The Phonetics of the Assamese Language

The Phonetics of the Assamese Language

-        Rajen Barua

Assamese is the major language spoken in the state of Assam in North East India. It is the eastern-most branch of the Indo-Aryan (IA) group of languages which is a branch of the greater Indo-European (IE) language group. The phonetics of the Assamese language is somewhat different from other IA languages in India (Sanskrit, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali etc) chiefly for four reasons. (1)Assamese language has developed, over the years, in comparative isolation from other IA languages in India. (2)Assamese language was influenced heavily by the Tibeto-Burman and other languages of NE, while other IA languages in mainland India were not. (3)The IA languages in mainland India, on the other hand, were influenced heavily by the Dravidian languages while Assamese was not. (4)The branch of Aryans that emigrated to Assam in pre-historic times, were basically pre-Vedic Aryans, because of which Assamese still retain some of the characteristics of the original phonetics of the Indo-European group of languages which other IA languages in India seem to have lost. In the table below, we summarize the basic phonemes of the Assamese language as the Assamese speak today, and give a brief explanation of the same with nearest IPA symbols and English sounds.

Note 1: In the Sanskrit language, the two vowels v and vk corresponding to  Assamese, A and Aa, are called Hrosso (short) ‘Ah’ and Dirgho (long) ‘Ah’ respectively. In Sanskrit, as well as in Hindi and other IA languages, the pronunciation of Hrosso ‘Ah’ (v ) is like ‘u’ as in ‘up’, and that of Dirgho ‘Ah’ (vk) is like ‘a’ as in the word ‘calm’. Because of this, the letter v is represented by the Roman letter ‘a’ in Hindi or Sanskrit. However, in Assamese, the pronunciation of Hrosso ‘Ah’ (A) is like ‘o’ as in ‘Boy’.  In Bengali also, it is like the Assamese (i.e. A is pronounced like ‘o’ as in Boy). Writing on this characteristics of Assamese and Bengali, Baden Powell wrote,”In Assam and Bengal, the ‘o’ sound is generally the result of the dialectic pronunciation of the ‘a’ in the Sanskrit alphabets. Thus Bhagadutta is pronounced as Bhogodotto, and accordingly so written…” (‘The Village Community’). Thus correct representation of the Assamese A is by the Roman letter ‘o’, although many Assamese loosely use ‘a’ for A trying to imitate Hindi and Sanskrit blindly. This however creates a phonetic confusion, and when Assamese write (‘a’ for A) in words like Anjali (A&jlE^) Anil (Aenl), Amio (AemR), the non-Assamese Indian speakers mis-pronounce these words as Aa&jlE, Aaenl, AaemR^, reading ‘a’ for ‘u’ as in ‘up’. To avoid this confusion and to retain the proper Assamese pronunciation, Assamese should write ‘o’ for A and thus spell these words as Onjoli, Onil and Omio etc. Late Omio Kumar Das was one, who probably realized this error and used to spell his name correctly as Omio.

Note 2: Assamese has two /o/ sounds. One is like o (A) as in ‘boy’ and the other is like ò (A’) as in ‘bone’. In Hindi and Bengali, the ‘ò’  (A’)  sound is represented by the letter  (    v )  and  (o) respectively, and is represented by the letter ‘o’. In Assamese, (o) has a different sound which we represent here by the letter ‘w’. (See note 8 below).

