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Sekmai (Meitei dialect)

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Sekmai
Sengmai, Awang Sekmai
ꯁꯦꯛꯃꯥꯏ
Meitei Mayek transliteration of "Sekmai"
Native toManipur
RegionSekmai
EthnicityMeitei ethnicity
Sino-Tibetan
Early form
Meitei script
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
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Sekmai dialect (also spelled Sengmai[1] or referred to as Awang Sekmai[2][3]) is a geographical and social dialect of the Meitei (Manipuri), a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Northeast India.[4][5] It is classified alongside the Phayeng and Andro speech forms under the Chakpa (or Loi) group of dialects,[a][6] which are distinct from Standard Meitei (the Imphal dialect).[7] The dialect is primarily spoken by the Chakpa community residing in the Sekmai region of the Imphal West district in Manipur.[8][9] Because it developed outside the primary socio-political center of the Imphal capital region, it preserves Ancient Meitei phonological structures and vocabulary, that have been altered or lost in the standard language.[7]

Sekmai as a regional dialect of Meitei language is mentioned in the academic writings of Linguistic Society of India (2006),[10] H. Sarojkumar Singh (1988), Shobhana Lakshmi Chelliah (1997),[11] Chungkham Yashwanta Singh (2008),[7] and H.W. Wilson (2001).[12]

Classification and context

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Within the dialectal landscape of the Meitei language, Sekmai is categorized as a peripheral dialect. Despite structural and phonetic deviations, Sekmai and Standard Meitei retain high mutual intelligibility. Historically, the speakers belong to the Chakpa settlements.[8][9] Due to their ancestral geographical isolation from the cultural shifts that affected the Imphal capital region, the speech form avoided substantial lexical assimilation from Indo-Aryan languages like Sanskrit and Bengali.[7]

Comparison with standard dialect

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Sekmai dialect[13] Imphal dialect (Standard dialect)[13] English translation/equivalent(s)[14][15][16]
Meitei Mayek transliteration Eastern Nagari transliteration Latinization/Romanization Meitei Mayek transliteration Eastern Nagari transliteration Latinization/Romanization
ꯃꯔꯣꯌꯕꯥꯛ ꯐꯗꯤꯒꯣꯝ মরোয়বাক ফদিগোম Maroybak Phadigom ꯑꯋꯥ ꯐꯗꯤꯒꯣꯝ অৱা ফদিগোম Awa Phadigom Eryngium foetidum[17][18]/Eryngo/False coriander[19]
ꯃꯗꯥꯑꯣ মদাও Madao ꯏꯇꯥꯑꯣ ইতাও Itao Male friend[20]
ꯌꯥꯝꯕ(ꯁꯤꯡ) য়াম্ব(শিং) Yaamba(shing)/Yamba(sing) ꯏꯌꯥꯝꯕ(ꯁꯤꯡ) ইয়াম্ব(শিং) Iyaamba(shing)/Iyamba(sing) Elder/Older/Senior brother(s)[21]
ꯌꯥꯋꯥꯟ য়াৱান Yaawaan/Yawan ꯎꯌꯥꯟ উয়ান Uyaan/Uyan Cooking pot[22]
ꯀꯣꯔꯤꯡꯀꯣꯠ কোরিংকোৎ Koringkot ꯈꯣꯌꯅꯤꯡ খোয়নিং Khoyning/Khoining Bulbul[23]
ꯂꯥꯡꯈꯣꯡ লাংখোং Laangkhong ꯈꯣꯡꯕꯥꯟ খোঙবান Khongban Ditch; Drainage[24]
ꯁꯪꯕꯥꯏ/ꯁꯡꯕꯥꯏ শংবাই Shangbai/Sangbai ꯊꯨꯃꯣꯛ থুমোক Thumok/Thummok Basket[25][26]
ꯄꯨꯡꯈꯣꯟ ꯃꯦꯡꯑꯦ পুংখোন মেংএ Pungkhon Meng-e ꯄꯨꯡꯈꯣꯟ ꯊꯣꯠꯂꯦ পুংখোন থোৎলে Pungkhon Thotle The sound of drum is soft.
ꯆꯥꯔꯄꯣꯠꯂꯥ / ꯆꯥꯗ꯭ꯔꯤꯕꯣꯠꯂꯥ চারপোৎলা / চাদ্রিবোৎলা Chaarapotla / Chaadribotla ꯆꯥꯛ ꯆꯥꯔꯕꯔꯥ চাক চারবরা Chaak Chaarabara Have you had your meal?
ꯅꯥꯔꯦ নারে Naare ꯅꯥꯕ নাবা Naaba Ill/Unwell

