Assamese language

Assamese (/ˌæsəˈmiːz/) or Asamiya (অসমীয়া [ɔxɔmija] ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, where it is an official language. It has long served as a lingua franca in parts of Northeast India. It has over 15 million native speakers and 8.3 million second language speakers according to Ethnologue.
Nefamese, an Assamese-based pidgin in Arunachal Pradesh, was used as a lingua franca till it was replaced by Hindi; and Nagamese, an Assamese-based Creole language, continues to be widely used in Nagaland. The Kamtapuri language of Rangpur division of Bangladesh and the Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri districts of India is linguistically closer to Assamese, though the speakers identify with the Bengali culture and the literary language. In the past, it was the court language of the Ahom kingdom from the 17th century.
Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Assamese evolved at least before the 7th century CE from the middle Indo-Aryan Magadhi Prakrit. Its sister languages include Angika, Bengali, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Noakhali, Chakma, Chittagonian, Hajong, Rajbangsi, Maithili, Rohingya and Sylheti. It is written in the Assamese alphabet, an abugida system, from left to right, with many typographic ligatures.
Assamese was designated as a classical Indian language by the Government of India on 3 October 2024 on account of its antiquity and literary traditions.
Assamese originated in Old Indo-Aryan dialects, though the exact nature of its origin and growth is not clear yet. It is generally believed that Assamese and the Kamatapuri lects derive from the Kamarupi dialect of Eastern Magadhi Prakrit though some authors contest a close connection of Assamese with Magadhi Prakrit. The Indo-Aryan, which appeared in the 4th–5th century in Assam, was probably spoken in the new settlements of Kamarupa—in urban centers and along the Brahmaputra river—surrounded by Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic communities. Kakati's (1941) assertion that Assamese has an Austroasiatic substrate is generally assumed—which suggests that when the Indo-Aryan centers formed in the 4th–5th centuries CE, there were substantial Austroasiatic speakers that later accepted the Indo-Aryan vernacular. Based on the 7th-century Chinese traveller Xuanzang's observations, Chatterji (1926) suggests that the Indo-Aryan vernacular differentiated itself in Kamarupa before it did in Bengal, and that these differences could be attributed to non-Indo-Aryan speakers adopting the language. The newly differentiated vernacular, from which Assamese eventually emerged, is evident in the Prakritisms present in the Sanskrit of the Kamarupa inscriptions.
The earliest forms of Assamese in literature are found in the 9th-century Buddhist verses called Charyapada the language of which bear affinities with Assamese (as well as Bengali, Maithili and Odia) and which belongs to a period when the Prakrit was at the cusp of differentiating into regional languages. The spirit and expressiveness of the Charyadas are today found in the folk songs called Deh-Bicarar Git.
In the 12th-14th century works of Ramai Pundit (Sunya Puran), Boru Chandidas (Krishna Kirtan), Sukur Mamud (Gopichandrar Gan), Durllava Mullik (Gobindachandrar Git) and Bhavani Das (Mainamatir Gan) Assamese grammatical peculiarities coexist with features from Bengali language. Though the Gauda-Kamarupa stage is generally accepted and partially supported by recent linguistic research, it has not been fully reconstructed.
A distinctly Assamese literary form appeared first in the 13th-century in the courts of the Kamata kingdom when Hema Sarasvati composed the poem Prahlāda Carita. In the 14th-century, Madhava Kandali translated the Ramayana into Assamese (Saptakanda Ramayana) in the court of Mahamanikya, a Kachari king from central Assam. Though the Assamese idiom in these works is fully individualised, some archaic forms and conjunctive particles too are found. This period corresponds to the common stage of proto-Kamta and early Assamese.
