Khasi language

Khasi is an Austroasiatic language spoken primarily in Meghalaya state in India by the Khasi people. It is also spoken by a sizable population in Assam and Bangladesh. Khasi is part of the Austroasiatic language family, and is related to Cambodian, Vietnamese and Mon languages of Southeast Asia, and the Munda branch of that family, which is spoken in east–central India.

Although most of the 1.6 million Khasi speakers are found in Meghalaya state, 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 Indian border. Khasi has been "associate official language" in Meghalaya since 2005, and as of May 2012, was no longer considered endangered by UNESCO.

Khasi is rich in folklore and folktale, and behind most of the names of hills, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, birds, flowers, and animals there is a story.

Khasi has significant dialectal variation. Several dialects have only partial mutual intelligibility, and Bhoi and Nonglung are distinct enough to be sometimes considered separate languages. Other dialects are Sohra (Cherra), Maram and War (not the same as the related War language). Sohra and War are lexically very similar.

The Sohra dialect is taken as Standard Khasi as it was the first language to be written in the Latin alphabet by missionaries. Standard Khasi is in turn significantly different from the Shillong dialects (eight at most) which form a dialect continuum across the capital region.

In the past, the Khasi language had no script of its own. William Carey attempted to write the language with the bengalee script between 1813 and 1838. A large number of Khasi books were written in the Assamese script, including the famous book Ka Niyiom Jong Ka Khasi or The Religion of the Khasis, which is an important manuscript of the Khasi religion. The Welsh missionary, Thomas Jones, in 1841 wrote the language in the Latin script. As a result, the Latin alphabet of the language has a few similarities with the Welsh alphabet. The first journal in Khasi was UNongkit Khubor (The Messenger) published at Mawphlang in 1889 by William Williams.