156-495: Assamese is part of the easternmost group of the Indo-Aryan languages. History of Assamese literature can largely be classified into three periods, including: Early Assamese period (6th to 15th century A.D.), Middle Assamese period (17th to 19th Century A.D.) and, Modern Assamese (late 19th century onwards). The history of Assam can be traced to the 4th century AD, though relics from beyond this period suggests some kind of
312-501: A lead -based alloy which suited printing purposes so well that it is still used today. The mass production of metal letters was achieved by his key invention of a special hand mould , the matrix . The Latin alphabet proved to be an enormous advantage in the process because, in contrast to logographic writing systems , it allowed the type-setter to represent any text with a theoretical minimum of only around two dozen different letters. Another factor conducive to printing arose from
468-708: A Sanskritised approach to the language in his Asamiya Bhaxar Byakaran ("Grammar of the Assamese Language") (1859, 1873). Barua's approach was adopted by the Asamiya Bhasa Unnati Sadhini Sabha (1888, "Assamese Language Development Society") that emerged in Kolkata among Assamese students led by Lakshminath Bezbaroa . The Society published a periodical Jonaki and the period of its publication, Jonaki era , saw spirited negotiations on language standardisation. What emerged at
624-922: A catechism in Assamese. Brown found that the Assamese Bible published by William Carey from the Serampore Mission Press , in circulation at that time, consisted of Bengali and Sanskrit loan words, so it was idiomatically inadequate. Therefore, he undertook the project of translating the Bible into pure and simple Assamese and published the New Testament in 1848, from his press. Brown was also a pioneer in writing school books. His books on elementary arithmetic called Pratham ganana (1845), Dutio ganana (1855) and geography called Bhugulor biboran (1851) were much superior to Bengali books used in
780-602: A century after their first publication. The board has also worked on an Assamese Encyclopaedia. Among the most notable of the board's publications are the reproductions of Ahom and Shankari manuscripts. Also the Board published an influential magazine called Prakash . It was also instrumental in reissuing several of the Jonaki magazine copies, along with another influential magazine Banhi . The printing and publishing industry in Assam
936-514: A compositor into the desired lines of text. Several lines of text would be arranged at once and were placed in a wooden frame known as a galley . Once the correct number of pages were composed, the galleys would be laid face up in a frame, also known as a forme, which itself is placed onto a flat stone, 'bed,' or 'coffin.' The text is inked using two balls , pads mounted on handles. The balls were made of dog skin leather, because it has no pores, and stuffed with sheep's wool and were inked. This ink
1092-459: A dozen European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than 20 million volumes. In the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. By the mid-17th century, the first printing presses arrived in colonial America in response to the increasing demand for Bibles and other religious literature. The operation of
1248-503: A few by hand-copying . Gutenberg's newly devised hand mould made possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities. His two inventions, the hand mould and the movable-type printing press, together drastically reduced the cost of printing books and other documents in Europe, particularly for shorter print runs. From Mainz , the movable-type printing press spread within several decades to over 200 cities in
1404-650: A few decades. From a single print shop in Mainz , Germany, printing had spread to no less than around 270 cities in Central, Western and Eastern Europe by the end of the 15th century. As early as 1480, there were printers active in 110 different places in Germany, Italy, France , Spain , the Netherlands , Belgium , Switzerland , England , Bohemia and Poland . From that time on, it is assumed that "the printed book
1560-555: A few years, he was Associate Principal of Bennington Seminary and editor of a weekly newspaper called The Vermont Telegraph . He attended the Newton Theological Institute in order to prepare himself for work as a missionary. He graduated in 1832. The American Baptist Missionary Union appointed him as a missionary to Myanmar in 1833. He headed for Assam at the request of Captain Francis Jenkins ,
1716-526: A finished Sanskritized Assamese. Other poets in the court of Kamatapur like Harihara Vipra ( Harivara Vipra ) and Kaviratna Sarasvati rendered into Assamese, verse episodes from the Mahabharata in the early 14th century. Kaviraja Madhava Kandali in the 14th century is the first great poet of Assam. His extant work consists of a version of the Ramayana and a narrative poem Devajit . Another great poet
SECTION 10
#17327799487451872-503: A hand press connected to a steam engine ." In April 1811, the first production trial of this model occurred. He produced his machine with assistance from German engineer Andreas Friedrich Bauer . In 1814, Koenig and Bauer sold two of their first models to The Times in London , capable of 1,100 impressions per hour. The first edition so printed was on 28 November 1814. They improved the early model so that it could print on both sides of
