Assameselanguage

Assamese language is the principal language of the Indian state of Assam. It is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the majority of the population there and by communities in neighboring areas. Assamese is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and serves as the official language of Assam, used in government, education, and media. It is also spoken by diaspora communities and in cross-border exchanges in the region.

Linguistically, Assamese belongs to the Eastern Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family and forms part of the Assamese–Bengali subgroup, closely related to Bengali. The language developed from medieval northeastern varieties of Indo-Aryan and has absorbed vocabulary from Sanskrit and Prakrit, with loanwords from Persian, Arabic, and English through historical contact.

Assamese is written in the Assamese script, a variant of the Bengali script. The script is an abugida in which consonants carry inherent vowels, with diacritics marking other vowels. Standard orthography is taught in schools and used in government documents, print media, and literature; transliteration into the Latin alphabet is common in academic and digital contexts.

There are several regional dialects, including Kamrupi in western Assam, with other varieties in central and eastern areas. Standard Assamese is based on the Brahmaputra valley variety around Guwahati. Dialects differ in phonology and vocabulary but remain largely intelligible to speakers across the region.

Assamese has a long literary and cultural tradition, dating to medieval times with poets such as Srimanta Sankardev and Madhavdev contributing to early literature. The modern period brought growth in prose, journalism, theatre, and cinema. The language continues to evolve through education, media, and ongoing linguistic study.