Editing Assamese language (section)

===Modern Assamese===
The modern period of Assamese begins with printing—the publication of the Assamese Bible in 1813 from the [[Serampore Mission Press]]. But after the British [[East India Company]] (EIC) [[Treaty of Yandaboo|removed the Burmese]] in 1826 and took complete administrative control of Assam in 1836, it filled administrative positions with people from Bengal, and introduced [[Bengali language]] in its offices, schools and courts.<ref>"The British administration introduced Bangla in all offices, in the courts and schools of Assam." {{harvcol|Goswami|2003|p=435}}</ref> The EIC had earlier promoted the development of Bengali to replace Persian, the language of administration in Mughal India,<ref>"By 1772, the Company had skillfully employed the sword, diplomacy, and intrigue to take over the rule of Bengal from her people, factious nobles, and weak Nawab. Subsequently, to consolidate its hold on the province, the Company promoted the Bengali language. This did not represent an intrinsic love for Bengali speech and literature. Instead it was aimed at destroying traditional patterns of authority through supplanting the Persian language which had been the official tongue since the days of the great Moguls." {{harvcol|Khan|1962|p=53}}</ref> and maintained that Assamese was a dialect of Bengali.<ref>"''[W]e should not assent to uphold a corrupt dialect, but endeavour to introduce pure Bengallee, and to render this Province as far as possible an integral part of the great country to which that language belongs, and to render available to Assam the literature of Bengal.'' - This brief aside of Francis Jenkins in a Revenue Consultation remains one of the
clearest policy statements of the early British Indian administration regarding the
vernacular question in Assam." {{harvcol|Kar|2008|p=28}}</ref>

Amidst this loss of status the [[American Baptist Mission]] (ABM) established a press in Sibsagar in 1846 leading to publications of an Assamese periodical (''[[Orunodoi]]''), the first Assamese grammar by [[Nathan Brown (missionary)|Nathan Brown]] (1846), and the first Assamese-English dictionary by [[Miles Bronson]] (1863).<ref name="harvcol|Kakati|1953|p=6"/> The ABM argued strongly with the EIC officials in an intense debate in the 1850s to reinstate Assamese.<ref>{{harvcol|Kar|2008|pp=40–45}}</ref> Among the local personalities [[Anandaram Dhekial Phukan]] drew up an extensive catalogue of medieval Assamese literature (among other works) and pioneered the effort among the natives to reinstate Assamese in Assam.<ref>"He wrote under a pen name, A Native, a book in English, ''A Few Remarks on the Assamese Language and on Vernacular Education in Assam'', 1855, and had 100 copies of it printed by A H Danforth at the Sibsagar Baptist Mission Press. One copy of the publication was sent to the Government of Bengal and other copies were distributed free among leading men of Assam. An abstract of this was published later in ''[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.206684/page/n65/mode/2up The Indian Antiquary (1897, p57)]''". {{harvcol|Neog|1980|p=15}}</ref> Though this effort was not immediately successful the administration eventually declared Assamese the official vernacular in 1873 on the eve of Assam becoming a [[Colonial Assam#Chief Commissioner's Province (1874–1905)|Chief Commissioner's Province]] in 1874.<ref>"In less than twenty years' time, the government actually revised its classification and declared Assamese as the official vernacular of the Assam Division (19 April 1873), as a prelude to the constitution of a separate Chief Commissionership of Assam (6 February 1874)." {{harvcol|Kar|2008|p=45}}</ref>

====Standardisation====
In the extant medieval Assamese manuscripts the orthography was not uniform. The ABM had evolved a [[phonemic orthography]] based on a contracted set of characters.<ref>{{harvcol|Kar|2008|p=38}}</ref> Working independently [[Hemchandra Barua]] provided an etymological orthography and his etymological dictionary, ''[[Hemkosh]]'', was published posthumously. He also provided a Sanskritised approach to the language in his ''Asamiya Bhaxar Byakaran'' ("Grammar of the Assamese Language") (1859, 1873).<ref>{{harvcol|Kar|2008|pp=46–47}}</ref> Barua's approach was adopted by the ''[[Asamiya Bhasa Unnati Sadhini Sabha]]'' (1888, "Assamese Language Development Society") that emerged in [[Kolkata]] among Assamese students led by [[Lakshminath Bezbaroa]]. The ''Society'' published a periodical ''[[Jonaki (magazine)|Jonaki]]'' and the period of its publication, ''Jonaki era'', saw spirited negotiations on language standardisation.<ref>{{harvcol|Kar|2008|pp=51–55}}</ref> What emerged at the end of those negotiations was a standard close to the language of the Buranjis with the Sanskritised orthography of Hemchandra Barua.<ref>"They looked back to the fully mature prose of the historical writings of earlier periods, which possessed all the strength and vitality to stand the new challenge. Hemchandra Barua and his followers immediately reverted to the syntax and style of that prose, and Sanskritized the orthography and spelling system entirely. He was followed by one and all including the missionaries themselves, in their later writings. And thus, the solid plinth of the modern standard language was founded and accepted as the norm all over the state." {{harvcol|Goswami|2003|p=435}}</ref>

As the political and commercial center moved to [[Guwahati]] in the mid-twentieth century, of which [[Dispur]] the capital of Assam is a suburb and which is situated at the border between the western and central dialect speaking regions, standard Assamese used in media and communications today is a neutral blend of the eastern variety without its distinctive features.<ref>"In contemporary Assam, for the purposes of mass media and communication, a certain neutral blend of eastern Assamese, without too many distinctive eastern features, like /ɹ/ deletion, which is a robust phenomenon in the eastern varieties, is
still considered to be the norm." {{harvcol|Mahanta|2012|p=217}}</ref> This core is further embellished with [[Goalpariya dialects|Goalpariya]] and [[Kamrupi dialects|Kamrupi]] idioms and forms.<ref>"Now, Dispur, the Capital city being around Guwahati, as also with the spread of literacy and education in the western Assam districts, forms of the Central and Western dialects have been creeping into the literary idiom and reshaping the standard language during the last few decades." {{harvcol|Goswami|2003|p=436}}</ref>