The Ahom script or Tai Ahom Script is an abugida that is used to write the Ahom language, a dormant Tai language undergoing revival spoken by the Ahom people till the late 18th-century, who established the Ahom kingdom and ruled the eastern part of the Brahmaputra valley between the 13th and the 18th centuries. The old Ahom language today survives in the numerous manuscripts written in this script currently in institutional and private possession. Dibrugarh University has a 2 Years Post Graduate Diploma course in Tai language. The Centre for South East Asian Studies, Gauhati University on 27 April, 2026 launched a 6-momths Certificate Course in Tai-Ahom language and Medieval Manuscriptology.
History
Origins of the Language
A section of Mao-Shan people led by Prince Siu-Ka-Pha left the state of Muong-Mao-Lung in 1215 CE accompanied by three queens, two sons and a daughter. He was accompanied by Chiefs of five other dependant Muongs (States), their attendants and families, members of the priestly class and 9,000 soldiers. The language of these people was Tai, known today as Tai-Ahom to distinguish it from the sister language of other Tai groups residing in Assam and North East India, such as Tai-Khamti, Tai-Phake (or Phakial in Assamese), Tai-Aiton (or Aitonia in Assamese), Tai-Turung, Tai-Khamjang (or Khamjangia in Assamese). The Tai-Ahom language belongs to the South-West group of the Tai branch of the Tai-Kadai language family.
In 1904 Sir George Abraham Grierson made a systematic study of the Tai-Ahom language published in The Linguistic Survey of India, Vol-II. Others including Rev. Nathan Brown, B. H. Hodgson, Sir George Campbell, E. T. Dalton, G. H. Damant and P. R. T. Gurdon wrote about the alphabets, script, vocabulary of the Tai-Ahom language.
Origins of the Script
It is believed that the Ahom people adopted their script from either Old Mon or Old Burmese, in Upper Myanmar. This is supported based on similar shapes of characters between Ahom and Old Mon and Old Burmese scripts. It is clear, however, that the script and language would have changed during the few hundred years it was in use. The earliest surviving Ahom inscription, the Snake Pillar inscription, dates only to the late 15th–early 16th century, suggesting that the widespread use and standardisation of the script in the Ahom kingdom took place during the late medieval period..
Other "Lik" scripts are used for the Khamti, Phake, Aiton and Tai Nuea languages, as well as for other Tai languages across Northern Myanmar and Assam, in Northeast India. The Lik scripts have a limited inventory of 16 to 18 consonant symbols compared to the Tai Tham script, which possibly indicates that the scripts were not developed for writing Pali.
The various Burmese scripts that the Ahom script itself is derived from, was likely derived from the Indic, or Brahmi script, The Brahmic Script gradually spread to Southeast Asia (from the more western and/or northern regions of South Asia), through ports on trading routes. At these trading posts, ancient inscriptions have been found in Sanskrit, using scripts like the Brahmic Script, among others. At first, inscriptions were made in Sanskrit, Pali or various other Prakirts, but later the scripts were used to write the local Southeast Asian languages along with local varieties of the scripts being developed. By the 8th century, the scripts had diverged and separated into regional scripts.
In 1920 Rai Saheb Golap Chandra Barua published the "Ahom-Assamese-English Dictionary". In 1936 Ghana Kanta Barua published the Ahom Primer (with grammar). In 1964, Bimala Kanta Barua and Nandanath Deodhai Phukan compiled the Ahom Lexicons(based on original Tai Manuscripts) and published by Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, Government of Assam. Samples of writing in the Ahom Script (Buranji's) remain stored in Assamese collections. The manuscripts were reportedly traditionally produced on paper prepared from agarwood (locally known as sachi) bark.
The Ahom script is no longer used by the Ahom people to read and write in everyday life. However, it retains cultural significance and is used for religious ceremonies, chants and to read literature. A printed form of the font was developed in 1920, to be used in the first "Ahom-Assamese-English Dictionary".
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File:The Ahom script.png|The Ahom script
File:Tai Script of Ahom Kingdom.jpg|An Ahom manuscript preserved in the Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, Pan Bazaar, Guwahati.
File:Siu-nyut-pha coin.jpg|Coin of Ahom king Sunyatphaa in Ahom script
</gallery>
Letters
Like most abugidas, each letter has an inherent vowel of /a/. Other vowels are indicated by using diacritics, which can appear above, below, to the left, or to the right of the consonant. The script does not, however, indicate tones used in the language.
Punctuation
The following characters are used for punctuation: