Assamese language

History

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, 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.

Magadhan and Gauda-Kamarupa stages

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 Pandit (Sunya Puran), Boru Chandidas (Krishna Kirtan), Sukur Mamud (Gopichandrar Gan), Durlabha Mallik (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.

Early Assamese

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.

Middle Assamese

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.

Modern Assamese

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."[W]e should not assent to uphold a corrupt dialect, but endeavour to introduce pure Bengallee, and to render this Province as far as possible an integral part of the great country to which that language belongs, and to render available to Assam the literature of Bengal. - This brief aside of Francis Jenkins in a Revenue Consultation remains one of the clearest policy statements of the early British Indian administration regarding the vernacular question in Assam."

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.

Standardisation

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."In contemporary Assam, for the purposes of mass media and communication, a certain neutral blend of eastern Assamese, without too many distinctive eastern features, like /ɹ/ deletion, which is a robust phenomenon in the eastern varieties, is still considered to be the norm." This core is further embellished with Goalpariya and Kamrupi idioms and forms.

Geographical distribution

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.

Official status

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.

Phonology

The Assamese phonemic inventory consists of eight vowels, ten diphthongs, and twenty-three consonants (including two semivowels).

Consonant clusters

Main article: Assamese consonant clusters

Alveolar stops

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). is normally realised as or .

Voiceless velar fricative

Assamese is unusual among Eastern Indo-Aryan languages for the presence of (realised as or , depending on the speaker and speech register), due historically to the MIA sibilants' lenition to (initially) and (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 to and then to has been attributed to Tibeto-Burman influence by Suniti Kumar Chatterjee.

In some cases, can even merge with or (akhɔr → axɔr "a letter (of an alphabet)").

Velar nasal

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.

Vowel inventory

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 ('deaf'), ক'লা kóla ('black'), কোলা kwla ('lap'), and কুলা kula ('winnowing fan'). The near-close near-back rounded vowel is unique in this branch of the language family. But in lower Assam, ও is pronounced the same as অ' (ó): compare কোলা kwla and মোৰ mwr .

Vowel harmony

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.

Schwa deletion

The inherent vowel in standard Assamese, //, 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 // 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 // was not followed in Early Assamese.

The initial // is never deleted.

Writing system

Main article: Assamese alphabet

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 ), 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.

Sample text

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:

