🌿 Khasi (Ka Ktien Khasi) Language Library

A standard-library-style Python package, NLP toolkit, and computational linguistics engine for the Khasi language (Ka Ktien Khasi) — an Austroasiatic (Mon-Khmer) language spoken by over 1.6 million people in the pine-covered hills of Meghalaya, Northeast India and adjacent borderlands.

Khasi is globally renowned for its distinct grammatical features, rich prefix morphology, and the deep cultural heritage of the world's largest surviving matrilineal society.

🌟 Key Capabilities

1. 📚 300,000+ Morphological Word Forms (khasi.lexicon.morphology):
   • Dynamic inflectional and derivational engine generating extensive verbal TAM forms, nominalizations (jing-), causatives (pyn-), agentives (nong-), experientials (sngew-), and prepositional case declensions across noun gender articles (u, ka, i, ki).
2. 🔄 Multi-Dialect Universal Translation Engine (khasi.translator):
   • Rule-based, conversational, and lexical translation across English $\leftrightarrow$ Khasi, Hindi $\leftrightarrow$ Khasi, and Hinglish $\leftrightarrow$ Khasi.
   • Dialect adaptations for Sohra (Standard Literary), Shillong (Colloquial Urban), Pnar (Jaiñtia Hills), War (Southern escarpment), and Bhoi (Ri-Bhoi).
3. 📖 Trilingual Lexicon & Dictionary (khasi.lexicon):
   • Comprehensive Khasi-English-Hindi lexical database with part-of-speech, gender, etymology, and morphological root fallback.
4. 🔡 Orthography, Phonetics & Normalizer (khasi.phonetics):
   • Unicode NFC standardizer, smart contraction expander (nga'm $\rightarrow$ nga ym, u'n $\rightarrow$ u yn), and diacritic restorer (ï, ñ).
   • Syllabification engine and bidirectional Devanagari $\leftrightarrow$ Latin transliteration.
5. 🔢 Base-10 Numeral & Number Engine (khasi.numbers):
   • Converts numbers up to crores/billions into formal Khasi words (num_to_words), ordinals (ordinal), and fractions.
6. 🌸 Matrilineal Heritage, Culture & Calendar (khasi.culture):
   • Complete documentation of the matrilineal kinship structure (Kur and Kha, Ka Khadduh, U Kñi).
   • 12 traditional lunar months (Ki Bnai), 4 seasons (Ki Aïom), 8-day traditional rotating market cycle (Sngi Iew), traditional proverbs (Ki Ktien Tymmen / Phawar), and classical folklore.
7. 🎙️ Voice Synthesis & SSML (khasi.voice):
   • SSML markup generator and PCM audio waveform generator for speech synthesis pipelines.
8. 🏛️ Digital Archival & Field Preservation (khasi.preservation):
   • Schema and metadata cataloging for field researchers, oral folktale archiving, orthographic health scoring, and export to JSONL, CSV, and Hugging Face formats.
9. 💻 Interactive CLI (khasi):
   • Command-line tool for translation, dictionary lookups, verb conjugation, cultural exploration, and statistics.

🚀 Installation

# Install directly from repository
pip install .

# Or install in editable mode for development
pip install -e .

⚡ Quick Start

import khasi

# 1. Universal Multi-Dialect Translation
res = khasi.translate("How are you?")
print(res.text)  # "Kumno phi long?"

# Dialect variation (Pnar / Jaintia)
res_pnar = khasi.translate("I love you", dialect="pnar")
print(res_pnar.text)  # "Nga maya ïa phi."

# Hindi to Khasi
res_hi = khasi.translate("आप कैसे हैं?")
print(res_hi.text)  # "Kumno phi long?"

# 2. Dictionary & Lexical Lookup
entry = khasi.lookup("khublei")
print(entry["english"])  # "hello / thank you / greetings"
print(entry["hindi"])    # "नमस्ते / धन्यवाद / प्रणाम"

# 3. Numbers & Ordinals
print(khasi.num_to_words(42))   # "sawphew ar"
print(khasi.ordinal(1))         # "ba-nyngkong"
print(khasi.words_to_num("sawphew ar"))  # 42

# 4. Grammar & Verb Conjugation
# Tense-Aspect-Mood (TAM)
print(khasi.conjugate("wan", tense="past", pronoun="u"))     # "u la wan" (he came)
print(khasi.conjugate("wan", tense="future", pronoun="u"))   # "un wan" (he will come)

# Productive Derivations
print(khasi.causative("ïap"))     # "pynïap" (cause to die -> kill)
print(khasi.nominalize("stad"))   # "jingstad" (wise -> wisdom)
print(khasi.agent_noun("hikai"))  # "nonghikai" (teach -> teacher)

# 5. Morphological Analysis (300,000+ forms)
analysis = khasi.analyze("jingstad")
print(analysis.lemma)        # "stad"
print(analysis.pos)          # "derived_jing"
print(khasi.total_word_forms())  # 312,500+

# 6. Culture, Seasons & Market Cycle
season = khasi.get_current_season()
print(season["name_khasi"])  # e.g., "Aïom Synrai" (Autumn)

market_day = khasi.get_market_day(1)
print(market_day["name"])     # "Sngi Iewduh" (Shillong Barabazar)

# 7. Traditional Proverbs (Ki Ktien Tymmen)
p = khasi.proverbs.random()
print(f"\"{p['khasi']}\" - {p['meaning']}")
# "Kamai ïa ka hok." - Live by honest toil and upright conduct.

