Assam Higher Secondary Skill Subject Advance Manipuri flashcards

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Meitei Mayek

The indigenous script of Manipuri, with 27 basic letters and distinct numeral glyphs. It was revived in the 20th century and adopted for official state use in Manipur from 2005.

Bengali script for Manipuri

The script in which most modern Manipuri printing, textbooks, and literature appear. It was adopted after Vaishnavism spread in the 18th century and remains in wide parallel use with Meitei Mayek.

Tone in Manipuri

Manipuri is tonal, contrasting high and low pitch on the same segmental sequence. Tone is lexically distinctive, so two otherwise identical words can differ in meaning only by pitch.

Lonsum and Cheitap

Terms in Meitei Mayek orthography for letter forms: Lonsum refers to the basic/full consonant letters, while Cheitap refers to the reduced final-consonant forms used at syllable end.

Manipuri syllable structure

Predominantly consonant-vowel with optional final consonant, written (C)V(C). Clusters are restricted, so loanwords are typically restructured by inserting vowels between consonants.

Agentive suffix -na

A Manipuri case suffix marking the agent or instrument. It commonly appears on the subject of transitive clauses, distinguishing agent from patient where word order alone is insufficient.

Manipuri word order

Basic clausal order is Subject-Object-Verb, with the verb final and heavily suffixing. Postpositions rather than prepositions encode spatial and case relations.

Plural suffixes -sing and -khoy

Manipuri noun plural markers. Plural marking is optional when plurality is already signalled by a numeral or by context, which is typical of the language.

Manipuri negation

Negation is expressed by negative suffixes or particles attached within the verb complex, for example forms in -de/-te. Negative and interrogative markers can co-occur in a fixed order.

Reduplication in Manipuri

A productive morphological device repeating a root or word to express plurality, intensity, or distributiveness. It is common with adjectives and adverbs and is a stylistic resource in poetry.

Puyas

Ancient Meitei texts in archaic script recording cosmology, genealogy, ritual, and law. Many were preserved in Meitei Mayek and later transliterated into Bengali script.

Cheitharol Kumbaba

The royal chronicle of the Ningthouja dynasty of Manipur, recording reigns, events, and administrative matters. It is a key primary source for Manipuri literary and political history.

Manipuri Sahitya Parishad

Founded in 1935, the central literary body promoting Manipuri language and literature. It publishes, awards, and organizes literary sessions, and shaped the modern literary canon.

Eighth Schedule inclusion

Manipuri was added to the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution in 1992. This recognition expanded official use, publishing, translation, and university-level study of the language.

Vaishnava literary turn

Under King Pamheiba (Garib Niwaz) in the 18th century, Manipuri literature shifted toward Bengali-script devotional verse, Sanskrit epic translation, and Ras-lila texts.

Manipuri short story

The dominant modern prose genre, developed in mid-20th-century periodicals. It treats rural life, diaspora, conflict, and gender, and remains the main entry point for new fiction writers.

Themes in Manipuri fiction

Recurring subjects include agrarian life, the diaspora, insurgency and state violence, widowhood and gender, and tradition versus modernity. Realist narration dominates, with later experimental exceptions.

Manipuri novel

A later development than the short story, emerging as print culture and literacy expanded. Early novels combined social reform with rural Meitei settings and drew on translated Bengali and English models.

Translation and prose style

Translation from Bengali, Hindi, and English introduced new genres and vocabulary into Manipuri prose, including detective and psychological fiction, while shifting syntax toward translated registers.

Khulang Eshei

Traditional Manipuri work songs sung during collective labour such as field work. They are a major oral poetic form and preserve archaic vocabulary and rhythmic patterns.

Lai Haraoba hymns

Ritual songs of the pre-Vaishnava Lai Haraoba festival, sung by the Maibi and Pena players. Their language is archaic and enacts creation myth and divine courtship.

Vaishnava lyric poetry

Devotional Manipuri verse addressed to Radha-Krishna, composed for performance in Ras-lila and Sankirtana. It is lyric, musical, and closely tied to ritual dance contexts.

Modern Manipuri free verse

Mid-20th-century poetry that broke from devotional and Bengali metrical models. It uses free rhythm, tone contrasts, and images of land, lake, mother, and political wounding.

Ras-lila

The central Vaishnava dance-drama of Manipur, performed in a circular mandap with live drum and cymbal music. It depicts Radha-Krishna episodes and is a ritual, not merely theatrical, form.

Nata Sankirtana

A ritual ensemble of pung drum, kartal cymbals, and song performed in Manipur. It was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2013.

Pena

A traditional Manipuri stringed instrument played by the Pena Akhouba minstrel. It accompanies narration of myth and history and symbolizes pre-Vaishnava performance traditions.

Shumang Leela

A popular Manipuri folk theatre form using cross-gender casting: Nupi Shabi (men as women) and Nupa Shabi (women as men). It is comic and satirical, often addressing social issues.

Manipur Dramatic Union

Founded in 1931, a landmark institution in modern Manipuri proscenium theatre. It helped establish scripted stage drama influenced by Bengali theatre and later IPTA currents.

Yek Salai

The seven clan divisions of the Meitei, each with its own name and totemic associations. Clan membership regulates marriage rules and features in genealogical and ritual texts.

Khamba-Thoibi epic

The central Manipuri folk epic of the love between Khamba, a poor Khuman hero, and Thoibi, a princess. It is preserved in the Khamba-Thoibi Sheireng and Moirang legends.

Maibi

A Meitei priestess who officiates at Lai Haraoba and performs ritual dances. Her chant, Maibi Laiching, uses archaic language partly unintelligible to modern speakers.

Ningol Chakouba

An annual Manipuri festival in which married sisters are invited to their natal homes by their brothers. It expresses kin obligation and is a major social and literary motif.

Honorific register in Manipuri

Formal Manipuri uses distinct pronouns and verb endings to mark politeness toward elders and strangers. Choosing the wrong register is a grammatical-pragmatic error, not just a stylistic one.

Culture-specific terms in translation

Terms such as Lai Haraoba, Pung, and Ras-lila are usually retained untranslated with a gloss. Substituting a Bengali or English equivalent can erase the specific referent.

Compensating for reduplication

Manipuri reduplication often conveys plurality or intensity, which target languages may lack. Translators compensate with adverbs, quantifiers, or repeated phrasing to preserve the effect.

Format of a Manipuri notice

A formal notice carries a heading, date, subject line, body stating the matter, and issuing authority with signature. Consistency of script and spelling of proper nouns is required.