|চৰুটো নৈত উটি গৈ আছে, এনেতে নৈৰ পাৰত কাপোৰ ধুই থকা ধোবা এটাই চৰুটো দেখি তাত কি আছে চাওঁ বুলি সাঁতুৰি গৈ সাঁফৰটো মেলি দেখিলে, নকৈ হোৱা কেঁচুৱা ছোৱালী এজনী তাতে ভৰাই কোনোবাই উটাই দিছে। ধোবাটোৱে ছোৱালীজনী তুলি ল’বৰ মনেৰে সাঁফৰটো গুচাই চৰুটো ধৰি লাহে লাহে সাঁতুৰি বামৰ ফালে টানি আনোতেই, হঠাৎ এজনী চিলনীয়ে থাপ মাৰি চৰুটোৰ পৰা ছোৱালীজনী লৈ গুচি গ’ল। এজোপা আঁহত গছৰ আগত চিলনীজনীৰ বাহ আছিল। তাই ছোৱালীজনী সেই বাহতে থ’লেগৈ। কণমান ৰূপহ ছোৱালীটি দেখি চিলনীৰ বৰ মৰম লাগিল। সেইদেখি তাই ছোৱালীজনী তুলি-তালি ডাঙৰ-দীঘল কৰিবলৈ মনতে ঠিক কৰিলে। |sörutü nöit uti göi ase, enete nöir parot kapür dhui thoka dhüba etai sörutü dëkhi tat ki ase saü̃ buli xãturi göi xãphortü mëli dëkhile, noköi hüa kẽsua süali ezoni tate bhorai künübai utai dise. dhübatüe süalizoni tuli löbor monere xãphortü gusai sorutü dhori lahe lahe xãturi bamor phale tani anü̃tëi, hothat‌ ezoni silonie thap mari sörutür pora süalizoni löi gusi göl. ezüpa ãhot gosor agot silonizonir bah asil. tai süalizoni xëi bahote thölegöi. konman rupoh süaliti dëkhi silonir bor morom lagil. xëidëkhi tai süalizoni tuli-tali daṅor-dighol köribolöi monote thik körile.|so̞ɹutʊ no̞it uti go̞i asɛ, ɛnɛtɛ no̞iɹ paɹɔ̞t kapʊɹ dʱui thɔ̞ka dʱʊba ɛtai so̞ɹutʊ dekʰi tat ki asɛ saʊ̃ buli x̟ãtuɹi go̞i x̟ãpʰɔ̞ɹtʊ meli dekʰilɛ, nɔ̞ːko̞i hʊa kẽsua sʊali ɛzɔ̞ni tatɛ bhɔ̞ɹai kʊnʊbai utai disɛ. dʱʊbatʊɛ sʊalizɔ̞ni tuli lo̞bɔ̞ɹ mɔ̞nɛɹɛ x̟ãpʰɔ̞ɹtʊ gusai sɔ̞ɹutʊ dʱo̞ɹi lahɛ lahɛ x̟ãtuɹi bamɔ̞ɹ pʰalɛ tani anʊ̃tei, hɔ̞that‌ ɛzɔ̞ni silɔ̞niɛ thap maɹi so̞ɹutʊɹ pɔ̞ɹa sʊalizɔ̞ni lo̞i gusi go̞l. ɛzʊpa ãhɔ̞t gɔ̞sɔ̞ɹ agɔ̞t silɔ̞nizɔ̞niɹ bah asil. tai sʊalizɔ̞ni x̟ei bahɔ̞tɛ tho̞lɛgɔ̞̞i. kɔ̞nman ɹupɔ̞h sʊaliti dekʰi silɔ̞niɹ bɔ̞ɹ mɔ̞ɹɔ̞m lagil. x̟eidekʰi tai sʊalizɔ̞ni tuli-tali daŋɔ̞ɹ-digʱɔ̞l ko̞ɹibɔ̞lo̞i mɔ̞nɔ̞tɛ thik ko̞ɹilɛ. |pot-the river-in floating going being, such-in river's bank-on clothe(s) washing staying washerman one-cʟs-ᴇʀɢ pot-the seeing there-in what exists see-1ᴘ saying/thinking swimming going lid-the opening saw, new-ly being baby girl one-cʟs there-in-ᴇᴍᴘʜ inserting someone-ᴇʀɢ floating gave. Washerman-the girl-cʟs lifting taking-of mind-with lid-the removing pot-the holding slow-with slow-with swimming shallow-of side-in pulling bring-while-ᴇᴍᴘʜ, suddenly one-cʟs kite-ᴇʀɢ snatch doing pot-the-of from girl-cʟs taking removing went. One-cʟs peepul tree's top-in kite-the-of nest existed. She girl-the that nest-in-ᴇᴍᴘʜ put-going. Little beauty girl-the seeing kite's very love attached. That-seeing she girl-the lifting big-long doing-for mind-in-ᴇᴍᴘʜ fix did. |The pot is floating on the river, in such a time a washerman who was washing clothes on the bank of the river saw the pot and wanting to see what's inside, swam towards it, opened the lid and saw that a newly born baby girl was put there and floated by someone. The washerman wanted to adopt the girl, but when he was bringing it towards the shallow water, holding the pot, swimming slowly after having removed the lid, suddenly a kite snatched the girl from the pot and took her away. The kite had her nest on the top of a peepul tree. She put the girl on that nest. Seeing the beautiful little girl, the kite felt affection. Therefore she decided to raise the girl.}}

Morphology and grammar

Main article: Assamese grammar

The Assamese language has the following characteristic morphological features:

• Gender and number are not grammatically marked.
• There is a 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.

