Meitei Mayek Alphabet

Meitei Mayek Alphabet

Meetei Mayek script (also Meitei Mayek, Manipuri script) (Manipuri: Meetei Mayek) is an abugida that was used for the Meitei language (Manipuri), one of the official languages of the Indian state of Manipur, until the eighteenth century, and was replaced by the Bengali script. A few manuscripts survive (right). In the twentieth century, the script experienced a resurgence.

Meetei Mayek is independent script with an] uncertain history. Since the Meitei language does not have voiced consonants, there are only fifteen consonant letters used for native words, plus three letters for pure vowels. Nine additional consonant letters inherited from the Indic languages are available for borrowings. There are seven vowel diacritics and a final consonant (/ŋ/) diacritic.

One of the unique feature of this script is the use of body parts in naming the letters.That is, every letter is named after a body part of human being in Manipuri/Meetei/Meitei language. For example, the first letter "kok" means "head"; the second letter "sam" means "hair"; the third letter "lai" means "forehead", and so on. In view of these facts, this script may be the basic source of human's communication in written form.