Assamese language

This article is about Assamese, a modern Standard Indo-Aryan language. For old Assamese, see Old Kamrupi. For the fictional character, see Athena Asamiya.

Assamese
Native to	India and Bangladesh
Region	Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland
Native speakers	15 million (2007)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Eastern Bengali–Assamese Assamese
Dialects	Kamrupi, Goalpariya
Writing system	Assamese alphabet Assamese Braille
Official status
Official language in	India (Assam)
Regulated by	Asam Sahitya Sabha (literature/rhetorical congress of Assam)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	as
ISO 639-2	asm
ISO 639-3	asm
Glottolog	assa1263
Linguasphere	59-AAF-w

Assamese or Asamiya (অসমীয়া Ôxômiya) is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language used mainly in the state of Assam, where it is an official language. The easternmost of the Indo-Aryan languages, it is spoken by over 13 million native speakers, and serves as a lingua franca in the region. It is also spoken in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and other northeast Indian states. Nagamese, an Assamese-based Creole language is widely used in Nagaland and parts of Assam. Nefamese is an Assamese-based pidgin used in Arunachal Pradesh. Small pockets of Assamese speakers can be found in Bangladesh. 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 7th century A.D from the Magadhi Prakrit, which developed from dialects similar to, but in some ways more archaic than Vedic Sanskrit. Its sister languages include Bengali, Odia, Maithili, Chittagonian, Sylheti (Cilôţi), Angika and Bihari languages. It is written in the Assamese script, an abugida system, from left to right, with a large number of typographic ligatures.

The word Assamese is an English formation built on the same principle as Sinhalese or Japanese etc. It is based on the English word Assam by which the tract consisting of the Brahmaputra Valley and its adjoining areas are known. The people call their state Ôxôm and their language Ôxômiya.

Genealogically, Assamese belongs to the group of Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, here marked in yellow.

History

Silver rupee of Rudra Sinha in Assamese

Assamese originated in Old Indo-Aryan dialects, though the exact nature of its origin and growth in not clear yet. It is generally believed that Assamese (Assam) and the Kamatapuri lects (North Bengal and Assam) derive from the Kamarupa dialect of Eastern Magadhi Prakrit and Apabhramsa, by keeping to the north of the Ganges; though some authors contest a close connection of Assamese with Magadhi Prakrit. The Indo-Aryan language in Kamarupa had differentiated by the 7th-century, before it did in Bengal or Orissa. These changes were likely due to non-Indo-Aryan speakers adopting the language. The evidence of this language (Kamarupi Prakrit) is found in the Prakritisms of the Kamarupa inscriptions. The earliest forms of Assamese in literature are found in the ninth-century Buddhist verses called Charyapada, and in 12-14th century works of Ramai Pundit (Sunya Puran), Boru Chandidas (Krishna Kirtan), Sukur Mamud (Gopichandrar Gan), Durllava Mullik (Gobindachandrar Git) and Bhavani Das (Mainamatir Gan). In these works, Assamese features coexist with features from other Modern Indian Languages. A fully distinguished literary form (poetry) appeared first in the fourteenth century—in the courts of the Kamata kingdom and in the courts of an eastern Kachari king where Madhav Kandali translated the Ramayana into the Assamese (Saptakanda Ramayana). From the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, songs (borgeets), dramas (ankiya nat) and the first prose writings (by Bhattadeva) were composed. The literary language, based on the western dialects of Assam moved to the court of the Ahom kingdom in the seventeenth century, where it became the state language. This period saw the widespread development of prose infused with colloquial forms. According to Goswami (2003), this included "the colloquial prose of religious biographies, the archaic prose of magical charms, the conventional prose of utilitarian literature on medicine, astrology, arithmetic, dance and music, and above all the standardized prose of the Buranjis. The literary language, having become infused with the eastern idiom, became the standard literary form in the nineteenth century, when the British adopted it for state purposes. As the political and commercial center shifted to Guwahati after the mid-twentieth century, the literary form moved away from the eastern variety to take its current form.

Phonology

The Assamese phonemic inventory consists of eight vowels, ten diphthongs, and twenty-one consonants.

