Meitei script

This article is about the whole collection of letters of the writing system. For a set of letters representing vowels and consonants specifically, see Meitei alphabet.

This article is about the historic and naturally evolved writing system. For the 20th century constructed script, see Naoriya Phulo script.

Meitei script (Meitei: ꯃꯩꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Meitei Mayek)
The Modern Meitei Alphabet chart divided into 27 Main letters, 8 lonsum letters, 8 vowel diacritics & 3 special marks
Script type	Abugida
Period	late 6th to early 7th century - 18th century AD, revived 1930 – present
Direction	Left-to-right
Official script	for Meitei language in India
Region	India Manipur
Languages	Meitei (Manipuri) language
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic script Phoenician alphabet Aramaic alphabet Brahmi script Gupta script Meitei script
Sister systems	Lepcha, Khema, ʼPhags-pa, Marchen
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Mtei (337), ​Meitei Mayek (Meithei, Meetei)
Unicode
Unicode alias	Meetei Mayek
Unicode range	Meetei Mayek (Unicode block)

The Meitei script (Meitei: ꯃꯩꯇꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Meitei mayek), also known as the Kanglei script (Meitei: ꯀꯪꯂꯩ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Kanglei mayek) or the Kok Sam Lai script (Meitei: ꯀꯣꯛ ꯁꯝ ꯂꯥꯏ ꯃꯌꯦꯛ, romanized: Kok Sam Lai mayek), after its first three letters, is an abugida in the Brahmic family used to write Meitei language, the official language of Manipur, Assam and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is first known from engravings on coins and copper plate inscriptions dated between 568 and 658 C.E, as verified by the various publications of the National Sahitya Akademi. It was used till the 18th century, until it was replaced by the Bengali script. In the 21st century, it was revived and reused. Beginning in 2021, the Government of Manipur began to officially use it, alongside the Bengali script, per the Manipur Official Language (Amendment) Act, 2021.

Since Meitei language does not have voiced consonants, there are only fifteen consonant letters used for native words, plus three letters for pure vowels. Nine additional consonants letters are available for writing loan words. There are seven vowel diacritics and a final consonant (/ŋ/) diacritic. The names of the twenty-seven letters are based on parts of the human body.