Letters to the
editor
THE STATESMAN,
KOLKATA 4 March 2006
Asom or Oxom, phonetically speaking
Sir,
I am writing this letter with reference to a decision by the Assam government to
change the name of the state to Asom. This is a wrong decision for certain
reasons. Asom is a Sanskritised spelling and not an Assamese spelling. The
proper Assamese spelling in the Roman script should be Oxom. The Assamese
gutteral kh sound is a well-recognised velar fricative, and is also found among
other languages including Greek and Russian. The International Phonetic
Association has designated the Greek letter, X, for this Assamese sound. This
sound is not represented by the letter, S, as written in the word Asom. As
such it is X and not S that should be used. Again, the first letter should
be O and not A. The letter A is used in Sanskrit and Hindi where they
have two As. In Assamese we have only one A. The correct vowel for the
Assamese pronunciation should be O. The Assam government by taking a decision
to use the Sanskritised form of spelling Asom instead of Oxom is trying to
kill the proper Assamese ethnic sound XO. This will be a great letdown for the
entire Assamese people, and we request the Assam government not to meddle with
the Assamese language. If it has to change the name, it should adopt the correct
spelling, i.e. Oxom. Yours, etc., Rajen Barua, Katy (Texas), USA, 4
March.
|
_______________________________________________
assam mailing list
assam@assamnet.org
http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org