Since the inherent vowel is assumed and not written, most letters names look identical to the letter itself (e.g. the name of the letter is itself gh ).

This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

For the distinction between, and, see IPA Brackets and transcription delimiters.

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Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

The current form of the script has seen continuous development from the 5th-century Umachal Nagajari-Khanikargaon rock inscriptions written in an eastern variety of the Gupta script, adopting significant traits from the Siddha script in the 7th century.

By the 17th century three styles of Assamese alphabets could be identified ( baminiya, kaitheli and garhgaya ) 3 that converged to the standard script following typesetting required for printing.

In the 14th century Madhava Kandali used Assamese alphabets to compose the famous Saptakanda Ramayana, which is the first translation of Ramayana in a regional language after Valmiki s Ramayana in Sanskrit.

Later, Sankardev used it in the 15th and 16th centuries to compose his oeuvre in Assamese and Brajavali dialect, the literary language of the bhakti poems ( borgeets ) and dramas.

Some similar scripts with minor differences are used to write Maithili, Bengali, Meithei and Sylheti.

The script was very similar to the one used in Samudraguptas Allahabad Pillar inscription.

Rock and copper plate inscriptions from then onwards, and Xaansi bark manuscripts right up to the 18th19th centuries show a steady development of the Assamese alphabet.

The script could be said to develop proto-Assamese shapes by the 13th century.

In the 18th and 19th century, the Assamese script could be divided into three varieties: Kaitheli (also called Lakhari in Kamrup region, used by non-Brahmins), Bamuniya (used by Brahmins, for Sanskrit) and Garhgaya (used by state officials of the Ahom kingdom )among which the Kaitheli style was the most popular, with medieval books (like the Hastir-vidyrnava ) and sattras using this style.

All of these are used in both Assamese and Bengali, the two main languages using the script.

In addition to the vowel system in the Bengali alphabet the Assamese alphabet has an additional matra () that is used to represent the phonemes and.

Some of the vowel letters have different sounds depending on the word, and a number of vowel distinctions preserved in the writing system are not pronounced as such in modern spoken Assamese or Bengali.

For example, the Assamese script has two symbols for the vowel sound i and two symbols for the vowel sound u.

This redundancy stems from the time when this script was used to write Sanskrit, a language that had a short i and a long i, and a short u and a long u.

These letters are preserved in the Assamese script with their traditional names of hrsw i (lit.

When no vowel is written, the vowel ( or o) is often assumed.

To specifically denote the absence of a vowel, ( ) may be written underneath the consonant.

The is used as in this 18th-century manuscript, just as in modern Mithilakshar.

Since the inherent vowel is assumed and not written, most letters names look identical to the letter itself (e.g.

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