Khasi
Khasi is an Austroasiatic language spoken in the four districts of Meghalaya state in India, namely East Khasi Hills district, West Khasi Hills district, Jaiñtia Hills district and Ri Bhoi district. It is related to the Mon-Khmer group of languages, and unrelated to the Mundari branch of the Austroasiatic family, which is widespread in East-Central India (Jharkhand state).
The number of speakers in Meghalaya is about 12,20,000. 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 border of India. Khasi language had no scripts of its own. William Carey attempted to write the language with Bengali scripts between 1813 and 1838. The Khasis did not accept the scripts. Thomas Jones, in 1841 wrote the language in Roman scripts and the people accepted it. As a medium of instruction the language is used till Class VII. But as a subject it is studied from Class VIII till the Doctoral level. The alphabet of the Khasi language : The 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. The 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. Khasi is rich in folklore and folktale, in fact behind most of the name of hills, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, birds, flowers, animals there is a story. They even have a story of how they lost their written script.
This article is a stub. You can help BambooWeb by .
