Shillong: The Khasi Authors' Society is planning to take out a march here on September 22 in support of its demand to include the Khasi language in the Eight Schedule. On Tuesday, it appealed to all who want the language to thrive to participate.

According to the society, the foundation of the demand was laid nearly 58 years ago when a movement had started against the imposition of Assamese as the official language in the then state of Assam, including the erstwhile United Khasi & Jaiñtia Hills district.

The trigger for the movement was promulgation of the Assam Official Language Act, 1960, which threatened to overshadow the Khasi and Garo languages, and one of the results of the movement was the creation of Meghalaya as a state in 1972.

The society was formed on September 11, 1979, to strengthen the demand.

An expert committee of the Sahitya Akademi had stated in 1985 that Khasi cannot be recognised as long as the language is not officially recognised in the state.

It was only in 2005 that the Meghalaya Assembly passed the Meghalaya Language Act which recognised Khasi and Garo as the state's associate official languages. English continues to be the official language as no other language links the Khasi, Jaiñtia and the Garo communities.

Society president D.R.L. Nonglait, speaking at the Literary Day organised by the society, which also coincided with its 39th anniversary, said according to the 2011 census, 14,31,344 people in India spoke Khasi. He also said that Khasi, as a written language, has completed 176 years. The language is being taught from the primary school level up to the PhD level.

Khasi belongs to the Austro-Asiatic family in the Mon-Khmer group. It is widely spoken in Meghalaya and in parts of Assam and Bangladesh. The only language belonging to this family which has been included in the Eighth Schedule so far is Santali.

British missionary William Carey first put Khasi language into writing in 1824, using the Bengali script. In 1842, Welsh missionary Thomas Jones introduced the Roman script and began to write the language with it.

Over the years, the society and others have been demanding that Khasi should be included in the Eighth Schedule. At present, there are more than 40 languages in the country, including Khasi and Garo, waiting for inclusion in the Schedule, which now has 22 official languages under it.

Nonglait said if Khasi is included in the Eighth Schedule, among other advantages, the community would be protected. "If the language thrives and survives, the community will also survive," he said.

The society demanded that a resolution should be tabled in the Assembly to urge the Centre to include Khasi in the Eighth Schedule. It also said the outcome of the September 22 public deliberations would be sent to the state government and the Centre.