🖥️ Command Line Interface (CLI)

The library provides a standalone CLI command khasi:

# 1. Translate sentences into Khasi
khasi translate "How are you?"
khasi translate "Where are you going?" --dialect pnar

# 2. Look up a word in the dictionary
khasi lookup khublei
khasi lookup kshaid

# 3. Number conversions
khasi num 42
khasi num 2500

# 4. Conjugate verbs
khasi conjugate wan --tense past --pronoun u
khasi conjugate leit --tense future --pronoun nga

# 5. Culture, season & proverbs
khasi culture

# 6. Traditional riddles (Ki Jingkyntip)
khasi riddle

# 7. Corpus statistics
khasi stats

📁 Project Architecture

khasi/
├── __init__.py           # Unified top-level standard library API & facades
├── constants.py          # ISO codes, alphabet, phonemes, dialects, moral pillars
├── phonetics.py          # Orthography normalizer, syllabifier, transliteration
├── cli.py                # Command-line interface
├── preservation.py       # Archival corpus manager, health scorer & dataset exporter
├── numbers/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── converter.py      # Base-10 Khasi number & ordinal engine
├── grammar/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── nouns.py          # Noun gender articles (u, ka, i, ki) & declensions
│   ├── prepositions.py   # Case prepositions (jong, ha, sha, na, bad, ban, ïa)
│   ├── pronouns.py       # Pronominal paradigm & interrogatives
│   ├── verbs.py          # TAM conjugation & productive prefixes (pyn-, jing-, nong-)
│   └── syntax.py         # SVO sentence & question builder
├── lexicon/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── dictionary.py     # Trilingual lookup & root fallback engine
│   ├── morphology.py     # 300,000+ inflectional & derivational universe engine
│   └── data/
│       ├── words.json    # Core vocabulary with dialect variants
│       ├── phrases.json  # Conversational phrases
│       ├── proverbs.json # Ki Ktien Tymmen / Phawar
│       └── riddles.json  # Traditional riddles (Ki Jingkyntip)
├── culture/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── calendar.py       # Months (Ki Bnai), Seasons (Ki Aïom), 8-day Market Cycle
│   ├── festivals.py      # Shad Suk Mynsiem, Pomblang Nongkrem, Behdeinkhlam
│   ├── literature.py     # U Soso Tham, Babu Jeebon Roy, epics & folklore
│   └── kinship.py        # Matrilineal kinship system (Kur & Kha, Khadduh, Kñi)
├── translator/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── engine.py         # Main translation coordinator
│   ├── rule_based.py     # Conversational maps & multi-dialect adaptations
│   ├── pivot.py          # Pivot translation engine
│   └── llm_adapter.py    # Generative neural prompt generator
└── voice/
    ├── __init__.py
    └── engine.py         # KhasiVoiceSynthesizer, SSML & PCM audio generation

📜 Linguistic & Cultural Notes

• Language Family: Austroasiatic $\rightarrow$ Mon-Khmer branch (sharing ancient linguistic affinity with Mon and Khmer in Southeast Asia, distinct from surrounding Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan languages).
• Four-Article Gender System:
  • u : Masculine singular (e.g., u briew - the man, u lum - the mountain)
  • ka: Feminine singular (e.g., ka kynthei - the woman, ka ïing - the house, ka wah - the river)
  • i : Diminutive / Affectionate (e.g., i khunlung - the baby)
  • ki : Plural for all genders (e.g., ki briew - the people)
• Three Supreme Moral Pillars:
  1. Kamai ïa ka hok : Earn righteousness through honest hard work.
  2. Tip kur, tip kha : Honor and know maternal lineage (Kur) and paternal heritage (Kha).
  3. Tip briew, tip Blei : Know and respect human dignity to know God.

👨‍💻 Author & Maintainer

Akshat Singh Bisht

• Website: https://akshatsinghbisht.com/
• Email: infoakshatsinghbisht@gmail.com
• LinkedIn: Akshat Singh Bisht
• Amazon Author: Akshat Singh Bisht on Amazon
• ResearchGate: Akshat Bisht
• GitHub: infoakshatsinghbisht-eng

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.