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 "garhgaya") that converged to the standard script following typesetting required for printing. The present standard is identical to the Bengali alphabet except for two letters, ৰ (ro) and ৱ (vo). The "Buranjis" were written during the Ahom dynasty in the Assamese language using the Assamese alphabet. In the 14th century Madhava Kandali used Assamese script to compose the famous "Saptakanda Ramayana", which is the first translation of "Ramayana" in a regional language after Valmiki's "Ramayana" in Sanskrit. Later, Sankardev used it in the 15th and 16th centuries to compose his oeuvre in Assamese and Brajavali dialect, the literary language of