mostly found in the Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills regions. There are also small Khasi-speaking communities in neighbouring states of India, the largest of which is in Assam: Template:Sigfig people. There is also a very small number of speakers in Bangladesh.

Khasi has been an associate official language of some districts within Meghalaya since 2005, and as of 2012, was no longer considered endangered by UNESCO. There are demands to include this language to the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India.

A sizeable number of books have been published in Khasi, including novels, poetry, religious works, school textbooks and non-fiction. The most famous Khasi poet is U Soso Tham (1873–1940), whose death is commemorated annually as a regional holiday in the state of Meghalaya. Khasi has a good presence on the internet, including blogs and several online newspapers.

Dialects

The Sohra dialect is taken as the Standard form of Khasi, and it was the first dialect to be written in Latin and Bengali scripts by the British. While Standard Khasi is spoken by a majority in Shillong, it is in turn significantly different from the other Shillong dialects (eight at most) which form a dialect continuum across the capital region.

Khasi has significant dialectal variation, and this presents a challenge with regard to classifying the Khasic languages.

Khasi dialects are rich and widely different from village to village. The following are the dialects that are spoken among the Khasi tribes:

• Sohra Khasi (Sohra dialogue is a local and mass Communication among the Khasi Tribes which is well known as Khasi language)
• Mylliem Khasi
• Mawlai Khasi
• Nongkrem Khasi
• War Khasi, not to be confused with the closely associated War language
• Bhoi Khasi
• Nonglung

In addition, Pnar, Maram (including Langrin) and Lyngngam have been listed as types of Khasi, although more recent studies seem to indicate that these are sister languages to Khasi, and that Khasi actually began as a marginal Pnar dialect.

Bhoi, from Nongpoh, and Nonglung from Umsning, in Ri Bhoi District, differ substantially from Standard Khasi in their word order. They are different enough from Standard Khasi to be sometimes considered separate languages, with Bhoi sometimes classified as intermediate between Khasi and Pnar, and Nonglung being part of Mnar, variously classified as a type of War or of Pnar. On the other hand, Sohra and War Khasi are lexically very similar.

Phonology

This section discusses mainly the phonology of Standard Khasi as spoken in and around the capital city, Shillong.

Khasi, mainly spoken in Meghalaya, is surrounded by unrelated languages: Assamese to the north and east, Sylheti to the south (both Indo-Aryan languages), Garo (a Tibeto-Burman language) to the west, and a plethora of other Tibeto-Burman languages including Manipuri, Mizo and Bodo.

Although over the course of time, language change has occurred, Khasi retains some distinctive features:

• Khasi remains a stress language, without tones, unlike many of its Tibeto-Burman neighbors.
• Like its Mon-Khmer relatives, Khasi has a large inventory of phonemic vowels (see below)
• The syllable structure of Khasi words resembles that of many Mon-Khmer languages, with many lexical items showing a CCVC shape, in which many combinations of consonants are possible in the onset (see examples below).

Consonants

Consonant phonemes

				Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal				Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link						Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Stop		Unaspirated		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link				Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
		Aspirated		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link						Template:IPA link
Affricate		Unaspirated						Template:IPA link
		Aspirated						Template:IPA link
Fricative								Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link						Template:IPA link
Approximant												Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Trill						Template:IPA link
Lateral						Template:IPA link

Examples

		IPA	Translation			IPA	Translation
Template:IPA link	mrad		animal	Template:IPA link	nar		iron
Template:IPA link	ñia		aunt	Template:IPA link	ngen		wane
Template:IPA link	pan		ask	Template:IPA link	phylla		special
Template:IPA link	blang		goat	Template:IPA link	bhoi		Bhoi
Template:IPA link	tdong		tail	Template:IPA link	thah		ice
Template:IPA link	dur		picture	Template:IPA link	dheng		park
Template:IPA link	krung		rib	Template:IPA link	khring		entice
Template:IPA link	jlaw		howl	Template:IPA link	jhieh		wet
Template:IPA link	syiem		monarch	Template:IPA link	shñiuh		hair
Template:IPA link	rynsan		platform	Template:IPA link	lieh		white
Template:IPA link	ïor		snow	Template:IPA link	wah		river

Vowels

Vowel phonemes

			Front		Central		Back
			Short	Long	Short	Long	Short	Long
Close			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Mid-Close			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Mid-Open			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Open					Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link

