Shillong, Sept 20: The Khasi Author’s Society on Thursday urged all to speak and write Khasi correctly to further strengthen the language, and sought mass support ahead of the public rally to demand for inclusion of Khasi language into the eighth schedule of the Constitution.
The Khasi Authors Society will organize a rally here on Saturday to put pressure on the state and Central governments to accord recognition to Khasi language.
The rally will begin with a procession at 11 am from Madan ïewrynghep and culminate at Madan Malki with a large gathering.
This is the second big rally being organized by the Society for pursuing the long pending demand, after the first rally held on May 5 last year.
President of the Society, D.R.L. Nonglait told reporters here that various organizations including churches and educational institutes have extended support for this cause.
Justifying the demand, Nonglait said that according to census 2011, there were 14,31,344 speakers of Khasi language, and stated that Khasi language has qualified all criterias laid down by the Union ministry of home affairs for getting it included into the eighth schedule.
He said that one more important criteria that has to be fulfilled is the mass support to the long demand, as he called upon the youth and people from all over Khasi and Jaiñtia region of the state to join hands in the movement.
“It has been a journey of 37 long years in pursuing this demand. All these years, we ended up submitting memorandums to chief ministers of different governments in the state and members of parliament,†Nonglait said.
Nonglait also said that recognition of Khasi language will provide many benefits which include recognition of the tribe, employment, conducting various examinations in Khasi, assistance for research works among others.
On speaking and writing of broken Khasi sentences and shortcut spelling of Khasi words especially while typing text messages on mobile phone and social media like facebook and whatsapp, Nonglait admitted that the trend is worrisome, and urged everyone to write and speak Khasi correctly.
“People who wish to speak English should speak it correctly, and when we speak Khasi or any other language we know, we should also speak it correctly. There are remarks that nowadays, the way we speak Khasi has become ‘Khalishdi’ as there are people who mixed it with English, or even Hindi,” Nonglait pointed out.
On some Khasi alphabets like ‘ï and ñ’ being disregarded and not used properly in Khasi scripts, Nonglait said, typing in computer was also one of the reasons that many could not produce the two alphabets.