About Khasi Language

Khasi Language

Belonging to the Austroasiatic languages family, Khasi is a predominant Austroasiatic language, primarily spoken in the Indian state of Meghalaya, and has over 1.6 million native Khasi speakers residing there.

Other than that, some people residing in the hilly regions of the north eastern state of Assam too speak Khasi. In the neighboring country of Bangladesh too there are some speakers of Khasi.

Since the year 2005, Khasi became the official language of the state of Meghalaya, and the progressive aspect is that despite being an endangered language as deemed by UNESCO long ago, Khasi managed to break out of the tag and shed off the vulnerable language tag since the year 2012.

Coming to the dialects of Khasi, the major ones are: Bhoi, Nongluk—these two are considered to be so distinct that they are often treated as separate languages. Other dialects are- Sohra, War, and Khynriam.

Khasi didn’t have any individual scripts for its write-ups and it was mainly the Assamese script in which all the manuscripts and inscriptions were done.

Other than that, Latin script too was used at times to pen down things in Khasi. Historically and culturally, there are many folks and folklores very famous in Khasi language.