JORHAT, Dec 29 � Friends of Assam and Seven Sisters (FASS) International, an international NGO organised a discourse on the topic, �The uniqueness of the Assamese scripts � its historical background�, at the Chandrakanta Handique Bhavan, here recently.
The main theme of the discourse was presented by two appointed speakers Rajen Barua from USA and Azizul Haque from Guwahati. The discourse was well attended with participation from representatives from Dibrugarh and Tezpur University respectively besides the local office bearers of the Asam Sahitya Sabha, Jorhat branch. The discourse was conducted by Dr Basanta Goswami, former general secretary of Asam Sahitya Sabha.
Rajen Barua who is an engineer from USA gave a lucid analysis of the historical background of the Assamese and the Bengali scripts.
The discourse also unanimously adopted a few decisions like the root Assamese-Bengali-Oriya-Maitheli scripts should not be called �Bengali� script but should be called �Kamrupi� script based on historical ground. This script should not be called �Purbi� or �Pub-Nagari� script as proposed by some quarters as these have no basis. Secondly, the name of the present Assamese script should be retained as �Assamese� and in no case it should be renamed with any other names.
Thirdly, unicode should establish a separate table for the Assamese scripts since there are too many dissimilarities between Assamese and Bengali in phonetics, spellings, alphabets, transliteration and others even though both the languages are using the same script. This was stated in a press release issued by Rajen Barua, FASS International, station Jorhat.
