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 language literary language. In the past, it was the court language of the Ahom kingdom from the 17th century. Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Assamese evolved at least before 7th century CE from the middle Indo-Aryan Magadhi Prakrit, which developed from dialects similar to, but in some ways more archaic than Vedic Sanskrit. Its sister languages include Koch Rajbongsi, Mymensinghiya, Sylheti, Hajong, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Nokhailla, Chittagonian, Rohingya, Chakma, Bengali, Maithili and Angika. It is written in the Assamese script, an abugida system, from left to right, with a large number of typographic ligatures. Assamese originated in Old Indo-Aryan dialects, though