Assamese people dispute over the definition of Assamese people, in general; the people belonging to the state of Assam are referred as Assamese people. The lack of a definition has put stumbling blocks in implementing "clause 6" of the Assam Accord, an agreement signed by the activists of the Assam Movement and the Government of India in 1985. Since a legal definition is important to provide "constitutional, legislative and cultural" safeguards to the Assamese people, the Government of Assam had formed a ministerial committee to finalize the definition in March 2007. To address the "clause 6" issue, AASU had announced a definition
Assamese language realized as or as a retroflex approximant. Assamese and Sylheti are unusual among Eastern Indo-Aryan languages for the presence of the (which, phonetically, varies between velar () and a uvular () pronunciations, depending on the speaker and speech register), historically the MIA sibilant has lenited to and (non-initially). The derivation of the velar fricative from the coronal sibilant is evident in the name of the language in Assamese; some Assamese prefer to write or instead of or to reflect the sound change. The voiceless velar fricative is absent in the West Goalpariya dialects though it is found in lesser extent