Vowels

	Front			Central			Back
	IPA	ROM	Script	IPA	ROM	Script	IPA	ROM	Script
Close	i	i	ই/ঈ				u	u	উ/ঊ
Near-close							ʊ	û	ও
Close-mid	e	e	এ'				o	o	অ'
Open-mid	ɛ	ê	এ				ɔ	ô	অ
Open				a	a	আ

Consonants

		Labial			Alveolar			Velar			Glottal
		IPA	ROM	Script	IPA	ROM	Script	IPA	ROM	Script	IPA	ROM	Script
Nasal		m	m	ম	n	n	ন/ণ	ŋ	ng	ঙ/ং
Stop	voiceless	p	p	প	t	t	ত/ট	k	k	ক
	aspirated	pʰ	ph	ফ	tʰ	th	থ/ঠ	kʰ	kh	খ
	voiced	b	b	ব	d	d	দ/ড	ɡ	g	গ
	murmured	bʱ	bh	ভ	dʱ	dh	ধ/ঢ	ɡʱ	gh	ঘ
Fricative	voiceless				s	s	চ/ছ	x	x	শ/ষ/স	ɦ	h	হ
	voiced				z	z	জ/ঝ/য
Approximant		w	w	ৱ	l, ɹ	l, r	ল, ৰ

Alveolar stops

The Assamese phoneme inventory is unique in the Indic group of languages in its lack of a dental-retroflex distinction among the coronal stops. Historically, the dental and retroflex series merged into alveolar stops. This makes Assamese resemble non-Indic languages of Northeast India (such as languages from the Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan languages). The only other language to have fronted retroflex stops into alveolars is the closely related eastern dialects of Bengali (although a contrast with dental stops remains in those dialects). Note that /r/ is normally realized as [ɹ] or as a retroflex approximant.

Voiceless velar fricative

Assamese and Sylheti are unusual among Eastern Indo-Aryan languages for the presence of the /x/ or /χ/, historically the MIA sibilant has lenited to /x/ and /h/ (non-initially). The derivation of the velar fricative from the coronal sibilant /s/ is evident in the name of the language in Assamese; some Assamese prefer to write ⟨Oxomiya⟩ or ⟨Ôxômiya⟩ instead of ⟨Asomiya⟩ or ⟨Asamiya⟩ to reflect the sound change. The voiceless velar fricative is absent in the West Goalpariya dialects though it is present in the East Goalparia dialects.

Assamese is called "Oxomiya" in the Assamese language. The /x/ there represents the phoneme similar to the variety, which is present in many European Indo-European languages, like sound of 'X' in Greek Xeros (dry), 'ch' of Loch (Lake) Scottish, Bach, Ulrich (proper nouns) in German etc. Apart from Assamese and Sylheti this sound is not to be found in any of the standard Indian languages.

Velar nasal

Assamese and Bengali, in contrast to other Indo-Aryan languages, use the velar nasal (the English ng in sing) extensively. In many languages, while 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.

Vowel inventory

Eastern Indic languages like Assamese, Bengali, Sylheti, and Oriya 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 kôla [kɔla] ('deaf'), ক'লা kola [kola] ('black'), কোলা kûla [kʊla] ('lap'), and কুলা kula [kula] ('winnowing fan'). The high-mid back rounded vowel /ʊ/ is unique in this branch of the language family.

Writing system

Modern Assamese uses the Assamese script and historically Kamrupi script, a variant that traces its descent from the Gupta script. It very closely resembles the Mithilakshar script of the Maithili language, as well as to the Bengali script. 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 system of writing on the bark of the saanchi tree in which religious texts and chronicles were written. The present-day spellings in Assamese are not necessarily phonetic. Hemkosh, the second Assamese dictionary, introduced spellings based on Sanskrit, which are now the standard.

Morphology and grammar

The Assamese language has the following characteristic morphological features:

• Gender and number are not grammatically marked.
• There is lexical distinction of gender in the third person pronoun.
• Transitive verbs are distinguished from intransitive.
• The agentive case is overtly marked as distinct from the accusative.
• Kinship nouns are inflected for personal pronominal possession.
• Adverbs can be derived from the verb roots.
• A passive construction may be employed idiomatically.

Negativization process

Verbs in Assamese are negativized by adding /n/ before the verb, with /n/ picking up the initial vowel of the verb. For example:

• /na laɡe/ 'do(es) not want' (1st, 2nd and 3rd persons)
• /ni likʰu/ 'will not write' (1st person)
• /nukutu/ 'will not nibble' (1st person)
• /nɛlɛkʰɛ/ 'does not write' (3rd person)
• /nɔkɔɹɔ/ 'do not do' (2nd person)

Classifiers

Assamese has a huge collection of classifiers, which are used extensively for different kinds of objects, acquired from Sino-Tibetan languages.

