REPORT ON THE CURRENT STATUS OF
UNITED NATIONS ROMANIZATION SYSTEMS FOR GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES
Compiled by the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems
Version 4.0, March 2016

Assamese

The United Nations recommended system was approved in 1972 (II/11) and amended in 1977 (III/12), based on a report prepared by D. N. Sharma. The tables and their corrections were published in volume II of the conference reports^1,2.

There is no evidence of the use of the system either in India or in international cartographic products.

Assamese (Asamīyā) uses an alphasyllabic script whereby each character represents a syllable rather than one sound. Vowels and diphthongs are marked in two ways: as independent characters (used syllable-initially) and in an abbreviated form, to denote vowels after consonants. The romanization table is unambiguous but the user would have to recognize many ligatures not given in the original table. The system is mostly reversible but there exist some ambiguities in the romanization of vowels (independent vs. abbreviated characters) and consonants (ligatures vs. character sequences).

Romanization

I. Independent vowel characters

1	অ	a
2	আ	ā
3	ই	i
4	ঈ	ī
5	উ	u
6	ঊ	ū
7	ঋ	ṛ
8	এ	e
9	ঐ	ai
10	ও	o
11	ঔ	au

II. Abbreviated vowel characters (ক stands for any consonant character)

1	ক	a
2	কা	ā
3	কি	i
4	কী	ī
5	কু	uA
6	কূ	ūB
7	কৃ	ṛ C
8	কে	e
9	কৈ	ai
10	কো	o
11	কৌ	au

• ^A Exceptions: গু gu; রু ru; শু shu; হু hu; ন্তু ntu; স্তু stu.
• ^B Exception: রূ rū.
• ^C Exception: হৃ hṛ.

III. Other symbols (ক stands for any consonant character)

1	কং	ṁ
2	কঁ	m̐
3	কঃ	ḥ
4	ক্‌	(A)

• ^A Pronunciation without a vowel; special form: ৎ t.

IV. Consonant characters

1	ক	ka
2	খ	kha
3	গ	ga
4	ঘ	gha
5	ঙ	ṅa
6	চ	cha
7	ছ	chha
8	জ	ja
9	ঝ	jha
10	ঞ	ña
11	ট	ṭa
12	ঠ	ṭha
13	ড	ḍaA
14	ঢ	ḍhaA
15	ণ	ṇa
16	ত	ta
17	থ	tha
18	দ	da
19	ধ	dha
20	ন	na
21	প	pa
22	ফ	pha
23	ব	ba
24	ভ	bha
25	ম	ma
26	য	j̱aA
27	ৰ	ra
28	ল	la
29	ৱ	va
30	শ	sha
31	ষ	ṣha
32	স	sa
33	হ	ha

• ^A Dotted variants of the characters: ড় ṙa; ঢ় ṙha; য় ya.

V. Ligatures

See the section on the romanization of Bengali.

Other systems of romanization

For differences between the UN system and the ISO transliteration standard ISO 15919: 2001 see the section on the romanization of Hindi.

References

1. Second United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. London, 10–31 May 1972. Vol. II. Technical papers. United Nations. New York 1974, pp. 141–142.
2. Third United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names. Athens, 17 August – 7 September 1977. Vol. II, Technical papers, pp. 393 etc.