Assamese language

Assamese (/ˌæsəˈmiːz/[4]), also Asamiya ([ɔxɔmija] অসমীয়া),[5] is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in the north-east Indian state of Assam, where it is an official language, and it serves as a lingua franca of the wider region.[6] The easternmost Indo-Iranian language, it has over 15 million speakers according to Ethnologue.[1]

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Assamese
Asamiya
অসমীয়া
The word "Asamiya" in Assamese script
Pronunciation	[ɔxɔmija]
Region	Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland
Ethnicity	Assamese
Native speakers	15 million (2011 census)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Eastern Zone Bengali-Assamese Assamese
Early forms	Magadhi Prakrit Kamarupi Prakrit Early Assamese
Dialects	Eastern, Central, Kamrupi, Goalpariya
Writing system	Eastern Nagari (Assamese) Ahom script[2] (historical, rare) Assamese Braille Latin alphabet (Nagamese Creole)[3]
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

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Part of a series on
Constitutionally recognised languages of India
Category
22 Official Languages of the Indian Republic
Assamese  · Bengali  · Bodo  · Dogri  · Gujarati Hindi  · Kannada  · Kashmiri  · Konkani  · Maithili Malayalam  · Marathi  · Meitei (Manipuri)  · Nepali Odia  · Punjabi  · Sanskrit  · Santali  · Sindhi Tamil  · Telugu  · Urdu
Related
Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India Official Languages Commission Classical Languages of India List of languages by number of native speakers in India
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This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

This article contains the Assamese alphabet. Without proper rendering support, you may see errors in display.

Nefamese, an Assamese-based pidgin, is used in Arunachal Pradesh, and Nagamese, an Assamese-based Creole language,[7] is widely used in Nagaland. The Kamtapuri language of Rangpur division of Bangladesh and the Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri districts of India are linguistically closer to Assamese, though the speakers identify with the Bengali culture and the literary language.[8] In the past, it was the court language of the Ahom kingdom from the 17th century.[9]

Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Assamese evolved at least before the 7th century CE[10] from the middle Indo-Aryan Magadhi Prakrit.[11] Its sister languages include Angika, Bengali, Bishnupriya Manipuri, 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.