Examples

		IPA	Translation			IPA	Translation
Template:IPA link	ding		fire	Template:IPA link	ih		cooked
Template:IPA link	ynda		until	Template:IPA link	ruh		also
Template:IPA link	miet		night	Template:IPA link	iermat		eyelash
Template:IPA link	lum		hill	Template:IPA link	ud		moan
Template:IPA link	reng		horn	Template:IPA link	erïong		whirlwind
Template:IPA link	ong		say	Template:IPA link	Shillong		Shillong
Template:IPA link	sat		spicy	Template:IPA link	sad		ceiling

Script

Before British colonization, some of the Khasi Syiems (Royals) used to keep official records and communicate with one another on paper primarily using the Bengali script. William Carey wrote the language with the Bengali script between 1813 and 1838. A large number of Khasi books were written in the Bengali script, including the famous book Ka Niyom Jong Ki Khasi or The Religion of the Khasis, which is an important work on the Khasi religion.

The Welsh missionary Thomas Jones arrived in Sohra on 22 June 1841 and proceeded to write down the local language in the Latin script. As a result, the modified Latin alphabet of the language has a few similarities with the Welsh alphabet. The first journal in Khasi was (The Messenger) published at Mawphlang in 1889 by William Williams.

Khasi alphabet

Khasi in Latin script has a different system, distinct from that of English. Khasi uses a 23-letter alphabet by removing the letters c, f, q, v, x and z from the basic Latin alphabet and adding the diacritic letters ï and ñ, and the digraph ng, which is treated as a letter in its own right. The diagraph ng is also present in Welsh alphabet.

Khasi 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
English Pronunciation	ah	bee	kay	dee	ay	eg	eng	esh	ee	yee	jay	ell	emm	enn	eñ	oh	pea	aar	ess	tee	oo	double yu	why
Assamese	আ	ব	ক	দ	এ	গ	ঙ	হ	ই	য	জ	ল	ম	ন	ঞ	অ	প	ৰ	স	ত	উ	ৱ	য়
Bengali	আ	ব	ক	দ	এ	গ	অং	হ	ই	য়ি	জ	ল	ম	ন	ঞ	ও	প	র	স	ত	উ	ঊ	ঈ

Pronunciation

• Vowel length is not usually marked in the orthography, although it can be marked optionally by an acute accent (sim "bird" vs. rí "country").
• The peculiar placement of k is due to it replacing c. c and ch were originally used in place of k and kh. When c was removed from the alphabet, k was put in its place.
• The inclusion of g is only due to its presence in the letter ng. It is not used independently in any word of native origin.
• h represents both the fricative sound as well as the glottal stop(ʔ) word-finally.
• y is not pronounced as in year, but acts as a schwa(ə), and as a glottal stop between vowels. The sound in year is written with ï.

Digraphs

Besides ng, which is considered a single letter in the alphabet, Khasi has 8 other digraphs:

• Aspirated consonants are represented by digraphs kh, ph and th.
• Breathy voiced consonants are represented by digraphs bh, dh and jh.
• The /ʃ/ in Khasi is written sh.
• The digraph ie represents the /e/ sound, as opposed to e, which represents the sound /ɛ/.

This digraphs are not treated as single letters but rather as combinations of letters.

Lost Khasi Script

A local legend tells of how the Khasi people received their script from God, and that subsequently the Khasi people lost their script in a great flood. In 2017, it was reported that there is evidence of an undeciphered script, currently stored at the Kamarupa Anusandhan Samity Library in Guwahati, Assam, that is considered to be Khasi in origin.

Grammar

Khasi is an Austroasiatic language and has its distinct features of a large number of consonant conjuncts, with prefixing and infixing.

Pronouns

	singular	plural
1st person	ŋa	ŋi
2nd person	pʰi
3rd person	u/ka	ki
Diminutive	i
Reflexive	la ~ lade

Nouns and noun phrases

Word order

The order of elements in a Khasi noun phrase is (Case marker)-(Demonstrative)-(Numeral)-(Classifier)-(Article)-Noun-(Adjective)-(Prepositional phrase)-(Relative clause), as can be seen from the following examples:

Gender

Khasi has a pervasive gender system. There are four genders in this language:

Gender markers in Khasi

Marker	Gender
	masculine
	feminine
	diminutive
	plural

Humans and domestic animals have their natural gender:

"mother"

"father"

"hen"

"rooster"

