New KAS body to continue push for recognition of Khasi language

SHILLONG, May 3: The new elected body of the Khasi Authors’ Society (KAS) has set it agenda straight – to push the state government to pursue the pending matter of inclusion of the Khasi language in the Eight Schedule to the Constitution and back up their demand with robust documentation.
“We will be seek a report from the Political department on the status of this long-pending demand,” Dr DRL Nonglait told reporters after being re-elected as president of the KAS during a general meeting held at Synod College on Tuesday.
He said they will seek an appointment with Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma to discuss the matter and travel to Delhi to knock on the doors of the central government.
At the same time, Dr Nonglait also informed that the KAS will arm itself with documents to strengthen the case for the Khasi language.
The language, culture, art, dramas and folklore of the Khasi community will be documented as valid testimony to support the language recognition demand, he said.
Dr Nonglait also revealed that the KAS is working on a project to compile a Khasi-to-Khasi dictionary which has been funded by the state government.
“We are looking to correct Khasi words which are misspelled. We are targeting to compile this dictionary within three years,” he said, adding that a team consisting of six research associates is currently gathering information in an effort to enrich the Khasi vocabulary.
Padma Shri (Prof) Badaplin War of the Department of Khasi, NEHU, is supervising the project and is being assisted by Prof Barika Khyriem, Assistant Professor of the Department of Linguistics, NEHU.
Prof War said the research associates have used software to collect the data and codify the language.
“The objective is to codify and standardize the Khasi language in the written form. The first aim is to collect and list out as many Khasi words as possible. So far we have not been able to do that. We need time to compile the words which already exist in our language,” she said.
On the progress made so far, Prof War said the research associates were collecting data and Khasi words from different written sources and also conducting fieldwork.
She said her team will be working with experts from different areas and disciplines and with those who possess a vast vocabulary of Khasi words.
Prof War said the team will give the definition and explanation of each word in the Khasi language and then they will add the English equivalent of those words.
The dictionary will have phonetic transcription of each of the lexical entries so that anyone reading the dictionary will get to know the correct pronunciation of those words.
The team will first work on a hard copy of the dictionary while will be followed by an online version so as to cater to a wider range of readers.
Besides Dr Nonglait, other office-bearers of the KAS include Dr KD Ramsiej as vice president, Dr RP Kharshiing as general secretary, DR MM Khymdeit as joint secretary and P Kharshiing as finance secretary.