Negation process

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

• 'do(es) not want' (1st, 2nd and 3rd persons)
• 'will not write' (1st person)
• 'will not nibble' (1st person)
• 'does not count' (3rd person)
• 'do not do' (2nd person)

Classifiers

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:

• "zɔn" is used to signify a person, male with some amount of respect
  • E.g., manuh-zɔn – "the man"
• "zɔni" (female) is used after a noun or pronoun to indicate human beings
  • E.g., manuh-zɔni – "the woman"
• "zɔni" is also used to express the non-human feminine
  • E.g., sɔɹai zɔni – "the bird", pɔɹuwa-zɔni – "the ant"
• "zɔna" and "gɔɹaki" are used to express high respect for both man and woman
  • E.g., kɔbi-zɔna – "the poet", gʊxaɪ-zɔna – "the goddess", rastrapati-gɔɹaki – "the president", tiɹʊta-gɔɹaki – "the woman"
• "tʊ" has three forms: tʊ, ta, ti
  • (a) tʊ: is used to specify something, although the case of someone, e.g., loɹa-tʊ – "the particular boy", is impolite
  • (b) ta: is used only after numerals, e.g., ɛta, duta, tinita – "one, two, three"
  • (c) ti: is the diminutive form, e.g., kesua-ti – "the infant, besides expressing more affection or attachment to
• "kɔsa", "mɔtʰa" and "taɹ" are used for things in bunches
  • E.g., sabi-kɔsa – "the bunch of key", saul-mɔtʰa – "a handful of rice", suli-taɹi or suli kɔsa – "the bunch of hair"
• dal, dali, are used after nouns to indicate something long but round and solid
  • E.g., bãʱ-dal – "the bamboo", katʰ-dal – "the piece of wood", bãʱ-dali – "the piece of bamboo"

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

Nominalization

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

Grammatical cases

Assamese has 8 grammatical cases:

Pronouns

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.

Tense

With consonant ending verb likh (write) and vowel ending verb kha (eat, drink, consume).

For different types of verbs.

Relationship suffixes

Kinship Terms

Some Assamese Kinship Terms with IPA and English Equivalents

Dialects

Regional dialects

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:

• Eastern group in and around the undivided Sivasagar district (Golaghat, Jorhat, Majuli, Charaideo and Sivasagar) and the former undivided Lakhimpur district (Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Lakhimpur and Dhemaji. Standard Assamese is based on the Eastern group.
• Central group spoken in Nagaon, Sonitpur, Morigaon districts and adjoining areas
• Kamrupi group in the Kamrup region: (Barpetia, Nalbariya, Palasbaria)
• Goalpariya group in the Goalpara region: (Ghulliya, Jharuwa, Caruwa)
• Cachar dialect (Dehan) in Cachar district of Barak valley

Samples

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:

Eastern Assamese (Sibsagar): as

Central Assamese: as

Central/Kamrupi (Pati Darrang): as

Kamrupi (Palasbari): as

Kamrupi (Barpeta): as

Kamrupi (Bongaigaon): as

Western Goalpariya (Salkocha): as

Non-regional dialects

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:

• Standard dialect influenced by surrounding centers.
• Bhakatiya dialect highly polite, a 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.

