Some New Manipuri Words and Expressions

Introduction
Having been away from my native speech community environment for seven years following several years of life in isolation without much live interaction with the other members of my speech community including my family besides the brief periods of interaction with my students during the class and the not-so-frequent post-lecture conversations with my audience in book review functions, I found the task of collecting new words or expressions in Manipuri quite tougher than it would have been with a person with a usual linguistic experience in the speech community.

Manipuri literary works produced in recent years are not also the place to look for new words and expressions. Every language with a vibrant literary life picks up new words and expressions from the mouths of their youths; however, with most of its young speakers, who have grown up in the environment of the reinstated Meitei Mayek so far as the written form of the language is concerned, Manipuri does not have much contribution, if any, from its younger generation. While the younger and the older generations interact in live, spoken conversations in day-to-day life situations, there is no communication going on through written text—the older generation cannot read in Meitei Mayek while the younger generation cannot read in Bengali script. This gap has not only quietly affected the quality of the spoken interaction between the generations but also led to a culturally guardianless state for the youths. The fall in the number of writers (because there are rarely new young entrants on the Manipuri literary scene) writing in Manipuri is one consequence of this. Besides this, the activities of the political elements bent on linguistically purist ends have kept Manipuri writers treading their prescriptive paths resulting in the language of their works being quite away from the living language. This is why Manipuri literary works produced in recent years have not reflected the speech of the youths even when the writers write about the younger generations.

With me physically out of the speech environment at the moment and Manipuri literary works unable to pick up the changing trends of the language, at least in vocabulary and style, my only recourse left was (i) reading through at least a few social media conversations among youths, and (ii) talking with a Manipuri speaker friend of my age who has herself been away from her native speech environment for more than a decade. Fortunately, an outspoken person and interacting a lot with many other Manipuris via several mediums and in several modes, she turned out a good help and I discussed a lot of words with her in course of working on this assignment. She also brought into the discussion a girl in her late teens from her native locality and she also contributed a few words.

Observation
In a few days of research we came up with about a hundred or so new words and expressions; however, I have listed only thirty-three of them. Considering that most of these new words and expressions are slangs, soft and even hard-core taboos, it is assumable that they were born more in social media environments involving only the virtual (not real and physical) presence of the interlocutors assuming virtual personal identities, which enables them to say a lot much more freely than it would have been the case in real in-person interactions. Most of the words listed below are being passed around in social media conversations very fervently at present and I don’t presume they will die very soon if they would ever eventually.

Table I: New words and expressions
(Table yet to be added)

Words and expressions in context
This section studies the contexts in which some (not all) of the words (Table I) are used and how they semantically depart from the original senses of the words. Where it is important and necessary, the history of the new words or expressions are also provided.

য়ো তাবা (jo ta-bə)
Jo ta-bə means something like ‘nice,’ ‘great’ or ‘excellent’ and is used more in association with fashion and looks. If somebody looks good and fashionable in some dresses, they are said to be jo tabə. If somebody appears well and performs at least reasonably well on a stage, they are also said to be jo tabə.

The expression is also used humorously and ironically when you are talking about something bad or spoiled.

মানা সিবু উজ্জার শাহন্নি হায়বদি ঐদি শুকখন খল্লুদে সিদি থীন য়ো তারে তৌরিসে¡
manə sibu ujjar sahənni hajbədi ejdi sukkhən khəllude. sidi thinə jo tare təurise
he it spoil would (that) I never thought this really excellent is now
I never thought (that) he would spoil it. This is really excellent now.

I heard this expression for the first time about 2006 but it had already become popular among the youths, even among some elderly people who mixed with the youths, before it reached me. Even many Manipuri films produced about that time picked up this expression helping it take off and become popular. Now the word has intelligibly penetrated into all speaking generations of the Manipuri language though its use remains confined more or less to the youths below twenty-five.

I don’t know who first coined this word or started to use it. However, given the time when it came into use coinciding with the rising popularity of rap songs among the Internet-savvy youths, it seems reasonable to suspect if this expression traces its origins back to raps songs (which were pouring into Manipuri via the Internet) with a lot of yeas sounding more like /jo/ than /jei/.

