Assamese people

Not to be confused with People of Assam.

Assamese people
Total population
c. 15.3 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
 India15,311,351[2]
 Bangladesh5,000[3]
 MyanmarUnknown
Languages
Assamese
Religion
Majority:
Hinduism
Minority:
Related ethnic groups
Bodo-Kachari peoples, Indo-Aryan peoples, Assamese Meitei people, Tibeto-Burman and Tai peoples of Assam
Oxomia
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This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

The Assamese people are a socio-ethnic linguistic[5] identity that has been described at various times as nationalistic[6] or micro-nationalistic.[7] This group is often associated with the Assamese language,[8] the easternmost Indo-Aryan language, and Assamese people mostly live in the Brahmaputra Valley region of Assam, where they are native and constitute around 56% of the Valley's population.[9] The use of the term precedes the name of the language or the people.[10] It has also been used retrospectively to the people of Assam before the term "Assamese" came into use.[11] They are an ethnically diverse group formed after centuries of assimilation of Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Indo-Aryan and Tai populations,[12] and constitute a tribal-caste continuum[13]—though not all Assamese people are Hindus and ethnic Assamese Muslims numbering around 42 lakh (4,200,000) constitute a significant part of this identity.[14] The total population of Assamese speakers in Assam is nearly 15.09 million which makes up 48.38% of the population of state according to the Language census of 2011.

  1. ^ Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in Nationalencyklopedin
  2. ^ "Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and the mother tongues - 2011" (PDF). Retrieved 3 November 2019.
  3. ^ "Assamese rockstar in Bangladesh challenges CAAcophony | Guwahati News - Times of India". The Times of India. 7 February 2020.
  4. ^ "Mission roots brings Assamese Sikhs to Punjab". The Times of India. Retrieved 2 September 2017.
  5. ^ "As an socio-ethnic linguistic community, Assamese culture evolved through many centuries in a melting pot syndrome." (Deka 2005:190)
  6. ^ "All this suggests that Assamese nationalism was a post-British phenomenon. As an ideology and movement it took shape only during the second half of the 19th century, when such questions as the preservation and promotion of the mother-tongue, jobs for the sons of the soil and concern over colonial constraints on development, began to stir Assamese minds." (Guha 1984:54)
  7. ^ "Assamese micro-nationalism began in the middle of the nineteenth century as an assertion of the autonomy and distinctiveness of Assamese language and culture against the British colonial view of Assam as a periphery of Bengal." (Baruah 1994:654)
  8. ^ Saikia, Yasmin (2004). Fragmented Memories: Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0822386162. the group that now identifies as Tai–Ahom were historically seen as Assamese people. However, the term ethnic Assamese is now associated by the Indian government at Delhi with the Assamese speaking Indo-Aryan group (comprising both Hindus and Muslims) of Assam. The latter group is the majority people of Assam, while the Tai-Ahom people were a dominant minority during the Ahom Rule
  9. ^ "Battleground Assam a tale of two valleys and the CAA quandary Assam bengal polls 2021 | Opinion News – India TV". 18 February 2021.
  10. ^ "Assamese language and literature played a major role in forming the Assamese cultural mind even before they came to be known as Assamese." (Deka 2005:192)
  11. ^ "Yet once the community adopted Assamese as its name, even their ancient language started to be referred to as Assamese." (Deka 2005:192)
  12. ^ Yasmin Saikia (9 November 2004). Fragmented Memories. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0822333739.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference sharma-tribal-caste was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ "Assam's Muslims: Why some have been declared 'indigenous' and some left out". 11 July 2022.