Notes

References

References

1. "Axomiya is the major language spoken in Assam, and serves almost as a lingua franca among the different speech communities in the whole area." {{harvcol. Goswami. 2003
2. {{e28. asm
3. Bora, Mahendra. (1981). "The Evolution of the Assamese Script". [[Asam Sahitya Sabha]].
4. Bhattacharjya, Dwijen. (2001). "The genesis and development of Nagamese: Its social history and linguistic structure". City University of New York.
5. "Assamese may be divided dialectically into Eastern and Western Assamese" {{harv. Kakati. 1941
6. "Assamese". [[Oxford University Press]].
7. Assamese is an anglicized term used for the language, but scholars have also used Asamiya (Moral 1992, Goswami & Tamuli 2003) or Asomiya as a close approximation of /ɔxɔmijɑ/, the word used by the speakers for their language. {{harvcol. Mahanta. 2012
8. Bhattacharjya, Dwijen. (2001). "The genesis and development of Nagamese: Its social history and linguistic structure". City University of New York.
9. {{harvtxt. Masica. 1993
10. "...Rajbangshi dialect of the Rangpur Division (Bangladesh), and the adjacent Indian Districts of Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar, has been classed with Bengali because its speakers identify with the Bengali culture and literary language, although it is linguistically closer to Assamese." {{harv. Masica. 1993
11. Sen, Sukumar (1975), ''Grammatical sketches of Indian languages with comparative vocabulary and texts, Volume 1'', P 31
12. (3 October 2024). "Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese, Bengali now among classical languages". India Today.
13. Proto-Kamta took its inheritance from ?proto-Kamarupa (and before that from ?proto-Gauda-Kamarupa), innovated the unique features ... in 1250-1550 AD" {{harvcol. Toulmin. 2006
14. "Asamiya has historically originated in Old Indo-Aryan dialects, but the exact nature of its origin and growth is not very clear as yet." {{harvcol. Goswami. 2003
15. "Dr. S. K. Chatterji basing his conclusions on the materials accumulated in LSI, Part I, and other monographs on the Bengali dialects, divides Eastern Mag. Pkt. and Ap. into four dialect groups. (1) Raddha dialects which comprehend Western Bengali which gives standard Bengali colloquial and Oriya in the South West. (2) Varendra dialects of North Central Bengal. (3) Kumarupa dialects which comprehend Assamese and the dialects of North Bengal. (4) Vanga dialects which comprehend the dialects of East Bengal (ODBL VolI p140)." {{harv. Kakati. 1941
16. There is evidence that the Prakrit of the [[Kamarupa kingdom]] differed enough from the [[Magadhi Prakrit]] to be identified as either a parallel [[Kamrupi Prakrit]] or at least an eastern variety of the Magadha Prakrit {{Harvcol. Sharma. 1990
17. 'One of the interesting theories propounded by Sri Medhi is the classification of Assamese "as a mixture of Eastern and Western groups" or a "mixture of Sauraseni and Magadhi". But whether it is word resemblance or grammatical resemblance, the author admits that in some cases they may be accidental. But he says, "In any case, they may be of some help to scholars for more searching enquiry in future".' {{harvcol. Pattanayak. 2016
18. "(W)e should imagine a linguistic patchwork with an eastern Indo-Aryan vernacular (not yet really "Assamese") in the urban centers and along the river and Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic communities everywhere." {{harvcol. DeLancey. 2012
19. "While Kakati's assertion of an Austroasiatic substrate needs to be re-established on the basis of more systematic evidence, it is consistent with the general assumption that the lower Brahmaputra drainage was originally Austroasiatic speaking. It also implies the existence of a substantial Austroasiatic speaking population till the time of spread of Aryan culture into Assam, i.e. it implies that up until the 4th-5th centuries CE and probably much later Tibeto-Burman languages had not completely supplanted Austroasiatic languages." {{harvcol. DeLancey. 2012
20. "It is curious to find that according to ([[Xuanzang. Hiuen Tsang]]) the language of Kamarupa 'differed a little' from that of mid-India. Hiuen Tsang is silent about the language of Pundra-vardhana or Karna-Suvarna; it can be presumed that the language of these tracts was identical with that of Magadha." {{harv. Chatterji. 1926
21. "Perhaps this 'differing a little' of the Kamarupa speech refers to those modifications of Aryan sounds which now characterise Assamese as well as North- and East-Bengali dialects." {{harv. Chatterji. 1926
