Shillong, Oct. 28: Years after Rev. Thomas Jones introduced the Khasi alphabet in Roman script, the struggle to “standardise” Khasi language still rages.

The ways to standardise Khasi for computational purposes was the subject of a two-day national seminar at St Anthony’s College here.

The seminar is being jointly organised by the departments of computer science and Khasi of the college here in association with the state arts and culture department.

Although more than 10 lakh people in Meghalaya use the language, there is no coherence in the way words are being written or pronounced. The language is also spoken in Assam’s Barak Valley and parts of neighbouring Bangladesh. Besides, there are various dialects spoken in different parts of Khasi hills.

Records reveal that Rev. Jones arrived at Sohra on June 22, 1841, the first missionary sent by the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Foreign Missionary Society to the Khasi hills. Referred to as “father of the Khasi alphabet”, Rev. Jones was said to have laid the foundation for Khasi literature. Khasi language was developed and expanded based on the Sohra dialect commonly known as Ka Ktien Sohra.

“He was the first to introduce the Khasi alphabet in Roman script giving it a phonetic structure by re-assigning the sounds represented by various letters. This suited the language admirably, unlike the previous Bengali script used by Alexander Lish (who came to Khasi hills before Jones) and the Baptist Mission in Serampore. In Khasi literature, Thomas Jones is referred to as the father of the Khasi alphabet. He laid the Khasi literature on a firm foundation,” a pastor of the Presbyterian Church had written in an article years ago.

Delivering the keynote address, Fr U.V. Jose dwelt on the fine points of Khasi language where he gave various insights on the once endangered language. Khasi has several “borrowed” words from various languages, including Indian languages.

While stressing the importance of standardising Khasi language, Fr Jose, however, said no matter how much one tries to standardise a language, it will not be “tied”.

He said several players are required to be involved in the process of standardising the language so that a consensus could be arrived at. The Khasi alphabet has 23 letters compared to 26 letters in the English alphabet. Fr Jose also listed the “pitfalls” to be avoided while deciding on whether a form is a single word or many words, joining of words, and to think from the angle of another language.

Chief secretary Barkos Warjri lauded the innovative seminar and accentuated the need to standardise Khasi language in terms of grammar and spellings. “Words have to be correctly spelt, written and expressed to avoid the danger of communicating wrongly. Wrong communication can create tremendous confusion and can even lead to wars.”

Khasi, as a language, was recognised by Calcutta University up to the entrance examination standard in 1900, and up to degree standard in 1919, the same year that Assamese language was recognised by the same university.

In 1948, Khasi was recognised by Gauhati University while Dibrugarh University, Council for the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education, New Delhi, and North Eastern Hill University, have also accorded recognition.

The Khasi and Garo languages were recognised and notified as Associate Official Languages of the state after the Meghalaya State Language Act, 2005 received the governor’s assent on May 1, 2005.

In 2012, Unesco had removed Khasi language from the atlas of the “world’s languages in danger”.

Intellectuals participating in the seminar will throw light on issues relating to standardisation of languages and will work towards devising ways to develop electronic versions of Khasi language resources such as dictionaries, corpora and software tools.

Other issues to be dealt include initiating standards in the description in grammar and dictionaries, which includes spelling and vocabulary, standard pronunciation, transliteration standards, speech resource standards and corpora.