The Assamese Language

Both the Assamese and Nepali languages have a common history in-as-much-as they derive from the Indic or Indo-Aryan languages. Just to clarify, these are the languages generally spoken in India. The following languages can also be associated with this group - Nepali, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Bahari.

While it’s true that Hindi is the official language of India, there are a lot of different languages spoken by many, many people that are also recognized as official languages of other states, such as Bengali, Assamese, Kashmiri, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu, Sindhi, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada. Assamese is also spoken in Bangladesh and Bhutan.

Besides being spoken India, Assamese can also be heard in Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Some Characteristics of the Assamese Language –

• Assamese is written with an alphabet derived from the Gupta script; which is a syllabic system of writing used from the 4th century right through to the 10th century BC. It’s quite similar to the alphabets of both Bengali and Mithilakshar.
• Assamese is written from left to right – top to bottom.
• Number and gender are not marked, grammatically speaking.
• In Assamese, adding /n/ before the verb creates the negative.

Some of the Dialects –

Generally, Assamese translation is divided into western and eastern dialects; however, other divisions have been discovered, including the following -

• A central group in the districts of Morigaon, Sonitpur, and Nagaon;
• An eastern group around the Sibsagar district;
• The Kamrupi group in the districts of Nalbari, Kamrup, Barpeta, Darrang, Kokrajhar y Bongaigaon; parts of the districts of Kokrajhar y Bongaigoan, and the Goalpariya group in the districts of Dhubri y Goalpara.

The more we learn about India the more we begin to realize that it’s such a rich and diverse country. And it’s precisely for this reason, and showing respect for all the many languages spoken, that translators must be particularly careful when working with these languages. Translators and other linguistic professionals must be natives of the target language.

Image courtesy newzulu.com