কাপ-পা (kap-pə)
The penetration of mobile telephony into Manipur’s upper class population in the early 2000s followed by its further expansion among the general public and market saturation in the second half of the decade introduced several new words into Manipuri. While the new technology’s linguistic demand was responded to in part by some already existing native words adapted to new usage, most of the terms associated were the technical terms already established in the technology and business. Kap-pa (kap-pə) is one of the native words adapted to a new usage. Among the primary established senses that kap-pa had earlier are (i) to shoot, (ii) to direct the reflection of light from a mirror, (iii) (of things) to sparkle. The new meanings this word acquired include (i) to do or “shoot” (recharge) and (ii) to quickly send or “shoot” a text or voice message.

A more recent sense this word acquired is ‘(of a person) to shoot people with sexual appeal,’ or in plain terms ‘to be sexually attractive’. I found this sentence a couple of days ago on Facebook:

ও, বি-জু-দি কাপ-পে
o bi-ju-di kap-pe
O, Biju shoots (= is sexually appealing)

Biju is a young and new Manipuri film star and she is a hit among boys. The above sentence is a boy’s comment on the actress’s appearance and sexually appealing body.

পোত কাপ-পা (pot kap-pə)
One of the new expressions that immediately took off and became popular among the youngsters, particularly teenagers and those in their twenties and early thirties, pot kap-pa very suddenly became widely used (especially in social media conversations) at about 2010 though it may have been in use for quite a while then. This expression does not have a specific meaning and is employed to mean a lot of things depending on the context, but all of the meanings would most probably be categorized by a lexicographer as slangs or taboos. This semantic flexibility or indeterminacy is derived from the very flexibility or indeterminacy of the component words—pot [pot] and kap-pa [kap-pə]. Pot primarily means ‘thing,’ but it is often stretched far to generate shades of meaning including alcohol and drugs, and human genitals and other sexual organs. Kap-pa [kap-pə], as seen in the description for the entry for kap-pa above has within its semantic range ‘shoot’ and ‘pop out.’ In its early days of taking off, it was used primarily in association with alcohol and drug use to mean “the ‘pot’ (thing/alcohol) really gives the kick. Later usage of the expression became more confined in some slangy and even objectionable (to some) senses and it derives from the latest sense of kap-pa above. Thus, in this later sense if a girl is said to pot kap-pa, then she is sexually appealing because her body has a lot of curves and the parts of her body which are characteristic of a woman look like popping out. This phrase is more directly suggestive of specific body parts than kap-pa.

পী-বা (pi-bə)
Pi-bə literally means ‘to give.’ The new usage retains the meaning of giving but stretches it beyond its established semantic field and applies it to many other activities involving an agent and the recipient of their action’s effect which are not traditionally expressed in Manipuri in terms of giving and taking. Pi-bə in the new sense involves an agent doing something to a patient when the patient is not interested in or indifferent to or the action or, in most cases, reluctant to get involved. This affective state of the patient makes them more of a victim of the act of this giving. For example, if a drunken boy says to a stranger who is quarrelling with him, “দ্ক পীজিল্লদিনে...”

দক¡ পীজিল -লদিনে...
də pijil -lədine
right away give if
(Literally meaning ‘if I give.’)

he means to punch (throw or “give” a punch to) the stranger into the face. (Here it is to be noted that in Manipuri, like in Japanese, subject pronouns can be dropped.) What pi-bə means and what thing is given are evident from the context, making it syntactically redundant for the object to be present. While this verb clearly shows its valents semantically, most sentences drop both the direct object and the indirect object (IO) from their physical argument form, written or spoken. This dropping becomes essential when ‘pi-bə’ and its DO form an objectionable idea. For example, if a boy teasing a girl in lewd terms says “পীরদেবা,”

পী -রদেবা
pi -rədeva
give if
(Literally meaning ‘if (I) give.’)

it is clear from the context what it is that he wants to give or do to the girl. The girl here is the victim of the action pi-bə.