Archaic vocabulary retention

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Unlike the standard dialect, which integrated extensive Indo-Aryan loanwords following the historical adoption of Hinduism in the Imphal region, Sekmai has retained a larger proportion of its indigenous Tibeto-Burman vocabulary. It preserves ancient roots and lexical units that are obsolete or completely absent in modern Standard Meitei.[7]

Prosody and tone

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Sekmai operates on a tonal system consistent with the broader Meitei language structure. However, it exhibits localized variations in pitch contours, phonetic duration, and sentence-level intonational patterns that distinguish it audibly from the Imphal standard.[8][9]

Research and documentation

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The Sekmai dialect is utilized in comparative linguistics to study the historical development of the Tibeto-Burman languages in Northeast India.[8][9] Academic institutions and bodies, including the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), document the Awang Sekmai speech form to record phonetic variations, in the compilation of the "Manipuri Raw Speech Corpus" (Catalogue Number: 1148), consisting of more than 156 hours of 66,231 audio segments of 620 speakers. These field recordings contribute data toward computational linguistics projects, such as the construction of digital speech corpora for the preservation of minority dialects in the region.[2]

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ The group of people called Chakpa (or Loi), who live in the places called Sekmai, Andro, Phayeng, used to speak certain dialects (now extinct), which belong to a separate branch of Tibeto-Burman linguistic family, notably distinct from Meitei linguistic group. But all those dialects got extinct with the replacement of their speech forms by the dominant Meitei language in historical times, and the current so called eponymous dialects of Sekmai, Phayeng and Andro are the living linguistic varieties/dialects of their present-day native language, Meitei.
  1. ↑ Khwairakpam, Biren., Chingakham, Dinachandra. The Lai of Manipur: Andro and Sengmai. 2018.
  2. 1 2 "Manipuri Raw Speech Corpus". data.ldcil.org.
  3. ↑ Gupta, Deepak; Sambyo, Koj; Prasad, Mukesh; Agarwal, Sonali (2022-06-25). Advanced Machine Intelligence and Signal Processing. Springer Nature. pp. 698, 699. ISBN 978-981-19-0840-8.
  4. ↑ "Vowel-based Meeteilon dialect identification using a Random Forest classifier". ui.adsabs.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2026-07-07 – via Harvard University.
  5. ↑ Biswas, Anupam; Wennekes, Emile; Hong, Tzung-Pei; Wieczorkowska, Alicja (2021-05-31). Advances in Speech and Music Technology: Proceedings of FRSM 2020. Springer Nature. pp. 424–433. ISBN 978-981-336-881-1.
  6. ↑ Chandrasingha, Moirangthem (1972). Chakparol (in Manipuri). Digital Library of India; Internet Archive.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Yashwanta Singh, Chungkham. Manipuri Grammar. India: Rajesh Publications, 2000. p. 3.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Clarinda Devi, Thangjam; Sarbajit Singh, Leihaorambam; Thaoroijam, Kabita (2021). Biswas, Anupam; Wennekes, Emile; Hong, Tzung-Pei; Wieczorkowska, Alicja (eds.). "Vowel-Based Acoustic and Prosodic Study of Three Manipuri Dialects". Advances in Speech and Music Technology. Singapore: Springer: 425–433. doi:10.1007/978-981-33-6881-1_34. ISBN 978-981-336-881-1.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
  9. 1 2 3 4 Devi, Thangjam; Thaoroijam, Kabita (2022-06-01), Autoencoder-Based Speech Features for Manipuri Dialect Identification, pp. 697–705, ISBN 978-981-19-0839-2, retrieved 2026-07-07, For this work, Manipuri speech corpora have been used available at Linguistic Data Consortium for Indian Languages (LDC-IL). Mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCC) were extracted from input speech signals, and then autoencoder (AE) is used for dimensionality reduction. Support vector machines (SVM) and deep neural network (DNN) are used for classification of three major Manipuri dialects, i.e. Sekmai, Kakching and Imphal. Results have shown an average dialect identification performance in terms of accuracy of approximately 70% and 72.77% for SVM and DNN, respectively. The performance of both the classifiers has been compared with and without using autoencoder. The role of stacked autoencoder-based features is found to be significant in Manipuri dialect classification.
