Kamrupi

Kamrupi is a group of related dialects of the Assamese language spoken in the Kamrup region of western Assam, India. The term Kamrupi derives from Kamrup, the historic polity that covered much of the western Brahmaputra valley. Spanning parts of the present-day districts around Guwahati, Kamrup, Nalbari, Barpeta and adjacent areas, Kamrupi dialects are part of the Eastern Indo-Aryan branch and are usually treated as varieties of Assamese. While there is substantial mutual intelligibility with Standard Assamese, Kamrupi features notable phonological, lexical, and syntactic differences that set it apart for native speakers and linguists. Some speakers perceive Kamrupi as a distinct linguistic variety rather than a mere dialect.

Kamrupi dialects are widely spoken in everyday life, literature, music, and oral storytelling in rural and semi-urban communities of the region. In education and formal media, Standard Assamese is commonly used, but Kamrupi continues to influence local media, theatre, and folk traditions. The region has a long cultural history tied to early Assamese civilization and the Kamrup kingdom, and Kamrupi speech forms have contributed to regional literary and folk expressions.

The Kamrupi speech variety uses the Assamese script, a variant of the eastern Nagari alphabet, for writing in formal contexts and local publications. The recognition and classification of Kamrupi varies among linguists, with some treating it as a distinct language and others as a group of closely related dialects within Assamese.