India is home to nearly 450 languages, making it one of the most linguistically diverse countries on the planet. Although most of the languages spoken in India hail from either the Indo–Aryan or Dravidian language families, certainly not all do—and Khasi is one of those exceptions. An Austroasiatic language related to Vietnamese and Khmer (Cambodian), Khasi is spoken by roughly 1 million Khasi people in the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya, the hill districts of Assam, and in Bangladeshi communities close to the Indian border.
Khasi is an associate official language in some districts of Meghalaya, and this recognition has helped it rise out of UNESCO’s official endangerment categorization. However, the language remains small and generally unknown outside of its region, so not many translation agencies offer Khasi translation services—except TranslationServices.com, of course. Our translators are passionate about languages from all over the world, including Khasi, and we see the value in minority languages. That’s why we’ve proudly established a Khasi translation team.
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Meeting Khasi, one of India’s top Austroasiatic languages
Khasi is taught as a compulsory school subject in Meghalaya and parts of Bangladesh, using the Latin script in Meghalaya and the Bengali script in Bangladesh. Unlike the biggest Austroasiatic languages, Vietnamese and Khmer, Khasi marks grammatical gender and plural, albeit through prepositional particles instead of nominal inflection. Also, unlike most European languages with grammatical gender, categories tend to be determined semantically and not phonologically. The grammatical gender of humans and domesticated animals matches their natural gender.
Most adjectives in Khasi come after the noun they modify, prefixed with -ba, a relative clause marker. If acting as a predicate (i.e., “the boy is young” instead of attributive “the young boy”), adjectives are used without verbs, just a gender agreement marker. This has led linguists to question whether Khasi actually has adjectives or whether they’re simply a type of verb. Khasi also marks eight cases, with a ninth, the nominative, left unmarked. Not all objects are marked as accusative—typically, definite objects are while indefinite objects aren’t. In this sense, Khasi also partially marks definiteness.
Khasi is the unique and culturally rich language of the Khasi people in Meghalaya, Assam, and Bangladesh. Our Khasi translation team believes in the value of this language and is passionate about translating it.
Meeting your Khasi translation needs
What are you looking for in Khasi translation? Maybe you need English text translated into Khasi, or maybe you’re looking to have Khasi content translated into English. In both cases, our Khasi translators are happy to provide assistance. We’ve helped Khasi speakers spread their academic ideas, creative content, traditional literature, and historical documents to audiences abroad, helping promote Khasi culture. We’ve also helped companies translate promotional materials into Khasi to better cater to the local population, academics translate surveys into Khasi for ethnological research, and content creators translate their stories, websites, apps, games, and more into Khasi, promoting the Khasi language.
If you’re ready to dive into your first Khasi translation, message us and tell us what you’re looking for!