Assamese Alphabet & Letters

Assamese (অসমীয়া) is written in the Assamese script, the eastern branch of the Brahmi family that it shares, letter for letter apart from two, with Bangla. Like other Brahmi-derived scripts, it is an abugida: a consonant on its own already includes an inherent vowel, so ক is read ko, and other vowels are added as signs around it. Schools teach the alphabet (বৰ্ণমালা) as 11 vowels (স্বৰবৰ্ণ) and 41 consonants (ব্যঞ্জনবৰ্ণ), the consonant count including the conjunct ক্ষ and the signs ং ঃ ঁ at the end of the chart.

The vowels are অ আ ই ঈ উ ঊ ঋ এ ঐ ও ঔ. Each except অ has a vowel sign, the matra (কাৰ), used after a consonant: কা কি কী কু কূ কৃ কে কৈ কো কৌ. Three of the signs are written partly or wholly before the consonant they follow in speech: ি in কি, ে in কে, ৈ in কৈ, and ো ৌ wrap around it. In Unicode you still type the consonant first and the sign second; the font moves the sign into place.

The consonants come in the classic order of Indian grammar: five rows of stops (ক খ গ ঘ ঙ, চ ছ জ ঝ ঞ, ট ঠ ড ঢ ণ, ত থ দ ধ ন, প ফ ব ভ ম), then য ৰ ল ৱ, then শ ষ স হ, then ক্ষ and the dotted letters ড় ঢ় য় and the half letter ৎ. The CLDR main Assamese character set includes ড় ঢ় য় as letter sequences, while its auxiliary set includes ৎ; these are part of Assamese charts and occur in writing: য় is in the name of the language itself, অসমীয়া, and in সময় (time); ৎ ends হঠাৎ (suddenly).

ৰ and ৱ: the letters that make it Assamese, not Bangla

Two letters tell Assamese text apart at a glance. ৰ (ra) has a diagonal stroke through the middle of the letter, where Bangla writes র without the middle diagonal. ৱ (wa) has the diagonal stroke at the bottom and writes the w sound, which Bangla has no letter for. You see them everywhere: ৰঙালী বিহু (Rongali Bihu), বছৰ (year), নমস্কাৰ (namaskar), পৃথিৱী (the earth), ৰাতিপুৱা (morning).

Unicode keeps both inside its Bengali block under descriptive names: ৰ is U+09F0 BENGALI LETTER RA WITH MIDDLE DIAGONAL and ৱ is U+09F1 BENGALI LETTER RA WITH LOWER DIAGONAL. Using the Bangla র (U+09B0) in Assamese text is a common mistake in copied and typed Assamese: it looks almost right, but it is a different character, so exact-match searches and spell-checkers treat বছৰ and বছর as different words.

The dotted letters ড় ঢ় য় are made of a base letter and the nukta dot ়. Unicode has ready-made characters for them, but they are composition exclusions, so Unicode normalisation (NFC) always splits them into a base letter plus the nukta (ড + ়); do not worry if a text editor treats ড় as two keystrokes: both forms display the same.

How Assamese letters sound

Assamese spelling keeps the old Sanskrit letters, but its pronunciation has moved further from them than most Indian languages. The best-known example is the name of the state: অসম is spelled with স yet said Oxom, because স শ ষ are usually pronounced as a rough x, like the ch in Scottish loch. চ and ছ sound like s, so চাহ (tea) is sah, and জ ঝ sound like z.

Assamese also has no separate row of retroflex sounds: ট and ত, ড and দ are said alike, with the tongue just behind the teeth, so the ট row and the ত row are a spelling distinction. ই and ঈ, উ and ঊ are likewise spelled long or short by tradition but pronounced the same. The inherent vowel অ is an open o, which is why ক is ko and the language is Oxomiya.

The candrabindu ঁ makes the vowel nasal, as in পাঁচ (five) and মই তোমাক ভাল পাওঁ (I love you); the anusvara ং writes an ng sound, as in ৰং (colour); the visarga ঃ is rare outside words from Sanskrit. The hasanta ্ removes a consonant's vowel; between two consonants it makes a conjunct such as ক্ষ, স্ক or ন্ত.

How to type Assamese on a laptop, in Word and on WhatsApp

Windows 10 and 11 include an Assamese keyboard: Settings → Time & language → Language & region → Add a language → Assamese, then choose the Assamese - INSCRIPT layout and switch to it with Windows + Space. INSCRIPT is the Government of India layout, the same for all Indian scripts, with vowels under the left hand and consonants under the right; on it you type the consonant, then the vowel sign. Text typed this way is Unicode, so it works in MS Word, browsers and email; Windows' built-in Nirmala UI and Vrinda fonts display it.

Older Assamese documents were often typed with non-Unicode fonts that map Assamese shapes onto English letters. Copied out of such a file, the text turns into Latin gibberish; it needs a converter or retyping in Unicode before it can be pasted anywhere else. Everything on this page is Unicode.

Phones: on Android, Gboard offers an Assamese (অসমীয়া) keyboard: Settings → Languages → Add keyboard → Assamese. Once it is added, WhatsApp, Facebook and SMS take Assamese directly. Anywhere else, copy letters from this page. HTML: ৰ for ৰ, ৱ for ৱ, । for the danda । and ₹ for ₹.

Assamese digits, punctuation and the rupee

Assamese digits are the same characters as Bangla ones: ০ ১ ২ ৩ ৪ ৫ ৬ ৭ ৮ ৯. Counting from one to ten: এক, দুই, তিনি, চাৰি, পাঁচ, ছয়, সাত, আঠ, ন, দহ. Watch two look-alikes: ৪ (four) resembles the Latin 8, and ৭ (seven) resembles a 9. Prices, phone numbers and dates are written with either these digits or the international 0–9.

The danda । is used at sentence ends, and Assamese punctuation also includes the full stop .: মই অসমীয়া কওঁ। (I speak Assamese.) Unicode has one danda for all the scripts of North India, the character U+0964; the double danda ॥ ends verses in poetry and devotional texts. Commas, question marks, exclamation marks and the quotation marks “ ” ‘ ’ are the same as in English.

Assamese is spoken in India, so its currency is the Indian rupee, called টকা (toka) in Assamese, and its sign is ₹, introduced in 2010. The ৳ sign belongs to the taka of Bangladesh, not to Assam.

Where Assamese is spoken

Assamese is the official language of the state of Assam in north-east India 🇮🇳. The 2011 census counted about 15 million people speaking it as their first language; the CLDR estimate of all speakers is about 18 million, and with second-language speakers estimates reach some 24 million. Beyond Assam it is also spoken in neighbouring states such as Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Meghalaya, and Nagamese, the common language of Nagaland, is a creole based on Assamese.

Its closest relatives are Bangla and Odia, which grew from the same eastern Indo-Aryan branch. Manipuri (Meitei) is also often written in the same script, and Bodo, Assam's other large language, now uses Devanagari like Hindi and Nepali. Each has its own collection on this site, as does India.