নৈ-বা (nəi-bə)
Some of the established meanings of nei-ba as a verb are (i) oppress or torture, (ii) to rub hard, and (iii) to nestle or nuzzle up against. I think the new sense under study was derived from another sense that was in turn derived from the first. It must have been in the late 1980s or in the early 1990s when there swept a renewed wind of football fever and football tournaments were very frequently organized by sporting clubs (each locality has a sporting club in Manipur) and schoolboys were attracted to the game that nei-ba was adapted to a new context. If a player or team outplays his opponents or the opponent team, they boys in the audience said

মা-না লোইন নৈ-থেক-পি-রে
ma-nə loin(ə) nəi-thek-pi-re
he all (of them) outplays

or

এ-না বি নৈ-খায়-রে
e-nə (bi) nəi-khaj-re
A (B) outplays

This sense spread into other areas of games and sports including boxing and all karate or martial art forms played in Manipur. The new sense in turn was most probably derived from this. In the new sense, the word nei-ba means to perform excellently; to present oneself excellently; to be far better than others. By extension, nei-ba also generally applies in the sense of ‘good or nice’. In another word, this is the Manipuri equivalent of the English word “rock” as in “The new movie rocks.” This word is currently in use in the new senses more frequently than other new catchwords, both online and in real life conversations. Nei-re-ko is the most frequent form of the word in the new sense.

মৈ (mej)
মৈ-বূল (mej-bul)
In the established sense, mej and mej-bul mean ‘fire’ and ‘a fireball or ball of fire’, respectively. Like other existing words adapted to new usage, these two words also gained connotations in the late 1990s which the words had no association with earlier. The two words have the same sense—they both mean somebody who is extremely good at something; however, mej-bul has a still stronger sense. If somebody is sexually appealing or attractive, the youths also say

সি-দি মৈ –নি-হে
si-di məj -ni-he
This (= he or she) fire is
He/she is fire (= sexy).

সি-দি মৈ-বূল -দিহে
si-di məj-bul -ni-he
This (he/she) fireball is
He/she is a fireball (= sexy).

মৈ তাইü (məj tai, literally meaning to be fire), মৈ হৌইü (məj-həu-i, literally meaning to be on fire), মৈ কাপ্পী (məj kap-pi, literally meaning to breathe fire) and মৈ চঙি (məj cəŋ-ŋi, literally meaning to have fire) are among the most frequent new phrases with məj as the head.

খেত-পা (khet-pə)
Khet-pa in the established sense means to scratch and to scrape. In the new sense, khetpa is used humorously and it means ‘to cadge something from somebody’ or ‘to use other people’s things in small quantities which you do not have for yourself’. The new usage may have originated in students’ boarding houses where young students often ask other fellow students for things (in small quantities as if you get them by scratching) that they don’t have. By extension, the word is also now used (humorously) among youths to mean to sponge on other people or habitually practice khetpa (in the new sense) to save your own thing from being used up. Used for humor, youngsters say this to one another when they share things among them and they don’t mind each other for saying this. In 2007 I heard some children saying among themselves

ন-পুন-সি-দু মী-ঙোন-দগি খেত-ল-গ-তা হিং-গে খন -গ-নু-নে
nə-pun-si-du mi-ŋon-də-gi khet-lə-gə-tə hiŋ-ge khən -gə-nu-ne
your life from others by always cadging live think not
Don’t think to live (your life) by always cadging from others.

Phil-lips (phi-lips)
Phillips is an Indian company which was famous in Manipur in the 1980s and 1990s for the quality of their products vis-à-vis the products of foreign companies (especially Chinese and Thai) pouring in through the border town of Moreh in those days. Phillips products were considered the best in the market and they actually lasted very long, particularly its radio sets. Young boys picked up the term in the mid 1990s and used it to mean women and girls with good and sexually appealing bodies, especially busty ones. It has been in use since. Girls hardly use this word though they understand it.

কে লং-বা (ke ləŋ-bə)
Ke ləŋ-bə is transliterated in Latin as ‘k langba’, and the ‘k’ in this is the abbreviation of the English word ‘kiss’. Ləŋbə is ‘to throw’. Thus, k ləŋbə literally means to throw a kiss; i.e., to kiss somebody. The act of kissing in this context reflects the dominance of the kisser.

