Writing in Assamese on Your Electronic Devices
Writing in Assamese on Your Electronic Devices
Over the past several months we have been exploring some of the software that is available to type in
Assamese on a laptop or other electronic devices such as phones and tablets. This article is meant to
help anyone who has a basic understanding of Assamese reading and writing to use software available
to write in Assamese on their electronic devices. The following three sections illustrate how to install
and use an Assamese Keyboard on (1) a Laptop or desktop (2) an Android Phone or Tablet (3) an Apple
iPhone or iPad.
How to activate the Assamese keyboard on your Microsoft Windows
based laptop or desktop?
1. Go to the Control Panel
2. On the Control Panel click on the Clock Language and Region menu item
3. On the Clock Language and Region screen under the Language submenu click on the Change
input method option
4. On the Language menu click on the Add a Language option
5. On the Add a Language screen double click on the Assamese button
6. On the next screen titled Change your language preferences you will see that Assamese has
been added
7. On the same screen (Change your language preferences) click on Advanced Settings
8. On the Advanced Settings screen click on the box next to Use the desktop language bar when
available to activate the option and click on the Save button
9. Click on the Control Panel Home menu option
I prefer to use an on-screen virtual keyboard to type in Assamese. The next few steps is to activate
an on-screen keyboard
1. On the Control Panel home screen click on the Ease Of Access submenu
2. On the Ease of Access screen click on the Ease of Access Center submenu
3. On the next screen click on Start On-Screen keyboard
4. Close the Control Panel screen by clicking on the X on the top right. You can click on the X to
close the on-screen keyboard too
To be able to quickly switch between the on-screen Assamese keyboard and the regular English
keyboard do the following:
1. Right click on any empty space on the Task Bar on the bottom of your screen.
2. On the Menu that is displayed move the cursor to select the Toolbars submenu
3. On the Toolbars menu if the Touch keyboard and the Language bar are not checked click on
each to check them. Now you should see the two icons shown below.
Click here to bring up the onscreen keyboard
On the Taskbar, click here to change the language
The next couple of pictures show the on-screen Assamese keyboard:
Juktakhor key View 1
View 2
The letters are distributed on the two keyboards above. To switch between one display and the
other press the on the left or right.
Here are a few examples of how to use the keyboard. I have included some of the useful ‘juktakhors’
(letter combinations). On View 1 of the keyboard, the (্ )is an important key. This is the key that
does the juktakhors as illustrated in the examples below. Note that in the key sequences I am not
including the up-arrow key that you may have to click to switch keyboards and the dash(-) is being
used to separate out the keystrokes.
1. To write the word কিতাপ the sequence of keys is ি-ক্-ত-্া-প
2. To write the word আনন্দ the sequence of keys is আ-ন-ন-্ -দ
3. To write the word আঞ্জকি the sequence of keys is অ-ঞ-্ -জ-ি-ক্
4. To write the word গাওঁthe sequence of keys is গ-্া-ও-্ঁ
5. To write the word সাকিতয the sequence of keys is স-্া-ি-—ক্ত-্ -য
6. To write the word পকিষ্কাি the sequence of keys is প-ি–ক্ষ-্ -ি-্া-ি
7. To write the word ইচ্ছা the sequence of keys is ই-চ-্ -ছ-্া
8. To write the word কিজ্ঞান the sequence of keys is ি-—ক্জ-্ -ঞ-্া-ন
9. To write the word অভ্যাস the sequence of keys is অ-ভ্-্ -য-্া-স
10. To write the word িৃতজ্ঞতা the sequence of keys is ি-্ৃ-ত-জ-্ -ঞ-ত-্া
How to install and use the Google Indic Keyboard to write in Assamese
on your Android phone or tablet?
1. Go to the Google Play store by clicking on the icon on your phone.
2. On the search bar type Google Indic Keyboard
3. should be the first item on the list
4. Double click it and go through the Install and configuration process.
5. A detailed article with screen shots of every step is available. Send an e-mail to
WrtingAssamese@gmail.com to receive the information
Google Indic Keyboard
The Google Indic keyboard uses a predictive input technology. When a user type,s it suggests the next
characters or word. If one of the alternatives is what the user wants he or she can pick it. This approach
makes typing easier than in the keyboard version discussed in the previous section.
Juktakhor
Character
Above are steps of version [3.1.1.112921620-armeabi-v7a]
Installing the Lachit app on an Apple iPhone or iPad (currently it has
been taken out of the App Store but is expected to be available again)
On an Android phone or tablet a user could be on WhatsApp or the Mail App and the Assamese
keyboard will pop up and the user can directly start typing their message. Lachit works differently. The
app has to be opened separately. The Assamese keyboard opens up in the App. The user types in the
text and when he or she is done the message has to be selected and copied to the clipboard and pasted
into the Mail app or WhatsApp or any other App that the user is using.
The Lachit keyboard looks like the following (to toggle between the two views click on the Up Arrow :
Press the arrow to toggle between the two views Juktakhor character
There is a detailed article with screen shots available to step you through how to type your message on
Lachit, copy it to the clipboard and pasting it on WhatsApp or any other application. Send an
e-mail to WritingAssamese@gmail.com to receive it.
Basic Pramukh Typepad
Another very convenient tool for writing in Assamese is the Basic Pramukh Typepad. It is a web based
tool where the user types the Assamese words phonetically in English and the software writes the words
in the Assamese script. For example if the user types ami aji phuribo zam, Pramukh will display আকি
আকজ ফু কিি যাি on the screen. Satyajit Nath from Seattle has written a blog post on this topic that you
can read to get more details on this tool. Here is the link to his blog post:
http://bytopan.blogspot.in/2012/10/my-favorite-web-tool-to-type-in.html
Assamese Phonetic keyboard for the MacOS
Pallav Saikia from the Bay Area has written an article on this subject. If anyone is interested in exploring
this option please read his article at the following link:
http://www.xobdo.org/article/mac
Additional Useful Resources
For individuals who are new to reading and writing Assamese below are a couple of useful links to get
you started:
https://www.omniglot.com/writing/assamese.htm
www.omniglot.com is an excellent website to get the basics of a lot of the world’s languages
http://www.iitg.ac.in/rcilts/phaseI/newassamesedesign.pdf is a link to a pdf document created by IITG.
It is an excellent resource for someone who is interested in learning the Assamese alphabet. It also has
some useful vocabulary words.
Suranjoy Hazarika lives with his family in Skillman, NJ. He is part of a sub-group, Ashomiya Dialog Group
that has been formed under ASSNA. This article has been written on behalf of the group. Firstly he
would like to thank all people in Information Technology who made this article possible .The author
would like to thank the other active members of the group – Binoy K Bordoloi, Niraj Barbara, Kamalakshi
Hazarika, Satyajit Nath & Pallav Saikia. The group’s goal is to make people aware of the technology
available to write in Assamese and also to work on projects to encourage the next generation of
Assamese Americans to learn to speak, read and write Assamese. The group will produce a quarterly or
semi-annual newsletter to encourage exchange of ideas and raise awareness in the areas outlined
above. If you have any questions or feedback please send an email to WritingAssamese@gmail.com