Rabel (1961) writes: "the structure of a noun gives no indication of its gender, nor does its meaning, but Khasi natives are of the impression that nice, small creatures and things are feminine while big, ugly creatures and things are masculine....This impression is not borne out by the facts. There are countless examples of desirable and lovely creatures with masculine gender as well as of unpleasant or ugly creatures with feminine gender"

Though there are several counterexamples, Rabel says that there is some semantic regularity in the assignment of gender for the following semantic classes:

Feminine	Masculine
times, seasons
clothes	reptiles, insects, flora, trees
physical features of nature	heavenly bodies
manufactured articles	edible raw material
tools for polishing	tools for hammering, digging
trees of soft fibre	trees of hard fibre

The matrilineal aspect of the society can also be observed in the general gender assignment, where so, all central and primary resources associated with day-to-day activities are signified as Feminine; whereas Masculine signifies the secondary, the dependent or the insignificant.

Feminine	Masculine
Sun (Ka Sngi)	Moon (U Bnai)
Wood (Ka Dieng)	Tree (U Dieng)
Honey (Ka Ngap)	Bee (U Ngap)
House (Ka Ïing)	Column (U Rishot)
Cooked rice (Ka Ja)	Uncooked rice (U Khaw)

Note: However do note that there are no such universal rules for gender assignment of nouns in Khasi. There are a lot of exceptions and one such is ('flower'), which is stereotypically considered feminine but is accompanied with masculine gender signifier "u" i.e. . This gender assignment to nouns is highly depended on what the native speakers assign the noun which they all naturally agree upon but which can vary sometimes like according to the mood or tone.

Classifiers

Khasi has a classifier system, apparently used only with numerals. Between the numeral and noun, the classifier is used for non-humans, and the classifier ngut is used for humans, e.g.

Adjectives

There is some controversy about whether Khasi has a class of adjectives. Roberts cites examples like the following:

In nearly all instances of attributive adjectives, the apparent adjective has the prefix /ba-/, which seems to be a relativiser. There are, however, a few adjectives without the /ba-/ prefix:

When the adjective is the main predicate, it may appear without any verb 'be':

In this environment, the adjective is preceded by an agreement marker, like a verb. Thus it may be that Khasi does not have a separate part of speech for adjectives, but that they are a subtype of verb.

Prepositions and prepositional phrases

Khasi appears to have a well-developed group of prepositions, among them

• "with, and"
• "with (instrumental)"
• "from"
• "in, at"
• "in, at"
• "of"

The following are examples of prepositional phrases:

Verbs and verb phrases

Agreement

Verbs agree with 3rd person subjects in gender, but there is no agreement for non-3rd persons (Roberts 1891):

	Singular	Plural
1st person	nga thoh 'I write'	ngi thoh 'we write'
2nd person	me thoh 'he (masc) writes' pha thoh 'she (fem) writes'	phi thoh 'you (pl). write'
3rd person	u thoh 'he writes' ka thoh 'she writes'	ki thoh 'they write'

The masculine and feminine markers /u/ and /ka/ are used even when there is a noun phrase subject (Roberts 1891:132):

Tense marking

Tense is shown through a set of particles that appear after the agreement markers but before the verb. The future marker is fused with subject pronouns, plural marker, as well as gender marker. Past is a particle /la/ and future is /yn/ (contracted to 'n after a vowel):

Khasi	English
U thoh.	He writes.
U thoh.	He wrote.
U la thoh.	He has written.
Un thoh	He will write.

Negation

Negation is also shown through an enclitic, =ɨm (contracted to 'm after a vowel), which appears between the agreement and the tense particle. There is a special past negation particle ʃɨm in the past which replaces the ordinary past /la/ (Roberts 1891):

Khasi	English
Um ju thoh.	He doesn't write.
Um shym thoh.	He didn't write.
Um nym thoh	He won't write.
Um dei ban thoh	He shouldn't write.

Another negation particle, kʰlem, is equivalent to the past tense negative construct =m ʃɨm la, can also be used as a negative subordinator:

Copulas

The copula is an ordinary verb in Khasi, as in the following sentence:

Causative verbs

Khasi has a morphological causative /pn-/ (Rabel 1961). (This is spelled pyn in Roberts (1891)):

Base verb	Gloss	Causative verb	Gloss
hiar	come down	pynhiar	let down, export
tip	know	pyntip	make known
phuh	blossom	pynphuh	beautify
ïaid	walk	pyn-ïaid	drive, put agoing
jot	torn	pyn-jot	destroy
poi	arrive	pyn-poi	deliver

Sentences

Word order

Word order in simple sentences is subject–verb–object (SVO):

However, VSO order is also found, especially after certain initial particles, like hangta 'then' (Rabel 1961).