পক-ত-বা /pək-tə-bə/
ফক-ত-বা /phək-tə-bə/ or /fək-tə-bə/
Pək-tə-bə in the established sense means ‘not appropriate,’ ‘not suitable,’ ‘not matching,’ ‘not setting off.’ The new usage of the word foregrounds the effect of not being appropriate, suitable, matching or setting off; that is, being repulsive, disgusting, very ugly. This word is used in this new sense among friends for humor. People can also seriously mean it when they say “pək-tre.” This word is often modified by the adverb “thinə” (meaning, terribly).

Phək-tə-bə or fək-tə-bə is a blending of the English word “fuck” and the Manipuri word “pək-tə-bə” and this is replacing pək-tə-bə among teenagers.

পো-তি থোম-বা (po-ti thom-bə)
This phrase is composed of the Hindi loan word ‘po-ti’ (dung or children’s portable toilet) and the Manipuri ‘thom-bə’ (thickly smeared with). Used humorously but actually meaning it, the phrase means extremely repulsive or disgusting.

লেপ-চিং (lep-ciŋ)
এল সি (el si)
Lep-ciŋ is a blending of lep-pə (to be standing) and ciŋ-bə (to sip), and it literally means to sip while standing. In Manipur, especially in my town, Kakching, women often ban alcoholic drinks and abusable drugs when they feel drug abuse in society has reached an unbearably dangerous stage. At such times, they shut down wine vendors and put drug stores and drug retailers under constant scanner. However, some small vendors quietly operate in secret in the most unexpected of quarters and the customers are not allowed to sit and drink inside. They can buy what they need and take it away or just stand and gulp the liquid quickly and disappear immediately. As taking away wine (in small polythene bags) involves risking getting caught by the relentless ban enforcing women (this has a lot of ugly consequences), the customers choose to stand and hastily gulp wine (or other alcoholic drinks) without seated at the table and disappear as soon as possible.

Though lep-ciŋ is of almost the same length as its abbreviation LC /el si/, the abbreviation is often used among drinkers as a code for them not to be understood by non-drinkers, particularly by the ban enforcers.

মৈ-রা-পায়-বী /məj-ra-paj-bi/
Məj-ra-paj-bi (literally a woman torch bearer), in its established sense, is a woman who comes out (especially at night) to join her fellow womenfolk out at their local meeting places or streets usually to protect or press social interests or protest political or social events or policies or programs. Originally (in the 1970s through the mid-1990s) such women came out of their homes with kerosene torches at nights to encounter Indian Army personnel who often conducted combing operations in search of insurgent revolutionary cadres and more than often tortured, in the process, innocent people and raped women. They were volunteers coming out for the protection of their menfolk, girls and young women, but not formal organizations.

Later, with the change in social and political conditions, the activities of such women became more political even encroaching upon areas where they were not welcome. However, society still let them be. This dilution led the term to acquiring a humorous sense involving broadening its semantic scope. This came to cover, often in humorous intent, girls and young women who had nothing to do with the activities of the mej-ra-paj-biz. The humor is best captured when the term refers to an infant or baby girl, often as a reply to a query if one’s child is male or female. If it is a baby girl, then they, for the sake of the humor (or perhaps also to convert their disappointment of having a girl instead of a boy into a humor), would say,

It’s a mej-ra-paj-bi.

If a parent has only daughters or more daughters, they would say something like

My children are all mej-ra-paj-biz.

লৈ-ত্রে /ləi-tre/
In the established sense, this word means, among others, finished and not any more of something. In the new sense the youngsters use it, this word (often used teasingly) means “very good” or “very bad” with no comparison to make, and what exactly it means is clear from the context.

পোক-খায়-বা (pok-khaj-bə)
Literally meaning “to explode,” pok-khaj-bə acquired new, drug-abuse related meanings among the youths in the second half of the last decade and its currency gathered fresh momentum at the beginning of this decade. If somebody dies from drug overdose or prolonged drug abuse, they are said to die by pok-khaj-bə; i.e., explosion. In this there seems to be a sense of the harmful effect of drug abuse accumulated over time exploding finally, killing the abuser.

তোম্বা পোকখায়রগা শিরে
Tomba dies by “explosion.”

তোম্বা পোকখায় -রগা শি -রে
tombə pokkhaj -rəgə si -re
Tomba by “explosion” dies.

