ASSAMESE LANGUAGE, the Indo-Aryan tongue spoken in the Assam valley. In its grammar it closely resembles Bengali (q.v.), since both are derived from a common source. Its vocabu lary is mainly tadbhava. It has been affected by its proximity to Tibeto-Burman dialects both in vocabulary and in structure, as in the use of pronominal suffixes, and in phonetics, though f ollow ing Bengali generally in its accentuation. The chief glory of Assamese literature is in history. The buranjis or historical works are voluminous and have been carefully preserved.
Tadbhava means "of the same character a Sanskrit, contrasted with tatsama, "identical with" the Sanskrit word. The French word ange is tadbhava, while angelus is tatsama, identical with the Latin.
See Linguistic Survey of India, vol. v. pt. 2 p. 393, for grammar and list of authorities.