Talk:Meitei language

the following doesnt seem to belong here, but rather somewhere else:

There are more than 39 another language one is Bishnupriya (or Bishnupriya Manipuri), which was also spoken in the polyglot land of Manipur before 15th century, which is mentioned in Sir G.A.Griersons 'Linguistic Survey of India'. The language contains many pre-meithei vocabulary.

– ishwar  (speak) 18:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

There are a lot of links relating to a yahoo group called "Seirangba Marup, the Yahoo Group of Manipuri Art and Literature". What is the purpose?Maddy 09:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 18:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Everything else says it’s mostly written with Bengali (if not Meithei Mayek) but the infobox says Devnagari. Huh? —Wiki Wikardo 08:44, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that the assertion that Manipur is a himalayan state, is wrong.Eregli bob (talk) 12:26, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Manipur is not a himaliyan state the term "Manipur" was only in used since late 17th century because of a series of events.It was a sovereign state for more than 1000 years with many names of "Meitei language" for the state prefered by the ruling monarch ."Kangleipak" is native name of the state.Luwanglinux (talk) 16:07, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

The assertion that Manipur is a himalayan state, is wrong. this section in the green section is also wrong.Eregli bob (talk) 12:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Add these titles to a further reading or bibliography section. The trilingual English, Bangali and Manipuri dictionary is in public domain although Mittal Publications republished it, so it should go with Primrose's book into wikisource.

A Manipuri grammar, vocabulary, and phrase book: to which are added some Manipuri proverbs and specimens of Manipuri correspondence By Arthur John Primrose

http://books.google.com/books?id=0L3M1OmJhesC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

A Dictionary in English Bangali and Manipuri

A Dictionary in English Bangali and ManipuriPublisherMittal Publications

http://books.google.com/books?id=_vdX6_ou9qcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

A Dictionary in English, Bengali, and Manipuri

TitleA Dictionary in English, Bengali, and ManipuriPublisherMittal, 1983Original fromthe University of MichiganDigitizedMay 8, 2008Length341 pages

http://books.google.com/books?id=yHhjAAAAMAAJ

A Dictionary of English, Bengali, and Manipuri. Second Edition. Revised. [The Bengali Portion Revised by B.K. Bhaṭtāchārya, and the Manipuri Portion by William Pettigrew.].

TitleA Dictionary of English, Bengali, and Manipuri. Second Edition. Revised. [The Bengali Portion Revised by B.K. Bhaṭtāchārya, and the Manipuri Portion by William Pettigrew.].AuthorsGeorge Lawrie GORDON, B. K. BHAṬTĀCHĀRYA, Rev. William PETTIGREWPublisherCalcutta, 1896Length292 pages

http://books.google.com/books?id=z6YUMwEACAAJ

A Dictionary in English, Bengali and Manipuri... 2nde Edition. [Revised].

TitleA Dictionary in English, Bengali and Manipuri... 2nde Edition. [Revised].Publisherthe Baptist Mission Press, 1896

http://books.google.com/books?id=DRx0QwAACAAJ

A Dictionary in English, Bengali and Manipuri

TitleA Dictionary in English, Bengali and ManipuriAuthorsGeorge Lawrie Gordon, B. K. Bhattacharya, William PettigrewPublisherMittal publications, 1989Length341 pages

http://books.google.com/books?id=fmEZQwAACAAJ

Education during British rule

http://books.google.com/books?id=AgIPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA84#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=D7nNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA84#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=_bUOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA486#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=l5VCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA215#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=cRgkAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA215#v=onepage&q&f=false

Rajmaan (talk) 22:11, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Currently, it has the two lines মৈতৈলোন্ ꯃꯧꯇꯧꯂꯣꯟ and মৈতৈলোল্ ꯃꯤꯇꯧꯂꯣꯟ. The first line gives the name Meiteilon in Bengali script and Moutoulon in Meitei Mayek script. The second line says Meiteilol in Bengali script and Mitoulon in Meitei Mayek. Frankly, this does not make much sense.

