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Meithei (Meitei) 〔Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh〕 or Manipuri is the predominant language and lingua franca in the southeastern Himalayan state of Manipur, in northeastern India. It is the official language in government offices. Meithei is also spoken in the Indian states of Assam and Tripura, and in Bangladesh and Burma (now Myanmar). It is currently classified as a vulnerable language by UNESCO. Meithei is a Sino-Tibetan language whose exact classification remains unclear. It has lexical resemblances to Kuki and Tangkhul Naga.〔Burling, Robbins. 2003. The Tibeto-Burman Languages of Northeastern India. In Thurgood & LaPolla (eds.), ''The Sino-Tibetan Languages'', 169-191. London & New York: Routledge.〕 Meithei has proven to be an integrating factor among all ethnic groups in Manipur who use it to communicate among themselves. It has been recognized (as Manipuri) by the Indian Union and has been included in the list of scheduled languages (included in the 8th schedule by the 71st amendment of the constitution in 1992). Meithei is taught as a subject up to the post-graduate level (Ph.D.) in universities of India, apart from being a medium of instruction up to the undergraduate level in Manipur. Education in government schools is provided in Meithei through the eighth standard. ==Dialects== Meithei contains various dialects; however, in more recent years the broadening of communication, as well as intermarriage, has caused the differences between these dialects to become nearly insignificant. The only exceptions to this occurrence are the speech differences of the dialects found in Tripura, Bangladesh and Myanmar. The exact number of dialects of Meithei is unknown. The three main dialects of Meithei include: Meithei proper, Loi and the Pangal. Differences found within Meithei's dialects are primarily characterized by the extensions of new sounds and tonal shifts. Meithei proper is considered, of the three, to be the standard dialect—and is considered to be more dynamic than the other two dialects . Slight variations in dialects can be seen in the following table: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Meithei language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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