22. "When [the Tibeto-Burman speakers] adopted that language they also enriched it with their vocabularies, expressions, affixes etc." {{harvcol. Saikia. 1997
23. Sharma, Mukunda Madhava. (1978). "Inscriptions of Ancient Assam". [[Gauhati University]].
24. "The earliest specimen of Assamese language and literature is available in the dohās, known also as Caryās, written by the Buddhist Siddhacharyas hailing from different parts of eastern India. Some of them are identified as belonging to ancient Kāmarūpa by the Sino-Tibetologists." {{harvcol. Goswami. 2003
25. "The language of [''charyapadas''] was also claimed to be early Assamese and early Bihari (Eastern Hindi) by various scholars. Although no systematic scientific study has been undertaken on the basis of comparative reconstruction, a cursory look is enough to suggest that the language of these texts represents a stage when the North-Eastern Prakrit was either not differentiated or at an early stage of differentiation into the regional languages of North-Eastern India." {{harvcol. Pattanayak. 2016
26. "The folk-song like ''Deh Bicarar Git'' and some aphorisms are found to contain sometimes the spirit and way of expression of the ''charyapadas''." {{harvcol. Saikia. 1997
27. ""There are some works of the period between 12th and 14th centuries, which kept the literary tradition flowing after the period of the ''charyapadas''. They are ''Sunya Puran'' of Ramai Pandit, ''Krishna Kirtan'' of Boru Chandidas, ''Gopichandrar Gan'' of Sukur Mamud. Along with these three works ''Gobindachandrar Git'' of Durlabha Mallik and ''Mainamatirgan'' of Bhavani Das also deserve mention here." {{harvcol. Saikia. 1997
28. "No doubt some expression close to the Bengali language can be found in these works. But grammatical peculiarities prove these works to be in the Assamese language of the western part of Assam." {{harvcol. Saikia. 1997
29. "In ''Krishna Kirtana'' for instance, the first personal affixes of the present indicative are ''-i'' and ''-o''; the former is found in Bengali at present and the later in Assamese. Similarly the negative particle ''na-'' assimilated to the initial vowel of the conjugated root which is characteristic of Assamese is also found in ''Krishna Kirtana''. Modern Bengali places the negative particle after the conjugated root." {{harvcol. Kakati. 1953
30. "In summary, none of Pattanayak's changes are diagnostic of a unique proto Bangla-Asamiya subgroup that also includes proto Kamta.... Grierson's contention may well be true that 'Gauḍa Apabhraṁśa' was the parent speech both of Kamrupa and today's Bengal (see quote under §7.3.2), but it has not yet been proven as such by careful historical linguistic reconstruction." and "Though it has not been the purpose of this study to reconstruct higher level proto-languages beyond proto-Kamta, the reconstruction here has turned up three morphological innovations—[MI 73.] (diagnostic), [MI 2] (supportive), [MI 70] (supportive)—which provide some evidence for a proto-language which may be termed proto Gauḍa-Kamrupa." {{harvcol. Toulmin. 2009
31. "However, the earliest literary work available which may be claimed as distinctly Asamiya is the Prahrāda Carita written by a court poet named Hema Sarasvatī in the latter half of the thirteenth century AD.{{harvcol. Goswami. 2003
32. {{harvcol. Goswami. 2003
33. {{harvcol. Kakati. 1953
34. "The phonological and morphological reconstruction of the present study has found three morphological innovations that give some answers to these questions: [MI 67.] (diagnostic), [MI 22.] (supportive), and [MI 23.] (supportive). These changes provide evidence for a proto Kamrupa stage of linguistic history—ancestral to proto-Kamta and proto eastern-Kamrupa (Asamiya). However, a thorough KRDS-andAsamiya-wide reconstruction of linguistic history is required before this protostage can be robustly established." {{harvcol. Toulmin. 2009
35. "Sankaradeva (1449–1567) brought about a Vaishnavite revival accompanied by a revival of the language and literature." {{harvcol. Goswami. 2003
36. "[Bhattadev's] prose was an artificial one and yet it preserves certain grammatical peculiarities. The first personal ending ''-m'' in the future tense appears for the first time in writing side by side with the conventional ''-bo''." {{harvcol. Kakati. 1953
37. "Incidentally, literate Ahoms retained the Tai language and script well until the end of the 17th century. In that century of Ahom-Mughal conflicts, this language first coexisted with and then was progressively replaced by Assamese (Asamiya) at and outside the Court." {{harvtxt. Guha. 1983
38. {{harvcol. Kakati. 1953
39. {{harvcol. Kakati. 1953
