A script comes alive the moment you use it to write the words you already know. This post is a first vocabulary in Yapiri — common Kokborok words from daily life, rendered live from the font, with their romanization and meaning alongside each glyph form.

Each word here follows the phonemic logic of Yapiri: one character per sound, written left to right, with no hidden vowels or implied sounds. What you see is exactly what you say.

How to read Each card shows the word in Yapiri glyphs (top), its romanization (middle), and its English meaning (bottom). The romanization uses standard Kokborok Roman transcription. Aspirated consonants are single glyphs: kh, th, ph, ch. The mid-word schwa is written as ə in Yapiri — the romanization w mid-word always maps to the schwa glyph (U+E005), not the glide w (U+E01D) which is word-initial only.

Greetings & Everyday Phrases

These are the words that open conversations — the first sounds exchanged between people. Learning to write them in Yapiri is a small but meaningful act.

Greetings
 khulumkha greetings / hello
 hambai thank you
 in′ yes
 in′he no

Family

Family words are among the first any language teaches. In Kokborok, they carry warmth and precision — distinct terms for relationships that many languages collapse into one.

Family
 apha father
 ama mother
 ada elder brother
 abai elder sister
 bwsla son / child
 nok home / house

Nature

Kokborok grew among the hills, rivers, and forests of Tripura. Its words for the natural world are some of the most evocative in the language.

Nature
 sal sun
 twi water
 ha soil
 buphang tree
 watwi rain
 hachwk mountain / hill

"Every Kokborok word you write in Yapiri is a small act of reclaiming the language — making it visible, making it yours."

— On learning to write one’s mother tongue

The Body

Body words are universal to every language — and among the first vocabulary children learn. In Yapiri they show the script's phonemic clarity at its best: every sound explicit, every character earning its place.

Body
 bokhrok head
 mwkhang face
 yak hand
 yakung leg
 thwi blood
 mokol eye

Animals

Kokborok's animal vocabulary reflects the landscape and farming traditions of Tripura — and shows how its short, consonant-final words carry a satisfying completeness when written in Yapiri.

Animals
 wak pig
 aah fish
 sui dog
 tok bird
 musuk cow
 toksa chicken

Food

Food words in Kokborok often have a beautiful compactness — short, full of stops and aspirates, demanding only a few glyphs to say something essential.

Food
 mai rice
 thaichuk mango
 chadi to eat
 songdi to cook
 muya bamboo shoot
 som salt

Numbers 1 to 10

Kokborok has its own counting words. Here they are in Yapiri — a first set to memorise. The full counting chart from 1 to 100 in Yapiri digits is in the numerals post.

Counting words
 sa one
 nwi two
 tham three
 brwi four
 ba five
 dok six
 sni seven
 char eight
 chuku nine
 chi ten

Your Turn

The best way to move from recognising these words to truly knowing them is to write them yourself. Open the web keyboard and type each word from memory. Notice how the phonemic logic of Yapiri makes every word predictable — you sound it out, you type it out, one character at a time.

The full character reference — all 48+1 Yapiri glyphs with their sounds and romanizations — is on the Script page. For a deeper look at how the writing system works, the Specification takes you through the whole system in detail.

These words are a beginning. The language behind them is a lifetime.