Munipuri

Manipuri (মনিপুরি) , meitei or meithei (মেইতেই) — the language of the Manipuri people and the official language of Manipur State, located in northeastern India.

The language is also spoken in neighboring states — Assam, Tripura, Nagaland and West Bengal, as well as in Bangladesh (15,000 people, 2003) and Burma. The number of Indian people who called Manipuri their mother tongue was 1270,216 according to the 1991 census, of which 1110134 (84.7%) lived in Manipur state.

Manipuri belongs to the Tibeto-Burman subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It traditionally belongs to the Kuki-chin-naga branch, where it has a special place. The language is tonal, the word order is SOV (subject — object — verb).

Manipuri should not be confused with the Bishnupriya-Manipuri language, which belongs to the Indo-Aryan group of languages and is spoken in Assam, Manipur, some regions of Bangladesh and Burma.