Meitei script

The Meitei script (Meitei: ꯃꯩꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Meitei Mayek, lit. 'Meitei writing system'), also known as the Meetei script (Meitei: ꯃꯤꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Meetei Mayek, lit. 'Meetei writing system'),[5] is an abugida used for the Meitei language, the official language of Manipur state and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is one of the official scripts of the Indian Republic. It is also popularly known as the Kanglei script (Meitei: ꯀꯪꯂꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ/ꯀꯪꯂꯩ ꯏꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Kanglei Mayek/Kanglei Iyek)[6][7] and the Kok Sam Lai script (Meitei: ꯀꯣꯛ ꯁꯝ ꯂꯥꯏ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Kok Sam Lai Mayek).[lower-alpha 1][8][9] Its earliest known evidence of existence dates back to the 6th century AD coins, engraving the Meitei letters,[10] as verified by the various publications of the National Sahitya Akademi.[1] It was used until the 18th century, when it was replaced by the Bengali alphabet. A few manuscripts survive. In the 20th century, the script has experienced a resurgence, and is again being used.[11] Starting from 2021, Meitei script (officially known as Meetei Mayek[lower-alpha 2]) was officially used by the Government of Manipur, along with the Bengali-Assamese script, to write the Meitei language, as per "The Manipur Official Language (Amendment) Act, 2021".[12]

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Meitei script (Meitei: ꯃꯩꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Meitei Mayek)
Meitei Mayek (Meitei for 'Meitei writing system') written in Meitei script; the ancient 18 letters used in the official Meitei Mayek writing system
Script type	Abugida
Time period	6th century AD[1] – upto 1700 AD, 1930 – present
Direction	left-to-right
Official script	for Meitei language in India
Region	India Manipur
Languages	Meitei language (officially known as "Manipuri language")
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs[a] Proto-Sinaitic script[a] Phoenician alphabet[a] Aramaic alphabet[a] Brahmi script Gupta script Tibetan[2][3][4] Meitei script
Sister systems	Lepcha, Khema, ʼPhags-pa, Marchen
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Mtei (337), ​Meitei Mayek (Meithei, Meetei)
Unicode
Unicode alias	Meetei Mayek
Unicode range	U+ABC0–U+ABFF Meetei Mayek U+AAE0–U+AAFF Meetei Mayek Extensions
[a] The Semitic origin of the Brahmic scripts is not universally agreed upon.

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This article contains the Meitei alphabet. Without proper rendering support, you may see errors in display.

Since Meitei does not have voiced consonants, there are only fifteen consonant letters used for native words, plus three letters for pure vowels. Nine additional consonant letters inherited from the Indic languages are available for borrowings. There are seven vowel diacritics and a final consonant (/ŋ/) diacritic. The names of the twenty-seven letters are not only phonetic names, but also based on parts of the human body.[13]