I would rather expect that, provided the terms are spelled correctly in Bengali, the two Meitei Mayek forms should be ꯃꯩꯇꯩꯂꯣꯟ Meiteilon and ꯃꯩꯇꯩꯂꯣꯜ Meiteilol (the ei and ou signs are extremely similar, but ei is a little shorter). But then, I know nothing about this all except the letters, so I do not dare to edit it. 112.134.197.11 (talk) 22:33, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Each reference to the language in the article is as "Manipuri or Meithellon", which looks ridiculous. The alternate names should be listed at the front, but from then on, we should use whatever language name we choose for the head. I am about to make that edit. We should discuss if anybody wants to edit back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EthanRBradford (talk • contribs) 18:36, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

I came here looking for the earliest ate of attestation, but did not find it. I am dissappointed. Tibetologist (talk) 14:00, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Manipuri is not a good name for this language as there is another language called Manipuri. If you use the term Meitei, then there's no ambiguity. And, native speakers prefer Meitei over Manipuri anyway. And, Meitei is the usual term used by linguists who work on the language these days.

So, I'm going to move it back. – ishwar  (speak) 23:07, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

There isn't another language called "Manipuri". You are referring to what is called the Bishnupriya or Bishnupriya Manipuri language. Heck, that page should be at just "Bishnupriya" as per its Google hits here and here as well as its ISO639-3, Glottolog, and Ethnologue entries. We are needlessly creating ambiguities here. Filpro (talk) 01:53, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I'd guess that Bishnupriya Manipuri is used in order to disambiguate from Manipuri. But, besides that, Meitei is the more appropriate name since that is what is used by specialists who work with Meitei-related stuff. Just to use one of your links, Ethnologue also uses the term Meitei in accordance with modern naming practice. (And, a little off topic: why is Google even being used? It has a lot of garbage in their database for word frequencies. And, one can demonstrate that it has a poor predictability of reaction times in lexical decision experiments compared with other corpora such as SubtlexUS. [Both Manipuri and Meitei are too infrequent to occur in SubtlexUS, so we can't actually check that for comparison.]) – ishwar  (speak) 05:41, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Are you really going to edit-war here? Manipuri language is the WP:COMMONNAME (see Ngram as well as search for "Manipuri language" and search for "Meithei language"). The ISO 639-2 and -3 entry refers to it as "Manipuri" and it has a tag of "mni". Glottolog refers to the language as Manipuri with its Glottocode of "mani1292". It is the official name as per Manipur state, where it is predominantly spoken is the official language. India's Eighth Schedule lists it as one of it's officially recognised regional languages. See here and here. The WP:BURDEN is on you. Filpro (talk) 20:46, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes.

(a) Government name vs ethnoym. Manipuri is the name given the government of India. However, it is not the preferred name by native speakers. This is mentioned in Chelliah's grammar, which is conveniently quoted above (by me in 2006). You are implicitly placing greater weight on government authority than on speakers' autonomy. I say that this is wrong. (Somewhat relatedly, there's been civil war in Manipur State between Meiteis and other ethnic groups vs the government for some time.)

(b) Specialist reference vs your googing/informal 'research. Furthermore, Ethnologue and Glottopedia, which are created by linguists (and not by government entities or Google), refer to the language as Meitei or Meithei. Ethnologue is under SIL/Wycliffe Bible Translators, which has created some of these language codes that you are referring to. I don't know why the language name associated with the ISO codes differs from the name of the same language in the Ethnologue, but I can guess that it's because Ethnologue/SIL originally used the name Manipuri years ago and that they have changed to the more appropriate name today while keeping the older name for historical reasons. (Or, maybe they just don't update the information with the codes?)

(c) Info unrelated to your argumentation. The codes themselves are completely irrelevant. A code could very well be any arbitrary string of letters and is probably just that for many languages. That fact the code seems to be related to Manipuri says nothing about whether Manipuri is an appropriate for the language.

(d) The problem with Google as word frequency proxy. Google ngrams is completely unconvincing. We already know it doesn't correspond very well to word frequency in people's minds. (I can give you references if you want.) About Google searches: while everybody understands ngrams, no one knows how Google's search indexing works because it's top secret. So, what evidence is there that it is a good proxy for word frequency.

