Shillong, Sept. 6: A year ago, a classroom in Shillong Law College was turned into a centre for those who want to learn Khasi.

One year since, the classroom has contributed to the spread of the Khasi language which was once listed in Unesco's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.

Yesterday, the Khasi Learning Centre celebrated its first anniversary where the highlight was a skit performed in Khasi by those who have learnt the language over the past year.

The centre is an initiative of the Seng Biria U Khasi (SBUK) or the Khasi Humorists' Society and was launched on September 5 last year.

The SBUK did not charge any money from the learners who enrolled for the course. The first batch will complete the course in November this year and a fresh batch will be joining from February 2017.

Although more than 60 men and women registered for the centre, many failed to regularly attend the weekly classes. However, those who were regular have definitely learnt not only the Khasi alphabets, but also the nuances involved in conversing in the language.

Those who registered themselves last year are from Bengali, Assamese, Rajput, Marwari, Garo, Rabha, Tripuri, Naga, Punjabi, Nepalese and Bodo communities, some of whom have been staying in Shillong for generations.

Mohan Rajput, a retired government officer, and his fellow learners surprised many yesterday while enacting a skit where the medium of communication was Khasi. Rajput joined the centre to learn the language which not only helped him to provide social assistance to the needy, but also enhanced the base of Khasi speakers, especially among the non-Khasis.

"We have been taught starting from the basics. We have also been imparted knowledge to converse in Khasi. The language is not that difficult, but one has to be sincere," Rajput told this correspondent.

He said that by learning Khasi, he would be in a better position to reach out to the poorest of the poor who deserve assistance.

He added that learning Khasi would help in increasing the number of speakers of the language especially in those communities which do not use the language as a medium of communication.

Sukjai Swer who teaches Khasi at Sankardev College here and has been teaching the language at the centre since its inception, expressed happiness over the progress of the learners.

"We have to acknowledge the way they picked up the language and communicate in it." She said the learners were mostly imparted communication skills which would help them in their daily activities. Some of them had also started reading Khasi newspapers, she added.

"It is important to know a language as sometimes the inability to speak and understand a language lead to misunderstandings," Swer said.

Perhaps, the initiative would also help in getting Khasi included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.