Assamese

Assamese is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language used mainly in the state of Assam, where it is an official language. The eastern most of the Indo-Aryan languages, it is spoken by over 13 million native speakers, and serves as a lingua franca in the region  It is also spoken in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and other northeast Indian states. Nagamese, an Assamese-based  Creole language is widely used in Nagaland and parts of Assam. Nefamese is an Assamese-based pidgin used in Arunachal Pradesh. Small pockets of Assamese speakers can be found in Bangladesh. In the past, it was the court language of the Ahom kingdom from the 17th century.

 

Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Assamese evolved at least before 7th century A.D from the Magadhi Prakrit, which developed from dialects similar to, but in some ways more archaic than Vedic Sanskrit. Its sister languages include Bengali, Odia,Maithili, Chittagonian, Sylheti (Cilôţi), Angika and Bihari languages. It is written in the Assamese script, an abugida system, from left to right, with a large number of typographic ligatures.

 

The word Assamese is an English formation built on the same principle as Sinhalese or Japanese etc. It is based on the English word Assam by which the tract consisting of the Brahmaputra Valley and its adjoining areas are known.The people call their stateÔxôm and their language Ôxômiya.