Everywhere I go, a mumble follows, "How to introduce myself? I wonder, whether my people know me. I feel deprived, need your attention, please help me". It is a SOS from our Meiteilon.

Unbeatably, the hour-hand progresses like anything. It does not care about any 'lization' - industrialization, socialization, westernization, globalization etc.-. People of the world, recognize the value of seconds. They progress as time progresses. However, our society ceases when the world moves on and on along with the uniform run of time. It is not the society that ceases, it is 'we' the elements of the society. 'Ceases' is actually a very mild word to represent our standstill status. We already lost many social assets and many are fading away. It is our responsibility to protect and treasure them. And, our language is one of the major concerns.

The richness of language is a measure of the richness of its culture. Language is a primary component of culture. We should understand the ways in which language is influenced by its speakers. Broadminded people say, "Languages grow, everywhere, language expands" and it is fairly acceptable. However, in our case and with our Meiteilon, it is fairly unacceptable. It is very appallingly bad to learn that our language is almost half-eaten by other languages, which surround us. The process is still on. Beware of the lost, which is on! Let us make a mass slogan to value our language, our culture. Otherwise, the time of lamenting on our own carelessness will come soon.

If you still don't have the faintest, we may not own any language in future. We may not even able to express our feeling and emotion to other. It will be a tragic state when language and thought are not communicated properly. We may become people of frustration, and it may further lead to chronic psychological deprivation.

About 90% of internet traffic is done in English. It is the most dominant language in electronic communication. Including slang and technical words, English has more than 2,000,000 words now and, it is rapidly growing. Similarly, our national language is also growing. Next to Mandarian Chinese, Hindi is the second most common language spoken as a native language in the world today. (Source: http://anthro.palomar.edu/language). We can not compare our Meiteilon with these biggies. The present status of Meiteilon is the result of the works of our ancestors, available literatures, population and its spread, geographical location, state area, and of course our attitudes. Thanks to our ancestors, we have our own scripts (Meitei Mayek), and a lot of thanks to the rulers of our recent history who led Bengali culture and script dominate our ancestral gifts. It gives us an easy way to access few other languages. However, I feel that we should not compromise at this stage now!! Many of the languages in the world are disappearing because they are unwritten. We are fortunate enough that we have our Meitei Mayek, but unfortunate that we are using Bengali scripts dethroning our own. However, we should convey a sincere 'Thank You' to the Bengali scripts, since, it helps us preserving literatures and recording events. Then, we can turn to reorganize our Meitei Mayek and Meiteilon.

It is a known fact that there is a positive correlation between complexity of culture, advanced technologies and rich vocabularies. Since, we have scientific martial-arts, beautiful folk dances, incredible musical instruments and many other cultural and time-honored assets, I believe that our Meiteilon carry rich vocabularies. However, we overlooked our language. We are using many Hindi, English and Sanskrit words mixing up with Meiteilon as if our Meiteilon is incomplete. My heart sinks when I see that we are cutting down our own language. In spite of giving hand to retain Meiteilon amidst this war of languages, we are adopting other languages and stopping ours from getting recognition fighting against each other. Except this, no other example can better explain about insensitivity and stupidity??!! It ruffles my feathers. You are also a human like me; think about it, you will definitely feel the same.

Our Meiteilon is fading. People of our generation may even find searching Meiteilon words of hajam/barber, kabi, kalam etc. like fishing in well. The feeling of vocabulary inferiority can be seen in most of the areas (Relatives: kaka, bhabi, bhai, maama etc., Professions: guru, chaprasi, chowkedar etc., Foods: kheer/kher, dahi, makkhan etc.). It is not that our antecedents did not cut their hair, converse and behave gregariously, keep any gate-keeper/torch-man and eat any milk product.

Languages are learned and, learning is a continuous process and it is shared. Then, why are we only adopting others' languages? Let them also add our words to their language account. It is not strange that all languages change through time. Every language can create new words to describe new situation and objects. The speed of change differs depending upon social and environmental conditions and certainly, attitude of people towards the languages. Manipur Government can learn steps to retain regional language from its counterparts like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat etc. And, we can make a forward move by removing Singh/Devi from our names (only if it hurts your dignity) and trying to use Meiteilon words in full swing when converse among ourselves (e.g., shakti = thouna / pangal, gyan = mahai / lousing). Though, ideally, the identity of a person is the education and moral values s/he carry, it is the person's name that serves as an identity in this materialistic society. Name is also a point of reference when making impression against a person because people try to see the meaning, value and culture attached to it and, they are frequently considered as parts of personality. So, we can use christening (I introduced 'meiteining' for us) to our offspring as a strategy towards retaining our language. For this purpose, it is natural that people always look for meaningful and attractive words. This way, we can explore, hear and see beautiful Meiteilon words for hundreds of years. Last but not the least, press and media groups can big on the concern wisely and strategically. They can play an effective role in retaining our language. We can also go to villages where we can see the works of our ancestors and reorganize our language by learning from the villagers.

Our territory is not now big as it was. We had lost many other assets too. Let our language not follow our tradition of losing things. Let us value our Meiteilon, save and retain it. "Please not let any other languages replace my position. I enjoy serving as the bridge between all the groups of people of this land. Oh my people, carry me, it is me", whimpers Meiteilon.