If liquor and drugs are strong and immediately give you the kick, the youngsters say they (liquor and drugs) pokkhaj (explode).

ইতাউ, নঙগিসিদি থীন পোকখায়হে
Buddy, yours (your stuff) really explodes (= gives an immediate kick).

ইতাউ, নঙগি -সিদি থী -না পোকখায় -হে
itao nəŋgi -sidi thi -nə pokkhaj -he
Buddy yours really explodes

ভায় /bhaj/
Bhaj is one of the several Hindi loan words (such as chouki [which has another alternative, choukri] meaning chair, poojari meaning cook, das kus meaning a vegetable of the squash family, etc.) which have acquired meanings so different from their original senses that Hindi speakers won’t understand what the Manipuris mean by those Hindi words. The loan word bhai initially meant a ‘friend’ (not “brother” as in the original) as a term of addressing among males. In the last ten years girls, especially those in and around the capital city of Imphal, picked it up for use among themselves and now it is quite normal among girls to address each other informally as bhai though this still raises many brows. Girls also use this term to address their male friends in casual contexts.

খাই-বা /khai-bə/
Khaibə, in its established sense, means to kindly let somebody have something you own or have such as food, property, money, etc., or to remove part of something from something (usually a container) and put it into another container. In the new sense, the word, used usually humorously, means (i) (of a drunken person) to lecture somebody or do something to somebody or something for usually a long time, and (ii) to treat somebody not seriously; to say things that sound interesting but don’t seem true or actually meant as if the speaker is playing with their interlocutors.

লীক-লা চা-বা /lik-la ca-bə/
লৌ-রী মোন খাঙ-বা /ləu-ri mon khaŋ-bə/
Both phrases mean ‘to die’. They have socio-political contexts of their origins. In the 1990s, every morning people (usually men) were found dead dew-drenched (lik-la cot-pə) lying in vacant lots, or with their heads pillowed (mon khaŋ-bə) on raised earthen paths (ləu-ri) in paddy fields. Later, underground organization cadres began to openly use to threaten people who did not cooperate with their extortionist activities. They asked

লীক-লা চা –গে -রো?
lik-la ca -ge -ro
dew to eat want to
(Do you) want to eat the dew? (= get drenched in dew = Want to die?)

লৌ-রী মোন খাঙ -গে-রো?
ləu-ri mon khaŋ -ge -ro
louri pillowed on want to
(Do you) want to be pillowed on the louri (raised earthen path in paddy fields)? (= Want to die?)

People later picked up the phrases and they have been in humorous use.

কী-হোম /ki-hom/
Ki-hom literally means pineapple. A common hand grenade usually looks like a pineapple and this visual affinity gave birth to the English army jargon ‘pineapple,’ meaning ‘grenade’. The same principle worked in Manipuri as well and a hand grenade humorously became a ki-hom (pineapple).

If an underground organization leaves a live grenade in an official’s quarters or at a wealthy person’s house as a warning, people would say they have received a “gift of ki-hom” (a pineapple gift).

মৈ-খু কা-বা /məj-khu ka-bə/
Literally meaning smoking as if from something burning, məj-khu ka-bə is used by youngsters to passionately and humorously mean “extremely good” or teasingly mean “very bad.” If somebody tells you,

নঙ-গি ফে-শন-দু মৈ-খু কারেকো
nəŋ-gi fe-ʃn-du məj-khu ka-re-ko
your fashion smokes
Your fashion smokes.

then they may be meaning your fashion sucks or is really good, depending on the context.

Conclusion
Most of the new words and expressions in Manipuri are contributions from young speakers of the language who communicate mostly with themselves but less with the older generations at least because they cannot read written non-textbook texts which are written mostly in Bengali script. The additions made by the youths are usually humorous and the older generations find most of them offensive. The contributions of the older generations to Manipuri’s vocabulary remains confined within literary texts without them being picked up by the living speech. The reason for the new words of the older generations remaining confined to the flat page of the books is partly accounted for by the political pressures of linguistic purism under which they have to write, resulting in them producing rather oldish language which even other writers of the same age sometimes find it quite difficult to understand.