This site works better with JavaScript enabled!

Index for Spices in Manipuri (Meitei-Lon)

If you want to see the Manipuri letters, you will probably have to download a font first.

  




Letter
name
Letter
(full)
Lonsum
form
Dependent
vowel form
Trans-
literation
kok k
sam s
lai l
mit m
pa p
na n
chil c
til t
khou
ngou
thou
wai v
yang y
huk h
un ꯀꯨ u
i ꯀꯤ i
pham
atiya ꯀꯥ ā
gok g
jham
rai r
ba b
jil j
dil d
ghou
dhou
bham

o ꯀꯣ o
e ꯀꯦ e
ou ꯀꯧ ou
ei ꯀꯩ ei

cha
nya ñ
tta
ttha ṭʰ
dda
ddha ḍʰ
nna
sha ś
ssa

ii ꯀꫫ ī
uu ꯀꫬ ū
aai ꯀꫭ āi
au ꯀꫭ au
āu ꯀꫮ āu
unvoiced
inaspirate
unvoiced
aspirate
voiced
inaspirate
voiced
aspirate
nasal
The consonants of Meitei Mayek in classical Sanskrit order;
lonsum forms are shown in the left bottom corner,
and obsolete letters in light grey
velar
k
 
g
 
 
palatal
c
 
 
j
 
 
ñ
 
retroflex
 
ṭʰ
 
 
ḍʰ
 
 
dental
t
 
d
 
 
n
labial
p
 
b
 
 
m

y
 
r
 
l
v
 
ś
 
 
s
 
h
 

The Manipuri language (self-designa­tion Meitei-Lon) is spoken in North Eastern India, chiefly in the Manipur state. It belongs to the Sino–Tibetan language family and is usually grouped under the somewhat vague Kuki–Chin branch. Since 2004, Manipuri is an official language of the Indian Union.

The traditional alphabet (Meitei Mayek [ꯃꯩꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ] or Meethei Mayek [ꯃꯤꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ]) was abandoned in the 19.th century in favour of the Bengali script, yet it enjoys a strong revival since the first decade of the 21.st century; currently, it is tought in Manipuri elementary schools. As of 2012, it is known only to very young speakers; people past their teens employ the Bengali script throughout, and this is unlikely to change soon. Thus, most reader will find the index showing Manipuri spice names in Bengali script more helpful.

The Meitei Mayek script is a member of the Indic family of scripts; thus, consonant signs bear an inherent vowel that can be overwritten by special dependent vowel signs. Yet, Meitei Mayek stands apart in a couple of features. The most important of those is the collation: While all other Indic scripts have inherited the phonetic sorting from Sanskrit, Meitei Mayek sorts the letters according to the names of body parts, although the last two do not conform to that scheme: kok [ꯀꯣꯛ] head, sam [ꯁꯝ] hair, lai [ꯂꯥꯤ] forehead, mit [ꯃꯤꯠ] eye, pa [ꯄꯥ] eyelash, na [ꯅꯥ] ear, chin [ꯆꯤꯟ] lip, til [ꯇꯤꯜ] saliva, khou [ꯈꯧ] throat, ngou [ꯉꯧ] uvula, thou [ꯊꯧ] chest, wai [ꯋꯥꯢ] heart?, yang [ꯌꯥꯡ] back, huk [ꯍꯨꯛ] joint, un [ꯎꯟ] skin, i [] blood, pham [ꯐꯝ] sit, atiya [ꯑꯇꯤꯌꯥ] sky; the remaining letters are not used in nativer words and follow in arbitrary order. This feature makes it impossible to include Meitei Mayek into an index of other Indic scripts.

Further special features of the script rarely or never encountered in other Indic writing systems are:

Therefore, no ambiguities with respect to syllabification can arise in Meitei Mayek. In this respect, it is superior to Bengali; yet the latter reflects the etymological relations among the numerous Indic loanwords to a better degree. Remarkably, both fail to account for the tonal nature of the Meitei-Lon language.

Since I could not find a single adult in Manipur that was familiar with both alphabets and with plant names, I had to construct the Meitei Mayek spellings for myself and at my sole responsibility. In case I deduced some wrong rule, many of the spellings might be flawed. In any case, feedback is welcome.



Unicode Encoded Validate using the WDG validator Validate using the VALIDOME validator