Assamese linguistic data

Word order, tone, gender count, case marking, adposition direction, syllable structure, consonant inventory traits, vowel system, morphological alignment, script, register stratification, speaker count, and geographic area. Each row is one feature with Assamese's value visible; you can add other languages to read the same feature side by side.

Typological features are merged from URIEL+ (Mortensen et al.) and a curated set authored against descriptive grammars. Speaker counts come from Ethnologue and Glottolog. Geographic area is computed from the Asher 2007 world language atlas. Similarity scores combine genetic distance, typological overlap, and lexical-borrowing data.

Assamese developed an obligatory classifier system through long contact with Tibeto-Burman languages (Bodo, Mising, others) that have been spoken in Assam for centuries. A counted noun pairs with a classifier suffix: ezɔn manuh 'one (CL-human) man'. Most Indo-Aryan languages lack classifiers; Assamese adopted them through substrate influence.

Both descended from a common ancestor and share most letterforms. Assamese has two letters Bengali doesn't: ৰ (for /r/, where Bengali uses র) and ৱ (for /w/). Otherwise the scripts are nearly identical, and a Bengali reader can decipher Assamese with minimal adjustment.

Both descend from Magadhan Prakrit, share most Indo-Aryan typology (SOV, postpositions, no grammatical gender on nouns), and use the same script with minor letter variations. Vocabulary overlap is heavy. They diverge on classifiers (Assamese has them, Bengali doesn't) and verb morphology details. The factor breakdown chip on the row tells you which dimensions contributed most.