40. "The British administration introduced Bangla in all offices, in the courts and schools of Assam." {{harvcol. Goswami. 2003
41. "By 1772, the Company had skillfully employed the sword, diplomacy, and intrigue to take over the rule of Bengal from her people, factious nobles, and weak Nawab. Subsequently, to consolidate its hold on the province, the Company promoted the Bengali language. This did not represent an intrinsic love for Bengali speech and literature. Instead it was aimed at destroying traditional patterns of authority through supplanting the Persian language which had been the official tongue since the days of the great Moguls." {{harvcol. Khan. 1962
42. {{harvcol. Kar. 2008
43. "He wrote under a pen name, A Native, a book in English, ''A Few Remarks on the Assamese Language and on Vernacular Education in Assam'', 1855, and had 100 copies of it printed by A H Danforth at the Sibsagar Baptist Mission Press. One copy of the publication was sent to the Government of Bengal and other copies were distributed free among leading men of Assam. An abstract of this was published later in ''[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.206684/page/n65/mode/2up The Indian Antiquary (1897, p57)]''". {{harvcol. Neog. 1980
44. "In less than twenty years' time, the government actually revised its classification and declared Assamese as the official vernacular of the Assam Division (19 April 1873), as a prelude to the constitution of a separate Chief Commissionership of Assam (6 February 1874)." {{harvcol. Kar. 2008
45. {{harvcol. Kar. 2008
46. {{harvcol. Kar. 2008
47. {{harvcol. Kar. 2008
48. "They looked back to the fully mature prose of the historical writings of earlier periods, which possessed all the strength and vitality to stand the new challenge. Hemchandra Barua and his followers immediately reverted to the syntax and style of that prose, and Sanskritized the orthography and spelling system entirely. He was followed by one and all including the missionaries themselves, in their later writings. And thus, the solid plinth of the modern standard language was founded and accepted as the norm all over the state." {{harvcol. Goswami. 2003
49. "Now, Dispur, the Capital city being around Guwahati, as also with the spread of literacy and education in the western Assam districts, forms of the Central and Western dialects have been creeping into the literary idiom and reshaping the standard language during the last few decades." {{harvcol. Goswami. 2003
50. "Assamese Association – of Australia (ACT & NSW)".
51. "Welcome to the Website of "Axom Xomaj",Dubai, UAE (Assam Society of Dubai, UAE)!".
52. "Constitution".
53. "AANA - AANA Overview".
54. "Secretariat Administration Department". assam.gov.in.
55. [http://www.iitg.ernet.in/rcilts/assamese.html Assamese] {{Webarchive. link. (28 July 2012 , Resource Centre for Indian Language Technology Solutions, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.)
56. {{harvcol. Mahanta. 2012
57. {{harvcol. Mahanta. 2012
58. "Assamese, alone among NIA languages except for [[Romani language. Romany]], has also lost the characteristic IA dental/retroflex contrast (although it is retained in spelling), reducing the number of articulations, with the loss also of {{IPA. /c/, to three." {{harv. Masica. 1993
59. The word "hare", for example: ''śaśka'' (OIA) > ''χɔhā'' (hare). {{harv. Masica. 1993
60. Goswami, Upendranath (1970), ''A Study on Kamrupi'', p.xiii {{IPA. /x/ does not occur finally in Kamrupi. But in St. Coll. it occurs. In non-initial positions O.I.A sibilants became {{IPA. /kʰ/ and also {{IPA. /h/ whereas in St. Coll. they become {{IPA. /x/.
61. B Datta (1982), ''Linguistic situation in north-east India'', the distinctive h sound of Assamese is absent in the West Goalpariya dialect
62. Whereas most fricatives become sibilants in Eastern Goalpariya (''sukh'', ''santi'', ''asa'' in Eastern Goalpariya; ''xukh'', ''xanti'', ''axa'' in western Kamrupi) {{harv. Dutta. 1995. Dutta. 1995. Dutta. 1995. x is completely absent in Western Goalpariya {{harv. Dutta. 1995
63. Chatterjee, Suniti Kumar, ''Kirata Jana Krti'', p. 54.
64. "Directionality and locality in vowel harmony: With special reference to vowel harmony in Assamese".
65. {{harvcol. Mahanta. 2012
66. {{harvcol. Sarma. 2017
67. Hanif, N. (2000). "Biographical Encyclopaedia of Sufis: South Asia".
68. (25 January 2020). "Assamese to be made mandatory for govt jobs in Assam". The Economic Times.
69. {{harv. Sarma. 1990
70. "Assamese:Its formation and development".
71. {{harvcol. Goswami. 2003
72. {{harv. Dutta. 2003
73. {{harv. Dutta. 2003
74. {{harv. Dutta. 2003