Bengali-Assamese (বাংলা-অসমীয়া লিপি)

The Bengali-Assamese script is derived from the Brahmi abugida and closely related to Devanagari, from which it began to diverge in the 11th century. Its current printed form first appeared in 1778, although some archaic letters were modernized kin the 19th century.

The alphabet has two literary styles: sadhubhaṣa (elegant language) and chôlitôbhasha (current language). The former is the traditional literary style based on Middle Bengali of the 16th century, while the latter is a 20th-century creation based on the language of educated people in Kolkata. The differences between the two styles are mainly in the forms of pronouns and verb conjugations.

Notable features

Script type: abugida

Writing direction: left-to-right in rows

Number of characters: 47 (36 consonants + 11 vowels)

Languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bishnupriya, Chakma, Chittagonian, Garo, Hajong, Khasi, Kokborok, Kurmali, Meitei, Mizo, Noakhali, Rabha, Rangpuri, Sanskrit, Santali, and Sylheti (18)

Consonants have an inherent vowel, but their pronunciation can be modified by adding vowel diacritics. The inherent vowel has two different pronunciations, depending on the position of the letter in the sentence and how closed the vowel is in the following syllable.

Vowels can be expressed by independent letters or diacritics that are written above, below, before, or after the consonant.

When consonants occur together in clusters, special conjunct letters are used.

Vowels

Consonants

Other symbols

Numerals