Assamese language in the past. There are also significant Assamese-speaking communities in Australia, Dubai, the United Kingdom, Canada, Nepal and the United States. Assamese is the official language of Assam, and one of the 23 official languages recognised by the Republic of India. The Assam Secretariat functions in Assamese. The Assamese phonemic inventory consists of eight vowels, ten diphthongs, and twenty-three consonants (including two semivowels). Consonant clusters in Assamese include thirty three pure consonant letters in the Assamese alphabet. Each letter represents a single sound with an inherent vowel, the short vowel . The first twenty-five consonants letters are called "sparxa barna"
Assamese alphabet said to develop proto-Assamese shapes by the 13th century. In the 18th and 19th century, the Assamese script could be divided into three varieties: "Kaitheli" (also called "Lakhari" in Kamrup region, used by non-Brahmins), "Bamuniya" (used by Brahmins, for Sanskrit) and "Garhgaya" (used by state officials of the Ahom kingdom)—among which the "Kaitheli" style was the most popular, with medieval books (like the "Hastir-vidyrnava") and sattras using this style. In the early part of the 19th century, Atmaram Sarmah designed the first Assamese script for printing in Serampore, and the Bengali and Assamese lithography converged to the present standard that