Assamese Language: A brief history Assamese Language is alternately known as Asamiya (অসমীয়া) in Assamese, meaning ‘belonging to Assam’. Assam is relatively a recent name derived from Ahom, the dynasty that ruled the region for 600 years until Assam was annexed to British India in 1826. Historically and mythologically this region was an independent kingdom and was never a part of India until British annexation. The ancient name of the region was Kamarupa. As such this land had flourished with its own civilization, culture and language. Assamese is one of the oldest Indian languages. As a border language, in an area surrounded by China, Burma, India, several linguistic families converged. It experienced drastic sound changes and its morphology was reduced to a minimum. This simplification has probably rendered itself employed as a communication tool among non Indo-Aryan speakers of the northeastern region of India. Indo-Aryan people started settling in this region in 4th-5th century A.D. This settlement led to the development of the language, although the native Austroasiatic speakers influenced the language drastically making it distinct and somewhat different from other modern Indian languages. This difference was noted by Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar Hiuen Tsang in the 7th century when he had travelled through this region. According to the presidential address in 1925 by the President of the Literary Society of Assam (Assam Sahitya Sabha - অসম সাহিত্য সভা) Rajani Kanta Bordoloi, there are 7% Aka words, 5% Burmese, 1% Khamti, 1% Abor, 13% Misimi, 5% Ahom, 5% Farsi, 5% Arabic, 5% Urdu and 3% Kachari words. Only 50% came from Sanskrit. Unlike the other Indian languages, Assamese was not overrun by Sanskrit and it was able to preserve its unique nationalistic character. Even the same and unique sound of the three letters স, ষ, শ (xa) of the Assamese script is nowhere to be found in other Indian languages. In the arena of literature, it was also more advanced than Bengali literature. During 1920 Assam Sahitya Sabha (অসম সাহিত্য সভা), the then president Hemchandra Goswami had quoted Bengali scholar Prafulla Chandra Roy’s speech given at Tezpur, Assam to a student body. The following is the excerpt of Roy’s speech. “Assamese prose literature developed to a stage in far distant sixteenth century, which no other literature of the world reached, except the writings of Hooker and Latimer in England. The Katha Gita shows clearly that the Assamese literature developed to a standard in the sixteenth century which the Bengalee literature has reached only in the time of Iswar Chandra and Bankim Chandra. In fact if some Assamese scholars now get up and say that it is the Bengalee who has borrowed his prose from Assamese literature and enriched his own, it will be very difficult to dislodge him.”
Old Kingdom of Kamrup
Coin issued during King Rudra Singha
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