[Assam] The future of Assamese language

[kamal deka]

The prophetical remark made by the chief minister of Assam on January
10,2009 in regard to the survivability of the Assamese language  drew my
sharp attention.I hope,his clairvoyance that the Assamese nationality will
be alive and well in the days to come remains true .
It is an undeniable fact that language do die for various reasons.One of the
main causes of ultimate disappearance of a language is the absorption by a
more widely-spoken and commercially used Lingua Franca.One would be
factually naive not to know that the Assamese language was displaced by
Bengali as court language and medium of instruction in Assam between 1837
and 1877.However,during the 1951 Census,Assamese speakers were shown to be
greater in number.This was possible because of the fact that Bengali
Muslims, for socio-political reasons, put their love of language on the
shelf and returned their language in Census as Assamese.The position of
Assamese as the language of the majority may be upset in any subsequent
Census if the migrants make up their mind to revise their choice of
mother-tongue and consequently reducing Assamese to a minority status.Should
such a scenario come to pass,is there any chance that the Assamese language
will do the vanishing act after a very long period of time ?
What do you think ?
By the way,this debate was initiated by Assam Sahitya Sabha of North America
during Bihu celebration in Houston last year.
KJD