Assamese script

The Assamese script belongs to the Brahmic family of scripts and is very similar to Devanagari. It has a continuous history of development from earlier times and has developed from the Nagari script, a precursor of Devanagari. In the 19th century, three styles of the script were identified (baminiya, kaitheli and garhgaya) which gave way to the standard script which followed the typeset script. The present standard is identical to the Bengali script except for two letters.

Buranjis were written during Ahom dynasties in Assamese language using assamese script. Earliest form of evidence Assamese script is found in the Charyyapadas, the Buddhist songs. They are supposed to be composed within a time-frame of four hundred years from 8th century A.D. to 12th century A.D. In 14th century Madhava Kandali used Assamese script to compose the famous Kotha Ramayana which is first translation of Ramayana in a regional Indian language after Valmiki Ramayana in Sanskrit.

A coin with Assamese script from Ahom dynasty

Assamese symbols

Vowels

The script presently has a total of 11 vowel letters, used to represent the eight main vowel sounds of Assamese, along with a number of vowel diphthongs. All of these are used in both Assamese and Bengali, the two main languages using the script. Some of the vowel letters have different sounds depending on the word, and a number of vowel distinctions preserved in the writing system are not pronounced as such in modern spoken Assamese or Bengali. For example, the Assamese script has two symbols for the vowel sound [i] and two symbols for the vowel sound [u]. This redundancy stems from the time when this script was used to write Sanskrit, a language that had a short [i] and a long [iː], and a short [u] and a long [uː]. These letters are preserved in the Assamese script with their traditional names of rhôswô i (lit. 'short i') and dirghô i (lit. 'long i'), etc., despite the fact that they are no longer pronounced differently in ordinary speech.

Vowel signs can be used in conjunction with consonants to modify the pronunciation of the consonant (here exemplified by ক, kô). When no vowel is written, the vowel 'অ' (ô or o) is often assumed. To specifically denote the absence of a vowel, (্) may be written underneath the consonant.

Consonants

The names of the consonant letters in Assamese are typically just the consonant's main pronunciation plus the inherent vowel ô. Since the inherent vowel is assumed and not written, most letters' names look identical to the letter itself (e.g. the name of the letter ঘ is itself ঘ ghô). Some letters that have lost their distinctive pronunciation in Modern Assamese are called by a more elaborate name. For example, since the consonant phoneme /n/ can be written ন, ণ, or ঞ (depending on the spelling of the particular word), these letters are not simply called nô; instead, they are called ন dôntiyô nô ("dental n"), ণ murdhôinnô nô ("cerebral n"), and ঞ niô. Similarly, the phoneme /x/ can be written as শ talôibbô xô ("palatal x"), ষ mudhôinnô xô ("cerebral x"), or স dôntiyô xô ("dental x"), the phoneme /s/ can be written using চ prôthôm sô ("first s") or ছ ditiyô sô ("second s"), and the phoneme /z/ can be written using জ bôrgiyô zô ("row z" = "the z included in the five rows of stop consonants") or য ôntôsthô zô ("z situated between" = "the z that comes between the five rows of stop consonants and the row of sibilants"), depending on the standard spelling of the particular word.

Digits

External links

• Assamese alphabet
• Madhava Kandali Ramayana

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