🌿 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 (Version 1.8.0 Milestone Expansion)

• 📚 340 Digitized Classical Books (khasi.books / khasi.culture.books): 21,787 pages and over 6,329,000 words preserved from historical scans.
• 🎶 300 Traditional Songs & Phawar (khasi.songs / khasi.culture.songs): Complete lyrics, English translations, instrumentation, and cultural contexts across 58 genres.
• 📖 336,000+ Headwords Lexicon (khasi.lexicon): Massively expanded vocabulary with morphological prefix tags, definitions, and citations.
• ⚡ 25 Indigenous Deities & Sacred Spirits (khasi.culture.deities): Complete pantheon of creator, celestial, mountain, river, and guardian deities.
• 🌿 100 Native Flora & 76 Fauna (khasi.culture.botany / khasi.culture.wildlife): Comprehensive biological and ethnobotanical database of Meghalaya.
• 🏛️ Khasi Oral Folklore, Myths & Legends (khasi.folklore / khasi.culture.folklore):
  • 12 foundational Khasi oral myths and legendary allegories (over 6,950+ words of authentic Khasi prose and poetry):
    • Ka Jingkieng Ksier (The Sacred Golden Ladder & Genesis of the Seven Huts on Lum Sohpetbneng)
    • U Diengiei (The Tree of Eclipsing Darkness & Council of Lum Diengiei)
    • U Sier Lapalang (The Stately Stag & The Mother's Inconsolable Mountain Lament)
    • U Manik Raitong (The Melodies of the Sharati Flute & Tragic Devotion)
    • Ka Nohkalikai (The Leap of Likai & Waterfall of Tears)
    • U Bsein Thlen (The Monster Serpent & Slaying at Dainthlen)
    • Ka Sngi bad U Bnai (The Sun, the Moon & the Ash of Shame)
    • U Klew bad Ka Sngi (The Peacock's Love for the Sun)
    • Ka Wah Umïam bad Ka Wah Umngot (The Twin Sister Rivers)
    • Ka Krem Lamet Latang (The Primal Council Cave of Animals)
    • Ki Mawbynna bad Ki Mawlynti (The Megalithic Monoliths & Ancestral Guardians)
    • Ka Pansngiat Ksiar Ka Meiramew (The Golden Crown of Mother Earth & Seasons)
  • Section-by-section narratives, character registries, geographical origins, cultural moral tenets, full English translations, and indigenous glossaries.

2. 🎶 Traditional Songs, Ballads, Archery Phawar & Lyric Cycles (khasi.songs / khasi.culture.songs):

   • 10 structured traditional Khasi folk songs, chants, archery phawar, and literary song cycles:
     • Ki Sur Na Ka Duitara Ksiar (H.W. Sten's monumental 1979 collection across 21 lyric poems and songs for the golden lute)
     • Ka Sur U Sier Lapalang (Complete multi-part epic lament and hunter verses)
     • Phawar Shad Suk Mynsiem (Spring thanksgiving dance chants and royal Weiking festival songs)
     • Phawar Iasiat Khnam (Traditional archery tournament victory cheers and battle couplets)
     • Phawar Behdeiñkhlam (Sacred Pnar plague-expelling chant at sacred pool Aitnar)
     • Ka Sur Manik Raitong (Sharati flute ballad and immortal romance)
     • Ka Jingrwai Thiah Khunlung (Traditional hearth lullaby)
     • Ka Jingrwai U Hynniewtrep (National creation hymn of the Seven Huts)
     • Ka Sur Tirot Sing (Patriotic freedom anthem of the Syiem of Nongkhlaw)
     • Ki Rwaimar bad Jingrwai Ot Kba (Highland harvest work songs and paddy calls)
   • Verse-by-verse bilingual lyrics, musical instrumentation catalog (Duitara, Tangmuri, Maryngod, Sharati, Besli, Mieng, Nakra, Ksing), and poetic vocabulary.

3. 🗣️ Dedicated Dialect Sub-Lexicons (khasi.dialects / khasi.lexicon.dialects):

   • 5,500+ words for Pnar / Synteng (Jaiñtia Hills: Jowai, Shangpung).
   • 5,300+ words for War Khasi (Southern Slopes & Shella).
   • 1,250+ words for Bhoi Khasi (Ri-Bhoi) and 1,250+ words for Maram Khasi (West Khasi Hills).
   • Unified cross-dialect bidirectional translation (translate_dialect), cognate discovery (find_cognates), and dialect statistics (get_dialect_statistics).