(e) The problem of estimating word frequency for low frequency words. But, more to the point, when a word is of such a low frequency like Manipuri and Meit(h)ei, it's not clear what the 'true' frequency of the word is. I mean if I look at a better balanced corpus like COCA, then Meit(h)ei is more frequent than Manipuri. But, it just happened to be that way since COCA happened to include an anthropology journal that uses the term Meit(h)ei instead of Manipuri.

(f) Inconsistency and confusion. The people are still called Meit(h)eis and not Manipuris. (This is, obviously, not an argument for or against either name, but more like an admonishment for th the narrow focus on just the language. Whatever Wikipedia uses should be consistent. Well, at least that's less messy. I mean, Wikipedia can be messy if it wants, it's just not the way I would create an encyclopedia...)

(g.i) Ambiguity resolution. Manipuri actually refers to two different languages. That's why one is being called Bishnupriya Manipuri. Now, you seem to think that one is always called Bishnupriya Manipuri while the other is always called Manipuri. That's not the case. Probably some of the references to a Manipuri language in the Google corpus refer to Bishnupriya Manipuri. But, you're going to have to look at the context to find them. The fact that Manipuri may refer to the Meitei language more often than the Bishnupuriya language is simply related to the greater political power and population of the Meiteis compared with Bishnupuriya speakers – in other words, there will simply be less mentioning of the less common language. Using Meitei vs Bishnupriya resolves all ambiguity.

(g.ii) Here's a further ambiguity. When we read Manipuri, we actually don't know whether it's referring to Meitei language or culture or whether it's referring to the languages and cultures of people who live in Manipuri state. In other words, Manipuri doubles as a regional referent as well as a specific cultural referent.

These are my arguments. I think your heart is in the right place but that you are misinformed. The weight we place on each bit of evidence differs. So, ask some third parties, I guess. (Preferably including linguists if possible....) – ishwar  (speak) 23:10, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Additionally, I'll point out that one source you cite – Glottolog – actually uses both Manipuri and Meitei to refer to the language. Meitei is used for the main lect while Manipuri is used for a superordinate node grouping together the main lect with the other two minority lects – this appears to be their own novel nomenclature. Using Glottolog in support of your desired name for Meitei is hardly a knockdown argument.

And, I'll just repeat again that another source – Ethnologue – that you cite in support of a supposed lack of ambiguity between Bishnupriya Manipuri and Meitei Manipuri refers to the Meitei with the name Meitei, which is a fact conveniently ignored by you for some reason.

It seems that your only argument is that Manipuri appears in Google corpora, which is not a scholarly linguistic source. (ISO codes are irrelevant as they are codes and not language names.) – ishwar  (speak) 00:14, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

• Ish_ishwar and Filpro, it will be much appreciated if you could settle on the name instead of moving the article back and forth between the two titles. If you'd like to receive input from other editors, you can start an WP:RM discussion. Thanks. – Uanfala (talk) 21:26, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
• I've just moved it back to Meitei language. I'm not taking a stance on this matter (although a cursory glance reveals that there are strong arguments on either side), but this has been the title of the article for most of its existence until a move in 2013 to Meithei language and then in September this year to Manipuri language. The prospect for a broader discussion is still open. – Uanfala (talk) 21:34, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

@Ish ishwar:, not all of these edits seem to be proper. Does the Indian Union recognise it as Manipuri or Meitei? Does the Sahitya Akademi give awards for Manipuri or Meitei? Retitling the page doesn't mean rewriting the world! -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:43, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Which one? Whether the Indian Union uses Manipuri or Meitei is not necessarily relevant to which term Wikipedia uses.

Sahitya Akademi gives awards for a language which is called variously Manipuri or Meitei in English. Whichever term they use is not necessarily relevant to which term Wikipedia uses. However, if the name of the award is actually something like Sahitya Akademi Manipuri Lanuage Award in English or as literally translated into English from another language, the term Manipuri should be used when mentioning the name of the award.

Furthermore, this page should obviously address the name status to make it clear what the Indian government calls the language. That is currently only on the talk page and not in the article.

