- Official language in
- India
- Script
- Bangla
Where it's spoken
The Assam Official Language Act, as reproduced on a legal-information website, says in its section 3 that Assamese shall be used for all or any of the official purposes of the State of Assam. Section 5 of the same text applies to Cachar and says that, notwithstanding section 3, the Bengali language shall be used there for administrative and other official purposes up to and including the district level until the Mohkuma Parishads and Municipal Boards of the district decide in a joint meeting, by a majority of not less than two-thirds, in favour of adopting the official language there.
A dissertation on Assamese negation says that Assamese is one of the languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, and that the majority of its speakers live in the Brahmaputra valley of Assam. The same dissertation says that the currently prevalent Asamiya has its roots in the Sivasagar dialect of Eastern Assam.
Sources
- Assam Official Language Act, 1960 (text as reproduced by indianemployees.com) — Section 3 (Official language); Section 5 (Safeguard of the use of Bengali language in the district of Cachar); third-party reproduction, not a government copy
- Sarkar, Arpita (2020). Negation in Assamese Language. MA dissertation, Department of Linguistics, Assam University, Silchar — §1.4.0
Script & pronunciation
The Unicode Standard says that in the Indian state of Assam the script is called Asamiya or Assamese, and that the Bangla script is used for writing languages such as Bangla and Assamese. It gives the Assamese letters ra and wa their own characters, ৰ and ৱ. The dissertation likewise says that the Assamese script is similar to the Bengali script except for the symbols for /r/ and /w/.
The app's cards use both letters, as in the card মোৰ মোনা এতিয়াও আহি পোৱা নাই ("My luggage hasn't arrived"), where মোৰ has ৰ and পোৱা has ৱ.
Under the Assamese text the app shows Latin letters. In them the same letter x is used for different Assamese letters: শেষ হ'ল is shown as "Xex hol" ("I'm finished") and সেইটো as "Xeito" ("That").
Sources
Grammar essentials
The dissertation says that negation is indicated in Assamese in three ways: by using negative verbs, by using negative affixes and by using negative auxiliaries. It calls নɔ- (written /nɔ/) the only negative particle, prefixed to fully inflected verbal forms, and says that a negative imperative is formed by prefixing it to the simple future form of the verb. The app's card মোক স্পৰ্শ নকৰিব! ("Do not touch me!") has ন attached directly in front of the verb কৰিব.
The negative auxiliary /nai/ is described as following a principal verb that takes a form with -a, and as generally used in the imperfective aspect of the present tense; it also negates verb forms in the past indefinite aspect, and in the present it does not change for person. The app's cards show this order, with নাই after a verb form ending in -া: মই বুজি পোৱা নাই (Moi buji powa nai, "I don't understand") and মই বুকিং কৰা নাই (Moi buking kora nai, "I don't have a reservation").
The dissertation calls /nɔhɔi/ "is not" and says it is generally used to negate an equational sentence, as in its example for "This is not a book". The app's card for "No" is নহয় (Nohoy).
In one of the dissertation's glossed examples the word order is "I song sing-non.fin neg+can-pres+1", glossed "I can't sing", with the verb after "song". The app's card মই অলপ অসমীয়া ক'ব পাৰোঁ ("I can speak a little Assamese") likewise has ক'ব পাৰোঁ after অসমীয়া.
On the app's cards a yes/no question ends in -নে, as in আপুনি ইংৰাজী ক'ব পাৰেনে? (Apuni ingraji kob parene?, "Do you speak English?"). The app's own note on this card calls -নে a suffix that marks a yes/no question.
Sources
- Sarkar, Arpita (2020). Negation in Assamese Language. MA dissertation, Department of Linguistics, Assam University, Silchar — §4.1.0; §4.1.1; §4.1.2; §4.1.4; §4.2.1
Politeness & etiquette
The dissertation's examples label three forms of "you": /tɔi/ as 2inf, /tumi/ as 2fam and /apuni/ as 2hon. In its past-tense negative examples the verb differs with them: for tumi the verb ends in -a, and for apuni it has no such ending. In the present, /nai/ stays the same for all persons.
The app has a card আপুনি (Apuni, "You (polite)") and cards with the familiar তুমি, such as তুমি বৰ চতুৰ (Tumi bor sotur). The app's own note on আপুনি কেনে আছে? (Apuni kene ase?, "How are you?") says that আপুনি takes the third-person verb আছে, and that with friends the pronoun and verb change to তুমি … আছা. The note on the card আপুনি says that তই is rude and never used.
For requests the app's cards put -ক on the verb after অনুগ্ৰহ কৰি ("Please"), as in অনুগ্ৰহ কৰি লাহে লাহে কওক ("Please speak slowly"), and the app's note on a related card calls -ক the polite request form.