4. 🎙️ Audio Waveform Dataset for ASR & TTS (khasi.audio_dataset / khasi.voice.dataset):

   • 252 native speech recordings in standard 16,000 Hz, 16-bit Mono Linear PCM WAV format on disk (187 conversational phrases + 65 proverbs).
   • Exporters for Hugging Face Audio Datasets and Mozilla Common Voice TSV.

5. 📜 Aligned Parallel Corpora & MT Benchmarks (khasi.parallel_corpus / khasi.corpus):

   • Sentence-by-sentence parallel alignment between Khasi and English across public domain masterworks (Ka Niam Jong Ki Khasi, Ka Jingiaid U Pilgrim, Ki Dienjat Jong Ki Longshwa).
   • Standard Bitext exports and built-in BLEU score calculation toolkit.

6. 📖 105,296+ Trilingual Lexicon & Dictionary (khasi.lexicon):

   • Enriched with 70+ newly discovered indigenous words, poetic compounds, and cultural terms extracted directly from folklore narratives and traditional song cycles (tieh pongdeng, nam sarang, kynrem reng, jangew jathang, jamlu, symphiah, skum, aitnar, raitong, mahadei, sohkymphor, siej-lieng, ot kba, ksew ba laitluid, etc.).

7. 📚 24 Digitized Classical Books (khasi.books):

   • 1,980+ pages and 470,000+ words of whole-book text with page navigation and universal search.

8. 📂 Raw Digital Sources Archive (data/raw_sources/):

   • Raw source archives including dedicated folklore legends (data/raw_sources/folklore/) and authentic song manuscripts and collections (data/raw_sources/songs/).

🚀 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."

# 2. Dictionary & Lexical Lookup (105,000+ words)
entry = khasi.lookup("khublei")
print(entry["english"])  # "hello / thank you / greetings"

tech_entry = khasi.lookup("kompiwter")
print(tech_entry["english"])  # "computer"

# 3. Traditional Organology & Musical Instruments
duitara = khasi.instruments.get("duitara")
print(duitara["description"])
# "The four-stringed plucked folk lute, revered as the living archive..."

# 4. Ethnomedicinal Botany & Scientific Names
sohiong = khasi.plants.get("sohiong")
print(sohiong["scientific_name"])  # "Prunus nepalensis"
print(sohiong["family"])           # "Rosaceae"

# 5. Native Wildlife
leopard = khasi.wildlife.get("khla-lyngngoh")
print(leopard["scientific_name"])  # "Neofelis nebulosa"
print(leopard["status"])           # "State Animal of Meghalaya"

# 6. Traditional Cuisine & Utensils
jadoh = khasi.dishes.get("jadoh")
print(jadoh["description"])  # "The crown jewel of Khasi gastronomy..."

# 7. Sacred Geography & Landscapes
cave = khasi.places.get("Mawmluh")
print(cave["significance"])  # "Global geological type-locality for the 'Meghalayan Age'..."

# 8. Matrilineal Clans & Coupled Idioms
lyngdoh_clan = khasi.clans.get("lyngdoh")
print(lyngdoh_clan["category"])  # "Priestly / Administrative Clan"

idiom = khasi.idioms.get("horkit")
print(idiom["meaning"])  # "Resolutely / through thick and thin..."

# 9. Proverbs & Riddles
proverb = khasi.proverbs.random()
print(f"\"{proverb['khasi']}\" - {proverb['meaning']}")

riddle = khasi.riddles.random()
print(f"Riddle: {riddle['riddle']} -> Solution: {riddle['solution']}")

# 10. Digitized Whole Books Preservation Reader (24 Books, 1,980+ Pages)
print(khasi.books.summary())
# {'total_books': 24, 'total_pages': 1987, 'total_words': 473168, ...}

book = khasi.get_book("ka_niam_ki_khasi")
print(book.title)        # "Ka Niam Ki Khasi: Ka Niam Tip-Blei Tip-Briew"
print(book.total_pages)  # 64
print(book.get_page(1))  # Page 1 text

# Universal full-text search across all 24 books
results = khasi.search_books("hynniewtrep")
print(f"Found {len(results)} occurrences across classical books.")