The emergence of Sankardev's Ekasarana Dharma in the 15th century triggered a revival in language and literature. Sankardev produced many translated works and created new literary forms—Borgeets (songs), Ankia Naat (one-act plays)—infusing them with Brajavali idioms; and these were sustained by his followers Madhavdev and others in the 15th and subsequent centuries. In these writings the 13th/14th-century archaic forms are no longer found. Sankardev pioneered a prose-style of writing in the Ankia Naat. This was further developed by Bhattadeva who translated the Bhagavata Purana and Bhagavad Gita into Assamese prose. Bhattadev's prose was classical and restrained, with a high usage of Sanskrit forms and expressions in an Assamese syntax; and though subsequent authors tried to follow this style, it soon fell into disuse. In this writing the first person future tense ending -m (korim: "will do"; kham: "will eat") is seen for the first time.
The language moved to the court of the Ahom kingdom in the seventeenth century, where it became the state language. In parallel, the proselytising Ekasarana dharma converted many Bodo-Kachari peoples and there emerged many new Assamese speakers who were speakers of Tibeto-Burman languages. This period saw the emergence of different styles of secular prose in medicine, astrology, arithmetic, dance, music, besides religious biographies and the archaic prose of magical charms.
Most importantly this was also when Assamese developed a standardised prose in the Buranjis—documents related to the Ahom state dealing with diplomatic writings, administrative records and general history. The language of the Buranjis is nearly modern with some minor differences in grammar and with a pre-modern orthography. The Assamese plural suffixes (-bor, -hat) and the conjunctive participles (-gai: dharile-gai; -hi: pale-hi, baril-hi) become well established. The Buranjis, dealing with statecraft, was also the vehicle by which Arabic and Persian elements crept into the language in abundance. Due to the influence of the Ahom state the speech in eastern Assam took a homogeneous and standard form. The general schwa deletion that occurs in the final position of words came into use in this period.
The modern period of Assamese begins with printing—the publication of the Assamese Bible in 1813 from the Serampore Mission Press. But after the British East India Company (EIC) removed the Burmese in 1826 and took complete administrative control of Assam in 1836, it filled administrative positions with people from Bengal, and introduced Bengali language in its offices, schools and courts. The EIC had earlier promoted the development of Bengali to replace Persian, the language of administration in Mughal India, and maintained that Assamese was a dialect of Bengali.
Amidst this loss of status the American Baptist Mission (ABM) established a press in Sibsagar in 1846 leading to publications of an Assamese periodical (Orunodoi), the first Assamese grammar by Nathan Brown (1846), and the first Assamese-English dictionary by Miles Bronson (1863). The ABM argued strongly with the EIC officials in an intense debate in the 1850s to reinstate Assamese. Among the local personalities Anandaram Dhekial Phukan drew up an extensive catalogue of medieval Assamese literature (among other works) and pioneered the effort among the natives to reinstate Assamese in Assam. Though this effort was not immediately successful the administration eventually declared Assamese the official vernacular in 1873 on the eve of Assam becoming a Chief Commissioner's Province in 1874.
In the extant medieval Assamese manuscripts the orthography was not uniform. The ABM had evolved a phonemic orthography based on a contracted set of characters. Working independently Hemchandra Barua provided an etymological orthography and his etymological dictionary, Hemkosh, was published posthumously. He also provided a Sanskritised approach to the language in his Asamiya Bhaxar Byakaran ("Grammar of the Assamese Language") (1859, 1873). Barua's approach was adopted by the Asamiya Bhasa Unnati Sadhini Sabha (1888, "Assamese Language Development Society") that emerged in Kolkata among Assamese students led by Lakshminath Bezbaroa. The Society published a periodical Jonaki and the period of its publication, Jonaki era, saw spirited negotiations on language standardisation. What emerged at the end of those negotiations was a standard close to the language of the Buranjis with the Sanskritised orthography of Hemchandra Barua.
As the political and commercial center moved to Guwahati in the mid-twentieth century, of which Dispur the capital of Assam is a suburb and which is situated at the border between the western and central dialect speaking regions, standard Assamese used in media and communications today is a neutral blend of the eastern variety without its distinctive features. This core is further embellished with Goalpariya and Kamrupi idioms and forms.
Assamese is native to Assam. It is also spoken in states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland. The Bengali-Assamese script can be found in of present-day Burma. The Pashupatinath Temple in Nepal also has inscriptions in Bengali-Assamese script showing its influence in the past.
