Style Guide Creation for Assamese Language - Part I

Assamese is an eastern Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 20 million people in the Indian states of Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, and also spoken in Bangladesh and Bhutan. Assamese is closely related to Bengali and Oriya.

The Assamese alphabet is written with a version of the Bengali alphabet. The first printed book was Atmaram Sarma’s translation of the Bible, which published in 1813 by the Serampore English Missionary press in Kolkatta.

The first Assamese dictionary was compiled by an American Baptist Missionary Dr. Miles Bronson. In 1867 at American Baptist Mission Press Sibsagar, published his dictionary. The second dictionary of Assamese language is ‘Hemkosh’ based on Sanskrit spellings, compiled by Hemchandra Barua.

Alphabet

The Assamese script has 41 consonants and 11 Vowels. The Assamese script has 52 characters including 41 consonants and 11 vowels. The characters are similar to the Devanagari. The language has a number of Juktakhars which are combination of consonants.

Assamese alphabet
Vowels and vowel diacritics

Consonants

Some conjunct consonants (Juktakhar)

Additional symbols

Numerals