By Collin Wanñiang
The culture of any race or tribe is reflected in its written and spoken language. The Khasi language, according to the consensus of scholars, is grouped under the Austro-Asiatic language. Khasi, Munda and Nicobarese are the only surviving languages of this group in India. Thus, Khasi is like a petty island amidst the vast ocean of Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman groups of languages. Even in the same State of Meghalaya, the Garo language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman Group. Assamese is a Sankrit language of Indo-Aryan. Bengali of India and Bangladesh are also Sanskrit languages of the Indo-Aryan group, Karbi and other tribal languages of Northeast India belong to the Tibeto-Burman group of language. Thus, all the languages surrounding the Khasis do not have any semantic link to Khasi. This makes other Indians difficult to learn Khasi and easier to learn Assamese or Bengali. This position of the Khasi language is in a dire need of attention, special protection and propagation from the part of the Government.
A Khasi’s order of thought is seen in a Khasi’s order of words expressed in a sentence which is different from its surrounding languages: “Nga bam Ja” (Subject-Verb-Object). In the Sanskrit languages such as Hindi, Bengali or Assamese the order of words would be: “Nga Ja bam” (Subject-Object-Verb) such as “Mey bhaat khata hu”. Moreover, Khasi is peculiar from its surrounding languages in having the Gender Determiner “U” or “Ka” which function at the same time as the English articles “the”, “a”, “an”. It can be said that Khasi is richer than English in this regard of the Gender Determiners cum Articles, for the Khasi Determiners can be rightly termed as “Gender Determined Articles”. It seems that without these Determiners, there is hardly a noun in the Khasi language. These Khasi Determiners are to a certain extent, conveying the Khasi style of thought. For instance, the Khasi Feminine Determiner “Ka” usually denotes things that are big and broad: Ka bneng (heaven), ka khyndew (earth), ka pyrthei (world), ka duriaw (sea), ka Madan (field), ka shnong (village), etc. while the Masculine Determiner “U” usually denotes things that are small and long: U Siej (a standing bamboo) Ka siej (a splitted bamboo), U Khulom (a pen) Ka Sia (an ink), U Khaw (uncooked rice) Ka Ja (cooked rice), U Khnam (an arrow) Ka Ryntieh (a bow), etc.
Non-Khasis generally comment that the Khasi language denotes the things that are good, broad, important, etc with the Feminine Determiners. While the things that are small, long and not so important are denoted with the Masculine Determiner because the Khasis are matrilineal. This seems a bit slippery for there seems to be a good starting point for further excavation into this topic. Well, majority of the Khasis won’t think that way and they would just argue that it has been that way since time immemorial. However, there are traits within the Khasi language pointing to this direction. For instance, while majority of the major languages in the world ascribe a Masculine Gender to the Sun and a Feminine Gender to the Moon because they say that the Sun is the source of light from which the Moon gets its light, the Khasi language does that just the opposite. Thus calling the Sun “Ka Sngi” and the Moon “U Bnai” instead of “U Sngi” and “Ka Bnai”. Moreover, a popular legend exists in Khasi about the Sun who was the sister of the Moon spraying hot ashes against her brother, the Moon.
The Khasi race has indeed travelled a long way to reach to this present state. It has passed from the age of fighting among themselves: Sohra Vrs Khyrim, Shangpung Vrs Jowai, Sutnga Vrs Raliang, Maram Vrs Mawïang, etc. to the age of having a common unifying Khasi language. This long journey seems to have taught the Khasis to interact with other races and to adopt whatever is good from other cultures. However, what is more disturbing these days are the encouraging trends of school drop-outs in many villages. What is more peculiar is that the number of drop-outs among the boys is more than that of the girls. The Khasis, as a whole, are not gender-biased. However, there are innate cultural weaknesses such as the thought of “U Khatarbor” for a boy and “Ka Shibor” for a girl. These thoughts were based on physical strength which today, a girl may not agree at all. Many village boys would opt dropping out from school on the pretext of helping their family. Now, if this practice goes on unabated, a time is coming when the educated Khasi girls won’t find a suitable marital partner from among the Khasi boys. Many Khasi girls who marry well-placed, educated Non-Khasi boys would end up following their partner to his native State as the over-all situation in our State is not so conducive and favourable. Thus, besides many boys are dropping out from schools and the educated girls are taken away, there will be a continuous brain-drain and intellectual void in the State of Meghalaya. The situation of what was reported in the TEHELKA Vol 9, Issue 29, Dated 21 July 2012 “Northeast’s reverse racism” will continue: “The slogan of the KSU in 1980’s and 1990’s was: ‘Khasi by blood, Indian by accident’. At that time, the bureaucracy was dominated by Bengalis, the business was controlled by Marwaris and Sindhis, and the politics was dominated by the Assamese. They filled the intellectual void that existed”.
(The Writer is currently a Scholar at Universiteit Leiden, Nederland)