There is a significant Assamese-speaking diaspora worldwide.
Assamese is the official language of Assam, and one of the 22 official languages recognised by the Republic of India. The Assam Secretariat functions in Assamese.
The Assamese phonemic inventory consists of eight vowels, ten diphthongs, and twenty-three consonants (including two semivowels).
The Assamese phoneme inventory is unique in the group of Indo-Aryan languages as it lacks a dental-retroflex distinction among the coronal stops as well as the lack of postalveolar affricates and fricatives. Historically, the dental and retroflex series merged into alveolar stops. This makes Assamese resemble non-Indic languages of Northeast India (such as Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan languages). The only other language to have fronted retroflex stops into alveolars is the closely related group of eastern dialects of Bengali (although a contrast with dental stops remains in those dialects). /r/ is normally realised as [ɹ] or [ɻ].
Assamese is unusual among Eastern Indo-Aryan languages for the presence of /x/ (realised as [x] or [χ], depending on the speaker and speech register), due historically to the MIA sibilants' lenition to /x/ (initially) and /h/ (non-initially). The use of the voiceless velar fricative is heavy in the eastern Assamese dialects and decreases progressively to the west—from Kamrupi to eastern Goalparia, and disappears completely in western Goalpariya. The change of /s/ to /h/ and then to /x/ has been attributed to Tibeto-Burman influence by Suniti Kumar Chatterjee.
In some cases, /kʰ/ can even merge with /χ/ or /x/ (akhɔr → axɔr "a letter (of an alphabet)").
Assamese, Odia, and Bengali, in contrast to other Indo-Aryan languages, use the velar nasal (the English ng in sing) extensively. While in many languages, the velar nasal is commonly restricted to preceding velar sounds, in Assamese it can occur intervocalically. This is another feature it shares with other languages of Northeast India, though in Assamese the velar nasal never occurs word-initially.
Eastern Indic languages like Assamese, Bengali, Sylheti, and Odia do not have a vowel length distinction, but have a wide set of back rounded vowels. In the case of Assamese, there are four back rounded vowels that contrast phonemically, as demonstrated by the minimal set: কলা kola [kɔla] ('deaf'), ক'লা kóla [kola] ('black'), কোলা kwla [kʊla] ('lap'), and কুলা kula [kula] ('winnowing fan'). The near-close near-back rounded vowel /ʊ/ is unique in this branch of the language family. But in lower Assam, ও is pronounced the same as অ' (ó): compare কোলা kwla [kóla] and মোৰ mwr [mór].
Assamese has vowel harmony. The vowels [i] and [u] cause the preceding mid vowels and the high back vowels to change to [e] and [o] and [u] respectively. Assamese is one of the few languages spoken in India which exhibit a systematic process of vowel harmony.
The inherent vowel in standard Assamese, /ɔ/, follows deletion rules analogous to "schwa deletion" in other Indian languages. Assamese follows a slightly different set of "schwa deletion" rules for its modern standard and early varieties. In the modern standard /ɔ/ is generally deleted in the final position unless it is (1) /w/ (ৱ); or (2) /j/ (য়) after higher vowels like /i/ (ই) or /u/ (উ); though there are a few additional exceptions. The rule for deleting the final /ɔ/ was not followed in Early Assamese.
The initial /ɔ/ is never deleted.
Modern Assamese uses the Assamese alphabet. In medieval times, the script came in three varieties: Bamuniya, Garhgaya, and Kaitheli/Lakhari, which developed from the Kamarupi script. It very closely resembles the Mithilakshar script of the Maithili language, as well as the Bengali alphabet. There is a strong literary tradition from early times. Examples can be seen in edicts, land grants and copper plates of medieval kings. Assam had its own manuscript writing system on the bark of the saanchi tree in which religious texts and chronicles were written, as opposed to the pan-Indian system of Palm leaf manuscript writing. The present-day spellings in Assamese are not necessarily phonetic. Hemkosh (হেমকোষ [ɦɛmkʊx]), the second Assamese dictionary, introduced spellings based on Sanskrit, which are now the standard.