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Sl #	Assam-ese Script		Roman Script	Pronunciation (As in )	IPA Symbol		Typical Asm. Word	Assmese Pronunciation	Meaning	Note
Vowels : Assamese has eight (8) vowel phonemes
1		A	o	o in organ	ɔ		Akra	okora	ignorant	1,2
2		A’	ò	o in over	O		l’ra	lòra	boy	1,2
3		Aa	a	a in arm	Λ		panE	pani	water	1
4		hH,%	i	i in in	Ι		nEla	nila	blue	3
5		w	e	a in act	æ		qml	mel	meeting	4
6		w’	è	e in egg	e		qdL	dèx	country	4
7		iH,[	u	u in put	u		juhH	jui	fire	3
8		o	w	w in swan	w		olg	wlog	obeisance	8
Consonants: Assamese has 22 consonant phonemes
1		k	k	k in kick		k	k’la	kòla	deaf
2		K	kh	kh in  backhand		kh	Kraeh	khorahi	bamboo basket	5
3		g	g	g in go		g	grm	gorom	hot
4		G	gh	gh in doghouse		gh	Gr	ghor	house	5
5		\  Z	ng	ng in song		ŋ	ia\r KZ	dangor khong	big anger
6		c,C, å«	s	s in sun		s	ecnaek, Ceb	sinaki, sobi	known, picture	6
7		j,J,R	j	z in zoo		z	jpna Red	jopona jodi	gate if	7
8		t,f	t	t in toy		t	tra	tora	star	10
9		T,F	th	th in lefthand		th	qFla	thela	to push	5
10		d,i	d	d in dog		d	edn	din	day	10
11		D,I	dh	dh in mudhouse		dh	Duel	dhuli	dust	5
12		n.N	n	n in noon		n	nK	nokh	nail
13		p	p	p in pipe		p	pap	pap	sin
14		P	ph	ph in uphold		ph	Pul	phul	flower	5
15		b	b	b in baby		b	qbel	bèli	sun
16		B	bh	bh in abhor		bh	Bal	bhal	good	5
17		m	m	m in moon		m	manuh	manuh	man
18		r	r	r in roar		r	rja	roja	king
19		l	l	l in lull		l	lta	lota	creeper
20		X	w	w in award		w	duXar	duwar	door	8
21		s,S,L	x	x in xor (Russian) ch in Loch (Scottish)		χ	qLS, es	xèx, xi	finish, he	9
22		h	h	h in hot		h	hat	hat	hand
23		~	¨	nasal			k~kal	kökal	waist	11

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Note 3.  Assamese does not have long or short vowels for /i/ or /u/ although different letters are there for long and short vowels. These different letters are used rather loosely, and the spelling does not reflect the pronunciation.

Note 4. Assamese has two ‘e’ sounds like the English words ‘get’ and ‘gate’. However, these are not differentiated in Assamese traditional spelling or in any Assamese dictionaries; one has simply to know when speaking. In Roman script writing, we differentiate these for the foreign speakers, writing one as ‘e’ as in ‘get’ and the other as ‘è’ as a in ‘gate’. Assamese ears are very sensitive to these two ‘e’ sounds as in words: qbl (‘bel’ = a fruit) and qb’l (‘bèl’ = bell).

Note 5. These aspirated phonemes (kh, gh, th, dh, ph, bh) are not there in English in normal usage. However, in the sample words shown, these phonemes are pronounced. English speakers should be careful not to pronounce these as simple unaspirated k, g, t, d, p, b.

Note 6,  Assamese has many letters for the /s/ sound (c,C,å«), but only one phoneme, all of which sound like ‘s’ as in the word ‘sun. Assamese use ‘sh’ or ‘ch’ sounds only in foreign words. However, highly educated scholars of Sanskrit pronounce the conjunt •c  and •C as ts (alveolar) or occasionally, tsh (alveopalatal), eg  iH•c (utso ~ utsho), iH•carN (utsaron ~ utsharon), hH•Ca (itsa ~ itsha) etc.

Note 7  Assamese has only one /j/ sound which is pronounced like soft ‘z’ as in the word ‘zoo’, although there many letters to represent this sound (j,J,R) etc. Assamese use /j/ as in ‘John’ sound only in foreign words.

