By H H Mohrmen
The debate on the MBOSE decision to allow students to take Khasi as an elective subject has taken this community by storm and it is a good sign that we have again started talking about Khasi language after UNESCO has listed the language on the list of endangered languages. Khasi is a spoken language till the Welsh Missionaries gave the language a script (Roman script). Prior to that there was an effort to write the language using Bengalee script. It is coincidental that because the Gawlia (Welsh) landed in Sohra first and started their mission in the area the dialect spoken by the people of the area became the written language for the entire community. Scholars have come to the conclusion that the Amwi version of the language is the core or the origin of the Austro-Asiatic language that the Khasis the Pnars under Monkhmer group spoke.
It is again sheer coincidence that this controversy came to light while I was preparing my speech on the occasion of the 91st death anniversary of Hajom Kissor Singh Lyngdoh Nongbri, a poet, a religious reformer and an educationist par excellence who died on November 13, 1923. While preparing my speech I found that till 1902, Khasi and Jaintia students had no option but to take their LP school exams in Bengalee or Assamese. It was H K Singh who was the manager of the Unitarian Free School in Jowai, Soso Tham Headmaster Upper Primary School Shangpung and Samuel Challam officiating Headmaster in Jowai vide letter February 8, 1902 who sent a petition requesting the government to allow local LP students to take their exams in Khasi. In response to the letter W. Booth the DPI; vide letter No. 7327 dated Shillong the 21 of October 1902 allowed students to appear for their LP school exams in their own lingua franca.
It is indeed sad that since then, Khasi has not been able to proceed beyond LP section because we cannot produce books in Khasi on all subjects beyond the LP Section. Till date it is only up to LP section that all the subjects are taught in Khasi. Even then we all know that language vice. Schools are divided into Khasi and English medium and from Upper Primary Section onwards even in the so called Khasi medium schools every subject (except Khasi) is taught in English.
But the most important question is our preferred medium for educating our kids. Is it not true that we prefer English medium schools to Khasi medium schools when it comes to schooling our own kids? And by English medium schools I also mean schools which adopt the ICSE and CBSE course. May I also ask how many of the (Khasi Pnar) readers of this column sent their kids to Khasi medium LP schools earlier known as District Council Lower Primary School (DCLP)? I bet even those who bared their fangs against the MBoSE decision also send their kids to English medium schools where every subject (except Khasi) is taught in English. English medium schools in the state particularly in urban areas have come up like mushrooms and these schools have no problem of enrolment, in spite of charging exorbitant fees. So what is all this fuss about?
It is an open secret that DCLP schools are getting less and less popular nowadays except for the fact that these government schools pay good salaries to their teachers. If a survey of the enrolment of students in DCLP and English medium schools is conducted one would find that the numbers of students enrolled in these schools especially in the urban areas is decreasing day by day. The fact that lesser and lesser parents are opting for DCLP schools is obvious in towns and cities where there is option for parents to send their kids to English medium schools. In fact, the choice of schools that parents send their kids to is also a status symbol. Most well to do parents tend to send their children to ICSE, CBSE and English medium schools. DCLP schools are fast becoming schools for the poor and the marginalized.
The other question that needs to be asked is, how much has Khasi literature developed throughout these years. How many books and popular novels have been published? Why is there no news about Khasi books in the press except on the day the book was published? People in other communities publish books and novels in their languages that sell like hotcakes. So the question now is whether Khasi authors can earn their livelihood from writing books in Khasi. Authors and poets in Khasi know how many copies of their published works are sold? I doubt if there is any book other than textbooks prescribed by boards or universities that can sell more than 20000 copies? Is it because the Khasi Pnar people have no reading habit, or is it because the community has not been able to produce a writer worth his salt who can sell best sellers Khasi books or novels?
The development of a language can be seen from the kind or articles published in the local newspapers. If we look at the vernacular newspapers most of the articles in the editorial page are basically articles related to Christianity. I am not saying that this is wrong. In fact we should thank the writers for without them the edit pages of vernacular papers would be empty. But the moot question is where have all the secular writers gone? What happens to the debates on secular issues in Khasi?
It could be because orthodox proponents of Khasi as a medium of learning insist on using only true Sohra dialect in writing the language, and hence discourage using words from other Khasi dialects to enrich Khasi. I occasionally write a column in some Khasi newspaper and name my column ‘ka Ab’, some people thought that it means A,B or the beginning. But the truth it is ‘ka Ab’ is mirror in Pnar dialect or what we would call ‘ka iitkhmih’ in Sohra Khasi. And similarly if we would like to enrich Khasi language there is another name for mirror in the Amwi (War Jaintia) dialect of the language and that is ‘ka dupni.’ Recently I told my friend who is a Pastor of the Presbyterian Church that only in the War Jaintia or Amwi dialect is egg or what in Khasi Sohra is ‘ka Pylleng’ is known by three names ‘ka hunsyi, ka thmat and ka lalun.’
We must thank individuals like S.Q. Sumer and Shining Star Laloo who had introduced ‘symbud kongsan’ while translating ‘guest of honour’ into Khasi, because chief guest is ‘u kongsan’ while guest of honour cannot be ‘kongsan baar’ it sounds odd but using Pnar word ‘symbood’ gives us a much better translation of the word.
The other problem is that scholars of Khasi language are also not prepared to meet the daily onslaught of new English words in the way the Khasi Pnar speaks. We must invent new words in our vocabulary to include popular new English words like for example selfie, tablet and even computer to name a few. Again I must thank S.Q. Sumer who gave the best definition of the word I coined ‘Korputar.’ When I first used Korputar in Khasi for computer, I simply borrowed the Khasi word ‘Ketli’ for kettle. But Sumer define Korputar as ‘kor’ machine, ‘pu-pule’ read and ‘thoh-tar’ to write, calculate, draw and design. Then we can also use Khasi ‘shon-hi’ for selfie or ‘ka sleit kor’ for tablet and ‘mobai’ for mobile.
If we study their works then even H.K. Singh and Soso Tham used Pnar words in their writings because these doyens of Khasi language also lived in Jaintia hills part of their lives. Late Donelton Passah reminded me that Soso Tham while translating ‘Hit the nail child’ used the Pnar word ‘shata/chata’ which means the head of the nail or umbrella in Pnar. So we have the Khasi translation of ‘hit it on the head’ ‘ai na shata dar’ not ‘ai na khlieh dain.’
So the problem is not only whether MBoSe allows Khasi as elective subject up to SSLC level or something else. We need to introspect and see where we have gone wrong? Why is Khasi not a popular medium of education and why we do not read Khasi books? And why do we prefer speaking in English even among ourselves? And given an opportunity we prefer to attend English church services rather than the Khasi one. So where is the future of the language?