Assamese has also historically been written using the Arabic script by Assamese Muslims. One example is Tariqul Haq Fi Bayane Nurul Haq by Zulqad Ali (1796–1891) of Sivasagar, which is one of the oldest works in modern Assamese prose.
In the early 1970s, it was agreed upon that the Roman script was to be the standard writing system for Nagamese Creole. In January 2020, the Assam government announced that Assamese would be a mandatory language for government job eligibility.
The following is a portion from the story Silonir ziekor xadhu (The tale of the kite's daughter), written by Lakshminath Bezbaruah in his book Burhi Aair Xadhu:
The Assamese language has the following characteristic morphological features:
Verbs in Assamese are negated by adding /n/ before the verb, with /n/ picking up the initial vowel of the verb. For example:
Assamese has a large collection of classifiers, which are used extensively for different kinds of objects, acquired from the Sino-Tibetan languages. A few examples of the most extensive and elaborate use of classifiers are given below:
In Assamese, classifiers are generally used in the numeral + classifier + noun (e.g. /ezɔn manuh/ ejon manuh 'one man') or the noun + numeral + classifier (e.g. /manuh ezɔn/ manuh ejon 'one man') forms.
Most verbs can be converted into nouns by the addition of the suffix /ɔn/. For example, /kʰa/ ('to eat') can be converted to /kʰaɔn/ khaon ('good eating').
Assamese has 8 grammatical cases:
m=male, f=female, n=neuter., *=the person or object is near., **=the person or object is far., v =very familiar, inferior, f=familiar, p=polite, e=ergative form.
With consonant ending verb likh (write) and vowel ending verb kha (eat, drink, consume).
For different types of verbs.
The negative forms are n + 1st vowel of the verb + the verb. Example: Moi porhw, Moi noporhw (I read, I do not read); Tumi khelila, Tumi nekhelila (You played, You didn't play). For verbs that start with a vowel, just the n- is added, without vowel lengthening. In some dialects if the 1st vowel is a in a verb that starts with consonant, ne is used, like, Moi nakhaw (I don't eat) is Moi nekhaü. In past continuous the negative form is -i thoka nasil-. In future continuous it's -i na(/e)thaki-. In present continuous and present perfect, just -i thoka nai and -a nai' respectively are used for all personal pronouns. Sometimes for plural pronouns, the -hok suffix is used, like korwhok (we do), ahilahok (you guys came).Content
Kinship Terms
Some Assamese Kinship Terms with IPA and English Equivalents
The language has quite a few regional variations. Banikanta Kakati identified two broad dialects which he named (1) Eastern and (2) Western dialects, of which the eastern dialect is homogeneous, and prevalent to the east of Guwahati, and the western dialect is heterogeneous. However, recent linguistic studies have identified four dialect groups and one dialect isolate listed below from east to west to south:
Collected from the book, Assamese – Its formation and development. The text below is from the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The translations are of different versions of the English translations:
Assamese does not have many caste- or occupation-based dialects. In the nineteenth century, the Eastern dialect became the standard dialect because it witnessed more literary activity and it was more uniform from east of Guwahati to Sadiya, whereas the western dialects were more heterogeneous. Since the nineteenth century, the center of literary activity (as well as of politics and commerce) has shifted to Guwahati; as a result, the standard dialect has evolved considerably away from the largely rural Eastern dialects and has become more urban and acquired western dialectal elements. Most literary activity takes place in this dialect, and is often called the likhito-bhaxa, though regional dialects are often used in novels and other creative works.
In addition to the regional variants, sub-regional, community-based dialects are also prevalent, namely:
There is a growing and strong body of literature in this language. The first characteristics of this language are seen in the Charyapadas composed in between the eighth and twelfth centuries. The first examples emerged in writings of court poets in the fourteenth century, the finest example of which is Madhav Kandali's Saptakanda Ramayana. The popular ballad in the form of Ojapali is also regarded as well-crafted. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a flourishing of Vaishnavite literature, leading up to the emergence of modern forms of literature in the late nineteenth century.