Meitei language

Meitei (/ˈmeɪteɪ/; ꯃꯩꯇꯩꯂꯣꯟ, Eastern Nagari script: মৈতৈলোন্, romanized: meiteilon pronounced [mejtejlon]), also known as Manipuri (ꯃꯅꯤꯄꯨꯔꯤ, Eastern Nagari script: মণিপুরী) pronounced [mənipuɾi]), is a Tibeto-Burman language of northeast India. It is the official language and the lingua franca of Manipur and an additional official language in four districts of Assam. It is one of the constitutionally scheduled official languages of the Indian Republic. Meitei is the most widely-spoken Tibeto-Burman language of India and the third most widely spoken language of northeast India after Assamese and Bengali. There are 1.76 million Meitei native speakers in India according to the 2011 census, 1.52 million of whom are found in the state of Manipur, where they represent the 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.

Meitei and Gujarati jointly hold the third place among the fastest growing languages of India, following Hindi and Kashmiri.

Meitei is not endangered: its status has been assessed as safe by Ethnologue (where it is assigned to EGIDS level 2 "provincial language"). However, it is considered vulnerable by UNESCO.

The Manipuri language is associated with the Ningthouja dynasty (Mangangs), the Khuman dynasty, the Moirangs, the Angoms, the Luwangs, the Chengleis (Sarang-Leishangthems), and the Khaba-Nganbas. Each had their respective distinct dialects and were politically independent from one another. Later, all of them fell under the dominion of the Ningthouja dynasty, changing their status of being independent "ethnicities" into those of "clans" of the collective Meitei community. The Ningthouja dialect was predominant, and received heavy influences from the speech forms of the other groups.

Meitei is one of the advanced literary languages recognised by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters.

Meitei belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, different linguists tried to assign Meitei to various sub-groups. Early classifier George Abraham Grierson (1903–1924) put it in Kuki-Chin, Vegelin and Voegelin (1965) in Kuki-Chin-Naga, and Benedict (1972) in Kuki-Naga. Robbins Burling has suggested that Meitei belongs to none of those groups. Current academic consensus agrees with James Matisoff in placing Manipuri in its own subdivision of the Kamarupan group—a geographic rather than a genetic grouping. However, some still consider Meitei to be a member of the Kuki-Chin-Naga branch.

The Meitei language has existed for at least 2000 years. According to linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, the ancient Meitei literature dates back to 1500 to 2000 years before present.