Assamese Classifiers

Classifier	Referent
/zɔn/	males (adult)
/zɔni/	females (women as well as animals)
/ɡoɹaki/	males and females (honorific)
/tu/	inanimate objects or males of animals and men (impolite)
/ti/	inanimate objects or infants
/kʰɔn/	flat square or rectangular objects, big or small, long or short
/kʰɔni/	terrain like rivers and mountains
/tʰupi/	small objects
/zak/	group of people, cattle; also for rain; cyclone
/sati/	breeze
/pat/	objects that are thin, flat, wide or narrow.
/pahi/	for flower
/sɔta/	objects that are solid
/kɔsa/	mass nouns
/mɔtʰa/	bundles of objects
/mutʰi/	smaller bundles of objects
/taɹ/	broomlike objects
/ɡɔs/	wick-like objects
/ɡɔsi/	with earthen lamp or old style kerosene lamp used in Assam
/jupa/	objects like trees and shrubs
/kʰila/	paper and leaf-like objects
/kʰini/	uncountable mass nouns and pronouns
/dal/	inanimate flexible/stiff or oblong objects; humans (pejorative)

In Assamese, classifiers are generally used in the numeral + classifier + noun (e.g. /ezɔn manuh/ 'one man') or the noun + numeral + classifier (e.g. /manuh ezɔn/ 'one man') forms.

Nominalization

Most verbs can be converted into nouns by the addition of the suffix /ɔn/. For example, /kʰa/ ('to eat') can be converted to /kʰaɔn/ ('good eating').

Dialects

Regional dialects

Assamese has a number of regional dialects. 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 listed below from east to west:

• Eastern group in and around Sivasagar District
• Central group in Nagaon, Sonitpur, Morigaon districts and adjoining areas
• Kamrupi group primarily in the Kamrup region
• Goalpariya group in the Goalpara region

Non-regional dialects

Assamese does not have 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.

There also exist some aregional, community-based dialects:

• Standard dialect influenced by surrounding centers.
• Bhakatiya dialect highly polite, sattra-based dialect with a different set of nominals, pronominals and verbal forms, as well as a preference for euphemism; indirect and passive expressions. Some of these features are used in the standard dialect on very formal occasions.
• The fisherman community has a dialect that is used in the central and eastern region.
• The astrologer community of Darrang district has a dialect called thar that is coded and secretive. The ratikhowa and bhitarpanthiya secretive cult-based Vaisnava groups too have their own dialects.
• The Muslim community have their own dialectal preference, with their own kinship, custom and religious terms, with those in east Assam having distinct phonetic features.
• The urban adolescent and youth communities (for example, Guwahati) have exotic, hybrid and local slangs.
• Ethnic speech communities that use Assamese as a second language, often use dialects that are influenced heavily by the pronunciation, intonation, stress, vocabulary and syntax of their respective first languages (Mising Eastern Assamese, Bodo Central Kamrupi, Rabha Eastern Goalpariya etc.). Two independent pidgins/creoles, associated with the Assamese language, are Nagamese (used by Naga groups) and Nefamese (used in Arunachal Pradesh).

Literature

Main article: Assamese literature

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.

See also

• Indo-Aryan languages
• Charyapada
• Languages of India
• Languages with official status in India
• List of Indian languages by total speakers
• List of languages by number of native speakers
• Kamrupi litterateurs

External links

• [1] Axamiyaa Bhaaxaar Moulik Bisar by Mr Devananda Bharali
• [2] Tonkori (Affinities of the Ainu language of Japan with Assamese and some other languages) by Dr Satyakam Phukan
• [3] Roots and Strings of the Assamese language, article by Dr Satyakam Phukan
• Candrakānta abhidhāna : Asamiyi sabdara butpatti aru udaharanere Asamiya-Ingraji dui bhashara artha thaka abhidhana. second ed. Guwahati : Guwahati Bisbabidyalaya, 1962.
• A Dictionary in Assamese and English (1867) First Assamese dictionary by Miles Bronson from (books.google.com)
• Assamese computing resources at TDIL
• Basic Assamese words and phrases
• Assamese proverbs, published 1896