Case marking

Sometimes the object is preceded by a particle ya (spelled ia in Roberts 1891). Roberts says "ia, 'to', 'for', 'against' implies direct and immediate relation. Hence its being the sign of the dative and of the accusative case as well"

It appears from Roberts (1891) that Khasi has differential object marking, since only some objects are marked accusative. Roberts notes that nouns that are definite usually have the accusative and those that are indefinite often do not.

Rabel (1961) says "the use of ïa is optional in the case of one object. In the case of two objects one of them must have ïa preceding.... If one of the objects is expressed by a pronoun, it must be preceded by ïa."

Broadly speaking, Khasi have 8 prepositions on NPs to indicate relations between arguments in constituent clauses, with the nominative case remaining unmarked, for a total of nine cases. They are fairly pervasive and play an important role in Khasi syntax.

Case markers in Khasi

Case	Marker
Nominative	(unmarked)
Accusative-dative	ja
Ablative	na
Locative	ha
Allative	ʃa
Genitive	ʤoŋ
Instrumental	da
Comitative	baːt
Perlative	lɨŋba
Vocative	?

All case markers can appear with or without the prenominal markers/articles , , and , and are placed before the prenominal markers.

Passive

Khasi has a passive, but it involves removing the agent of the sentence without putting the patient in subject position. (A type called the 'non-ascensional passive'). Compare the following active-passive pair (Roberts 1891) where the patient continues to have accusative case and remains in the object position:

This type of passive is used, even when the passive agent is present in a prepositional phrase:

Questions

Yes–no questions seem to be distinguished from statements only by intonation:

Wh-questions do not involve moving the wh-element:

Embedded clauses

Subordinate clauses follow the main verb that selects them (Roberts 1891:169):

Relative clauses follow the nouns that they modify and agree in gender:

Contractions and other reduced forms

Contractions

A variety of Khasi prepositions and other words are contracted or reduced both in spoken and written language. One of the most common form of contractions is when a is grouped with the verbs "" or "" (for e.g. contracts to ). Or when a preposition is grouped with a vowel-like gender identifier such as "" and "" (for e.g. contracts to ).

Full form	Contracted form
ki ym
ki yn
ka ym
ka yn
i yn
i ym
nga yn
nga ym
phi yn
phi ym
u yn
u ym
ba yn
ha u
da u
ïa u
ba u
ba la
la u
la i

Reduced words

Reduced form of words are common in the Khasi language. Most of the time, one or a couple of letters are dropped at the beginning of a word (for e.g. briew can become 'riew). There's no clear rule behind this process but usually these words that undergo reduction begins with more than one consonants; the reduced word is accompanied by an apostrophe from the start to mark so. The reduced form of the word is still understood by its context of usage and since its last inner syllabus and letters (i.e. ) are always preserved.

Word	Reduced form
briew
khlaw
sla
blei
shniuh
shnong
lyer
kti
blang
khñiang
khmat
shkor
dohkha

These reduced forms of words are mostly seen in compound forms where the reduced word is affixed with other words to give rise to new words with new meanings. In compound form, the apostrophe is not used anymore. For e.g. 'riew as in riewkhlaw, riewspah, riewhyndai etc.

Sample text in Khasi

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Khasi Alphabet

Ïa ki bynriew baroh la kha laitluid bad ki ïaryngkat ha ka burom bad ki hok. Ha ki la bsiap da ka bor pyrkhat bad ka jingïatiplem bad ha ka mynsiem jingsngew shipara, ki dei ban ïatrei bynrap lang.

(Jinis 1 jong ka Jingpynbna-Ïar Satlak ïa ki Hok Longbriew-Manbriew)

Assamese script যা কি বৃনৰ‌্যের বাৰহ লা খা লাচলোছ বাড কী যৰূঙ্কট হা কি বুৰম বাড ক হক. হাকি লা বৃস্যপ দা ক বৰ-পৃৰ্খট বাড ক চিংযাতিপলেম বাড হা ক মৃন্স্যেম চিংস্ঙেউ শীপাৰা, কী দেই বাণ যত্ৰেই বৃনৰাপ লাং.

(জিনিস বানৃঙ্গং জং ক চিংপৃনবৃনা-যাৰ সত্লাক যা কি হক লংব্ৰ্যের-মানব্র্যের.)

