Meitei Culture/Literature



Meitei literature has both written as well as oral forms.

All the Meitei language literary works, produced before the 18th century CE, were written in the traditional Meetei Mayek writing system. During and after the 18th century CE, Bengali script replaced the Meitei script for writing the Meitei language. However, in the later parts of the 20th century CE, Meitei script rose once again to replace the Bengali script for writing Meitei language.

With the changes of writing system, the usage of words in Meitei literature, also changes, simultaneously, due to acculturation. Meitei script enthusiasts usually love to write linguistically pure Meitei language, free from any foreign or borrowed or corrupted words. On the other hand, Bengali script enthusiasts usually love to mix Meitei language writings, with the words borrowed or derived from Bengali language and Bengali's ancestor language, Sanskrit. Thus, in case of Meitei culture, the writing systems matter to the language of literary works.

Meitei people believes that "language" is their mother and "script" is their father. And if Bengali script or Latin script is used to write their language, they believe that it is equivalent to their mother being under the control of another man, who is not their father. This notion leads the masses to revive the traditional Meetei Mayek writing system.

Meitei oral literature (orature) is mainly composed of folktales and folk songs. As oral retellings may become varied from one narrator to another, folktales and folk songs usually exist in multiple variations. On the other hand, the possibility of variations is very limited in case of written literature.