Note 8.  This is another unique sound in Assamese of which there is no exact equvalent in English or in any other Indian languages. Assamese (o) sounds  somewhat like the semi-vowel ‘w’ as in words ‘swine’, ‘war’ etc. But in Assamese it is used both as a full vowel (o) as well as a consonant (X). In other IA languages, the consonant (X) is not there and the (o) is pronounced like Assamese (A’) (as  in ‘bone’) and is represented by the letter ‘o’. In Bengali for instance, “o is a pure vowel, (but) like o as in ‘stone’, ‘bone’ etc”- “Learn Bengali for English Speakers”- Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterji). In Assamese, this (o) sound is made by making the lips a bit more closed and the mouth a bit more round while making the sound ‘o’ as in ‘bone’.  Proper sound of (o) is heard in such typical Assamese words as : wpor (opr=above), wla (ola=be ready), wlog (olg=welcome), wroni (oreN =veil) etc.

Note 9. Assamese has this guttural fricative / χ / sound as represented by this IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) letter. This is not found in any of the Tibeto-Burman languages of North East nor in any major IA languages in India except in Kashmiri, Sinhalese and in some minor languages of West India and some languages of the Himalayas. However, this sound is there in many languages of Europe, and the Assamese sound is similar to the guttural sound in such languages as Russian, German, Scottish, Greek, Czech, Polish, Swedish etc.  In Russian and Greek, this sound is represented by the letter x [Greek: Veexo (cough); Xorrah (country) etc; Russian: Xolm (hill); Xor (chorus); Xam (crude person)]. In German, Scottish and other languages, this sound is represented by the letter ‘ch’ :Bach (brook), Loch (pool of water) etc. Besides, the guttural kh sound is also found in Arabic language in such words as khabar, khatam etc.

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 Note 10.  The IA languages of India (Sanskrit, Hindi etc), the cerebral pronunciations of t, th, d, dh and n are there mainly due to the influence of the Dravidian languages of the South. In Assamese (as well as in Bengali), the cerebral pronunciations are not there. In this respect, Assamese is like the IE languages of Europe (English etc), and has only the mixed dental series (t, th, d, dh & n) although there are two sets of symbols for these letters both of which sound the same.

Note 11: Assamese also use the nasal notation (Í), called ‘sondrobindu’ above vowels as well as consonants in the Assamese script. But in Romanization, the sign   ( ¨ )  for (Í) will be shown above vowels only Eg. esh~t = xihöt, (they), qto~ = teŵ (he); sca~ = xösa (true); gao~ = gaŵ (village) etc.

Following are some typical Assamese words selected in random showing the basic  sounds of the language:

amar   (Aamar) : our barixa (baerSa) : rainy season

bhoiam (QBR^am ) : plains doxa    (dLa) : fate

dhauti (DaaiHet ) : earnest desire èdin  (wedn) : one day

ebar     (wbar) : one time gwhali (qgahael) : (cow shade)

ghonai (GnahH ) : frequently

hajòrika  (hajerka) : common last name in Assam.

ilahi (hHlaeh ) : excessive, expensive jòlòkia  (jlkER^a) : chilli

kopal (kpal) : forehead, fate khura (Kura) : uncle,  hoof on animal, leg

lakhuti (laKuef)  : walking stick mòtòlia  (mtlER^a) : intoxicated.

Nam-Ghwxa (namqGaSa) : a famous religious book in Assam.

oxom (Asm) : Assamese name of the state of Assam

òjuhat (Ajuhat) : excuse pòtion (petR^n) : convince

phulam (Pulam) : flowery raxi  (raLE): sign of the zodiac

swtal (qcatal) : court yard twmar (qtamar) : your

thoronga (Fr\a ) : stiff upai (iHpaR^) : means, solution

wlwta (oqlafa) : opposite

xongkordew (LZkrqdX) : famous religious guru of Assam.

xiwoxagor (eLXsagr) : name of a town in Assam

Note: The article has been prepared in consultation with the following books on Assamese language.

(1)  Assamese: Its Formation and Development – Dr. Banikanta Kakoty

(2)  The Structure of Assamese – Dr. Golok Ch. Goswami

(3)  Oxomiya Bhaxar Ussaorn – Dr. Golok Ch. Goswami

(4)  Oxomiya Bhaxar Moulik Bisar – Debananda Bhorali

(5)  Various Writings of Dimbeswar Neog, Kaliram Medhi etc

(6)   A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English – Kenyon & Knott