IPA

jaː ki bɨnreʊ baːrɔʔ laː kʰaː lacloc bat ki jaːrɨŋkat haː kaː burɔm bat ki hɔk. haː ki laː bsjap daː kaː bɔːr pɨrkʰat bat kaː dʒɪŋjaːtɪplɛm bat haː kaː mɨnseːm dʒɨŋsŋɛʊ ʃiparaː ki dɛɪ ban jaːtrɛɪ bɨnrap laŋ

(dʒinɪs banɨŋkɔŋ dʒɔŋ kaː dʒɨŋpɨnbnaː-jaːr satlak jaː ki hɔk lɔŋbreʊ manbreʊ)

Gloss

To the human all are born free and they equal in the dignity and the rights. In them are endowed with the power thought and the conscience and in the spirit feeling fraternity they should to work assist together.

(Article first of the Declaration Universal of the Rights Humanity)

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should work towards each other in a spirit of brotherhood.

Basic vocabulary

Khasi language	English
Khublei (khu-blei)	Thank You
Phi long kumno?	How are you? In short it is also used as "Kumno?"
Nga khlaiñ	I am fine.
Kumne	Short form response to 'Kumno?' meaning 'like this'.
Um	Water
Ja	(cooked) rice
Dohkha (doh-kha)	fish (meat)
Dohsyiar (doh-syiar)	chicken (meat)
Dohsniang (doh-sni-ang)	pork (meat)
Dohmasi (doh-ma-si)	beef (meat)
Dohblang (doh-bl-ang)	mutton (meat)
Jyntah (jyn-tah)	dish (meat/vegetable)
Jhur (jh-ur)	vegetable
Dai	lentils
Mluh (ml-uh)	salt
Duna (du-na)	less
Sohmynken (soh-myn-ken)	chilli
Sngewbha ai biang seh	Please give again (serve again).
Lah biang	enough
Sngewbha ai um seh	Please give water.
Sngewbha ai ja seh	Please give food (rice).
Sngewbha ai jyntah seh	Please give (side dish) vegetable / meat.
Ai aiu? / Kwah aiu?	What do you want?
Sngewbha ai kwai seh	Please give 'kwai'.
Aiu?	What?
Mynno?	When? (past)
Lano?	When? (future)
Hangno? / Shano?	Where?
Kumno?	How?
Thiah suk.	Sleep well. (The equivalent of "Good Night".)
Kumno ngan leit sha Nan Polok?	How do I go to Ward's Lake?
Katno ka dor une / kane?	What is the price of this? (une is masculine gender, kane is feminine gender and ine is neutral gender)
Leit suk.	Happy journey
Reply is "Shong suk."	Literal meaning is "Stay happy."

Numbers

1	wei
2	ar
3	lai
4	saw
5	san
6	hynriew
7	hynñiew
8	phra
9	khyndai
10	shiphew
20	arphew
30	laiphew
40	sawphew
50	sanphew
60	hynriewphew
70	hynñiewphew
80	phraphew
90	khyndaiphew
100	shispah
200	arspah
300	laispah
400	sawspah
500	sanspah
600	hynriewspah
700	hynñiewspah
800	phraspah
900	khyndaispah
1000	shihajar
10,000	shiphewhajar
100,000	shilak
10,000,000	shiklur
1,000,000,000	shiarab

References

Sources

• Nagaraja, K. S. 1985. Khasi – A Descriptive Analysis. Poona: Deccan College Postgraduate Research Institute.
• Pryse, William. 1855. An Introduction to the Khasia Language. (Reproduced 1988)
• Rabel, Lili. 1961. Khasi, a Language of Assam. Baton Rouge, La: Louisiana State University Press.
• Rabel-Heymann. 1977. "Gender in Khasi nouns". Mon-Khmer Studies 6:247–272
• Roberts, H. 1891. A Grammar of the Khassi Language. For the use of schools, native students, officers and English residents. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.
• Singh, Nissor. 1906. Khasi-English Dictionary. Shillong: Eastern Bengal and Assam State Secretariat Press.

Further reading

• 2006-e. Khasi. In E. K. Brown (ed.) Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier Press.
• Shemphangbhalang Lyngwa Rapthap (source unknown, mark - to be release)

External links

• Online Khasi literature
• Entry for Khasi at the Language Information Service of India
• The World Atlas of Language Structures Online: Khasi
• Resource Center for Indian Language Technology Solutions: Khasi
• Khasi to English Vocabulary Template:Webarchive
• Basic words and phrases in Khasi language