As for rewriting the world, I don't know what means. – ishwar  (speak) 22:01, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

I am afraid you are wrong. The sentence It has been recognised by the Indian Union and has been included in the list of scheduled languages (included in the 8th schedule by the 71st amendment of the constitution in 1992). was sourced, with the parenthetical remark "(as Manipuri)". Your deletion has made a misrepresentation of the source. I am reverting all your edits. Hopefully somebody with a better understanding of Wikipedia policies will redo it right. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:21, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't misrepresent the source as I just added a section explaining that Manipuri is used by the government. Readers now have the expectation that all organizations/people aligned with the government will use that term. The parenthetical is thus redundant. However, I don't really object to redundancy (although some might). So, feel free to add it if you want. – ishwar  (speak) 22:45, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Haoreima: Hi, it is regarding this edit. Since it is not official, and only a proposal as of now, I believe it would be better to mention it elsewhere in the article body and not the lead. After it gets official, we can add it as a gist in the lead. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:34, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Fylindfotberserk Let's push the paragraph down by creating a new section "Status" like that of Marathi language article. --Haoreima (talk) 11:36, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

@Haoreima: Would be nice. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 11:38, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

In the infobox of the current version of the article [1] there's a rather long list of states where Meitei is spoken, including for example Arunachal and Mizoram. What has been the basis for inclusion in this list? The sources are just the census tables, and all they show is that they are some speakers in all of those states. But there are speakers in all states of India, and in some of the states not included there are more speakers than in some of the those that were included (see table below).

I'll add a brief section to the article, which will list the regions with the highest populations (I'm planning to stop the enumeration just after Nagaland, because there's a natural break there). As for the infobox, all it really needs is a mention of the region where the overwhelming majority of the speakers are found (see Template:Infobox language for how that parameter is meant to be used). – Uanfala (talk) 17:30, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello @Uanfala:! Could you please help me in finding out standard sources about the fact to know whether Meitei language belongs to Kuki Chin Naga family or Kuki Chin Mizo family or independent from both and just belonging to central Tibeto Burman language family? It's highly disputed among the opinions of different scholars and I think we need to properly clarify the facts by citing every notable scholars' comments by creating a separate section within the article. I started thinking about it after a recent edit by someone in the article Burmese Indians. --Haoreima (talk) 14:18, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid I know absolutely nothing about Sino-Tibetan linguistics. But if I were you, I would probably start with the sources at Glottolog: it lists [2] and [3] for its classification of its "Kuki-Chin-Naga" branch. The latter of these sources is from 2017, so it will probably have a relatively up-to-date bibliography with other relevant sources. You can also try Glottolog's own bibliography for this group [4]: you'd need to filter the table by selecting "Doctype" to be "comparative", but that's probably casting the net too widely: most of the sources there are unlikely to have substantial discussion of the placement of Meitei itself. Maybe you can also ask for help at Talk:Sino-Tibetan languages? – Uanfala (talk) 23:07, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Suggested changes: add "Kuki-Chin (?)" in language info box above Meitei and below Central Tibeto-Burman

Sources that prove Meitei might be a Kuki-Chin language (no sources deny it):

• Arora, V., & Kipgen, N. (2012). The Politics of Identifying with and Distancing from Kuki Identity in Manipur. Sociological Bulletin, 61(3), 429–449. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26290634
• http://rdmodernresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/120.pdf
• http://repository.tufs.ac.jp/bitstream/10108/93135/1/A455_41-46.pdf
• https://www.thesangaiexpress.com/Encyc/2023/7/13/Maheshsana-RajkumarContd-from-previous-issueHe-further-writes-Meithei-is-the-chief-language-of-the-Manip.html
• https://www.academia.edu/3757657/The_languages_of_Manipur_A_case_study_of_the_Kuki_Chin_languages Jokomarel (talk) 15:43, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

No sources deny it? Absolutely not.

Many sources opine different views. All of them have one thing in common and that's Tibeto Burman. Further divisions have different opinions. For example, see Sino-Tibetan languages#Matisoff (1978, 2015) and Sino-Tibetan languages#Van Driem (2001, 2014). In a publication of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, it is said as:

The latest opinion is of Burling (2003, p. 187-188) though none has put Manipuri in Nage or Kuki group it will be better to keep Manipuri by itself.

— http://iias.ac.in/events/a-history-of-manipuri-language/

--Haoreima (talk) 16:07, 18 November 2023 (UTC)