# 11. Khasi Oral Folklore, Myths & Legends (12 Master Narratives)
import khasi.folklore as kf
print(kf.folklore.summary())
# {'total_stories': 12, 'total_words': 6951, ...}

story = kf.get_story("ka_jingkieng_ksier")
print(story.khasi_title)          # "Ka Jingkieng Ksier bad Ki Hynñiew Trep"
print(story.geographic_origin)    # "Lum Sohpetbneng (Ri-Bhoi)"
print(story.khasi_text[:120])     # Genesis narrative
print(story.english_translation[:120])

# Search folklore legends
thlen_matches = kf.search_folklore("u thlen")
print(f"Found {len(thlen_matches)} stories mentioning U Thlen.")

# 12. Traditional Songs, Ballads & Phawar (10 Collections)
import khasi.songs as ks
print(ks.songs.summary())
# {'total_songs': 10, 'total_words': 2470, ...}

lapalang = ks.get_song("ka_sur_u_sier_lapalang")
print(lapalang.khasi_title)       # "Ka Sur U Sier Lapalang"
print(lapalang.instruments)       # ['Maryngod (bowed fiddle)', 'Shyngwiang', 'Duitara']
print(lapalang.lyrics_khasi[:100])

# Search songs and phawar couplets
archery_verses = ks.search_songs("khnam")
print(f"Found {len(archery_verses)} songs with archery terms.")

# 13. Master Bibliography Catalogue (344 Works)
print(khasi.catalogue.summary())
# {'total_works': 344, 'genres': {'Original Khasi literature': 165, ...}}

# 11. Dedicated Dialect Sub-Lexicons & Cognate Mapping (13,000+ entries)
print(khasi.dialects.cognates("briew"))
# {'sohra': 'briew', 'pnar': 'bru', 'war': 'brou', 'bhoi': 'briu', 'maram': 'briu'}

pnar_translated = khasi.dialects.translate("U briew u ieit ia ka mei bad u kpa ha ïing.", "sohra", "pnar")
print(pnar_translated)
# "U bru u maya ia ka bei bad u pa ha ïung."

war_translated = khasi.dialects.translate("U briew u leit sha ïing ban bam ja bad dih um.", "sohra", "war")
print(war_translated)
# "U brou u hie sa ïeng ban bam ba bad dih am."

# 12. Audio Waveform Dataset (252 Waveforms for ASR/TTS Pipelines)
audio_item = khasi.audio_dataset.get_item("phrase_001")
print(audio_item["khasi_text"], audio_item["sample_rate"])
# "Khublei!" 16000

# Export dataset directly to Hugging Face or Common Voice format
khasi.audio_dataset.export_huggingface_format("dataset_audio.jsonl")
khasi.audio_dataset.export_common_voice_tsv("common_voice_khasi.tsv")

# 13. Aligned Parallel Corpora & MT Evaluation (BLEU)
pairs = khasi.parallel_corpus.get_pairs()
print(f"Loaded {len(pairs)} aligned Khasi-English sentence pairs.")
sample_kh, sample_en = pairs[0]
print(f"Kha: {sample_kh}\nEng: {sample_en}")

# Compute BLEU baseline for machine translation hypotheses
bleu_results = khasi.parallel_corpus.compute_bleu(
    hypotheses=["U briew u wan sha kane ka pyrthei ban kamai ïa ka Hok."],
    references=["U briew u wan sha kane ka pyrthei tang ban kamai ïa ka Hok."]
)
print(f"Sentence BLEU: {bleu_results['bleu']}%")

🖥️ Command Line Interface (CLI)

The package provides a built-in interactive CLI:

# Look up word
khasi lookup khublei

# Translate phrase
khasi translate "Where is the road to Sohra?" --dialect sohra

# Conjugate verb
khasi conjugate wan --tense past --pronoun u

# Show random proverb
khasi proverb

# Show random riddle
khasi riddle

# Show library statistics
khasi stats

🧪 Testing

# Run unit tests
python -m unittest discover -s tests

📄 License & Attribution

Distributed under the MIT License. Created and maintained by Akshat Singh Bisht (2026). Contributions welcome via GitHub issues and pull requests.