  10. ↑ Indian Linguistics. India: Linguistic Society of India., 2006. p. 70–75
  11. ↑ Chelliah, Shobhana Lakshmi (2011-07-22). A Grammar of Meithei. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 11, 531. ISBN 978-3-11-080111-8. The documented dialects are Sek-mai spoken in Sekmai village 19 kilometers north of Imphal (H. Sarojkumar Singh 1988), ...
  12. ↑ Facts about the World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, Past and Present. Norway: H.W. Wilson, 2001. p. 466.
  13. 1 2 Anand, Longjam (2007). Manipuri Lon (in Manipuri). India: Manipur University Research Club; Digital Library of India; Internet Archive. pp. 39, 40.
  14. ↑ H Surmangol Sharma (2006). লরনর্স মনিপুরী-ইংলিশ দিক্সনারী (in Manipuri and English). Digital Library of India; Internet Archive.
  15. ↑ A dictionary in English, Bengali and Manipuri (in English, Manipuri, and Bengali). Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta. 1837.
  16. ↑ Ayekapam Amarjeet; Dr. Chirom Rajketan Singh; Kamaljeet Chirom; Koithelakpam Meghchandra Meitei (2013). মনিপুরী লোনগৈ (in Manipuri). India: Digital Library of India; Internet Archive.
  17. ↑ Balasubramaniam, Chitra (2019-07-19). "Awa phadigom, a hidden enhancer". Down To Earth. Retrieved 2026-07-08. Scientifically known as Eryngium foetidum, the leaves are used as a popular flavouring agent in the state. In Manipur, awa phadigom is also referred to as sha maroi. .... explained that awa stands for Burma (present day Myanmar) in Manipuri language and phadigom means coriander. "So, awa phadigom essentially means coriander leaves from Burma," ....
  18. ↑ "Awa phadigom Eryngium foetidum Scope for a flourishing agri business". e-pao.net. Retrieved 2026-07-08.
  19. ↑ "Awaphadigom – Manipur Medicinal Plants". medicinalplants.co.in. Retrieved 2026-07-08.
  20. ↑ Sharma, H. Surmangol (2006). "Learners' Manipuri-English dictionary | Itao". dsal.uchicago.edu. University of Chicago. p. 19. Retrieved 2026-07-08. itāo ꯏꯇꯥꯑꯣ /í.tao/ n. a term for address showing casual familiarity used by boys or men of the same age group. Morph: i‑tāo [1pp‑male friend].
  21. ↑ Sharma, H. Surmangol (2006). "Learners' Manipuri-English dictionary | Iyamba". dsal.uchicago.edu. University of Chicago. p. 23. Retrieved 2026-07-08. iyāmba ꯏꯌꯥꯝꯕ /í.yam.bə/ n. older brother (male ego), when referred to the first person. Lit: 'my older brother'. Morph: i‑yāmba [1pp‑older brother].
  22. ↑ Sharma, H. Surmangol (2006). "Learners' Manipuri-English dictionary | Uyan". dsal.uchicago.edu. University of Chicago. p. 29. Retrieved 2026-07-08. uyān ꯎꯌꯥꯟ /u.yan/ n. a pot used for cooking vegetables, fish, etc.
  23. ↑ Sharma, H. Surmangol (2006). "Learners' Manipuri-English dictionary | Khoining". dsal.uchicago.edu. University of Chicago. p. 53. Retrieved 2026-07-08. khoining ꯈꯣꯏꯅꯤꯡ /kʰoi.niŋ/ n. bulbul, a passerine bird.
  24. ↑ Sharma, H. Surmangol (2006). "Learners' Manipuri-English dictionary | Khongban". dsal.uchicago.edu. University of Chicago. p. 55. khongbān ꯈꯣꯡꯕꯥꯟ /kʰoŋ.ban/ n. a ditch; a drainage. Morph: khong‑bān [a stream‑id.]. Variant: khongbāl.
  25. ↑ Sharma, H. Surmangol (2006). "Learners' Manipuri-English dictionary | Thummok". dsal.uchicago.edu. University of Chicago. p. 91. thummok ꯊꯨꯝꯃꯣꯛ /tʰum.mok/ n. a basket usu made of interwoven cane and bamboo. thummok tāiruk /tʰum.mok tai.ruk/ n. baskets and the like.
  26. ↑ Sharma, H. Surmangol (2006). "Learners' Manipuri-English dictionary | Sangbāi". dsal.uchicago.edu. University of Chicago. p. 188. sangbāi ꯁꯡꯕꯥꯏ /sə́ŋ.bai/ n. a large basket for measuring paddy.
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