2028-519: A kind of prose history of the Ahom kingdom , which besides giving the accurate history of Assam also strengthened the tradition of the written word in Assam. The post of "Likhakar Barua" was specially created for the writing of manuscripts recording the proceedings of the various departments under the King's rule. Most of the manuscripts are written on sanchi leaves. The greatest period of Assamese literature
2184-548: A major role in rallying support, and opposition, during the lead-up to the English Civil War , and later still the American and French Revolutions through newspapers, pamphlets and bulletins. The advent of the printing press brought with it issues involving censorship and freedom of the press. The invention of mechanical movable type printing led to a huge increase of printing activities across Europe within only
2340-581: A milestone in the development of Assamese language. Ward's wife Susan was also associated with the Orunodoi magazine and edited a few issues of this magazine. She revised the missionary Oliver Cutter's wife Harriet Cutter's work Vocabulary and Phrases in English and Assamese (1841) and added many new vocabularies making it about 4500 entries published Brief Vocabulary in English and Assamese with Rudimentary Exercises in 1864 from Mission Press, Sibsagar. This
2496-607: A missionary's widow in 1860. Ward was a linguist par excellence. He translated the books of Genesis, Exodus and Psalms of the Bible and published these from the Mission Press at Sivasagar. Ward revised the Assamese hymn book called Khristio Dharmageet for a new edition to which he added scores of original and translated hymns. In the fourth edition of the book published in 1890, sixty three hymns were credited to Ward. Ward worked along with Nathan Brown in building up Orunodoi . He contributed many articles for this magazine and
2652-448: A paper mill. However, it was not until a 1439 lawsuit against Gutenberg that an official record existed; witnesses' testimony discussed Gutenberg's types, an inventory of metals (including lead), and his type molds. Having previously worked as a professional goldsmith, Gutenberg made skillful use of the knowledge of metals he had learned as a craftsman. He was the first to make type from an alloy of lead , tin , and antimony , which
2808-609: A period when the Prakrit was at the cusp of differentiating into regional languages. The spirit and expressiveness of the Charyadas are today found in the folk songs called Deh-Bicarar Git . In the 12th-14th century works of Ramai Pundit ( Sunya Puran ), Boru Chandidas ( Krishna Kirtan ), Sukur Mamud ( Gopichandrar Gan ), Durllava Mullik ( Gobindachandrar Git ) and Bhavani Das ( Mainamatir Gan ) Assamese grammatical peculiarities coexist with features from Bengali language . Though
2964-492: A pre-history, through cave paintings, etchings on pots etc. The Charyapadas have almost been referred to as the earliest example of Assamese literature. The Charyapadas pertain to Buddhist songs penned within the period of 8th to 12th centuries. These writings, by the way, correspond to Oriya and Bengali languages as well. The phonological and morphological characteristics of these songs bear exceedingly powerful semblance with Assamese some of which are survive to this date. Despite
3120-486: A press became synonymous with the enterprise of printing and lent its name to a new medium of expression and communication, " the press ". The spread of mechanical movable type printing in Europe in the Renaissance introduced the era of mass communication , which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured
3276-408: A press in its completed form, with tympans attached to the end of the carriage, and with the frisket above the tympans. The tympans, inner and outer, are thin iron frames, one fitting into the other, on each of which is stretched a skin of parchment or a breadth of fine cloth. A woollen blanket or two with a few sheets of paper are placed between these, the whole thus forming a thin elastic pad, on which
SECTION 20
#17327799487453432-431: A reasonably cost-effective duplicating solution for commerce at this time. The table lists the maximum number of pages which the various press designs could print per hour . General: Printing presses: Other inventions: From old price tables it can be deduced that the capacity of a printing press around 1600, assuming a fifteen-hour workday, was between 3.200 and 3.600 impressions per day. This method almost doubled
3588-432: A sheet at once. This began the long process of making newspapers available to a mass audience, which helped spread literacy. From the 1820s it changed the nature of book production, forcing a greater standardization in titles and other metadata . Their company Koenig & Bauer AG is still one of the world's largest manufacturers of printing presses today. The steam-powered rotary printing press , invented in 1843 in
3744-472: A slightly different set of "schwa deletion" rules for its modern standard and early varieties. In the modern standard / ɔ / is generally deleted in the final position unless it is (1) /w/ ( ৱ ); or (2) /j/ ( য় ) after higher vowels like /i/ ( ই ) or /u/ ( উ ); though there are a few additional exceptions. The rule for deleting the final / ɔ / was not followed in Early Assamese . The initial / ɔ /
3900-420: A vowel length distinction, but have a wide set of back rounded vowels . In the case of Assamese, there are four back rounded vowels that contrast phonemically, as demonstrated by the minimal set: কলা kola [kɔla] ('deaf'), ক'লা kóla [kola] ('black'), কোলা kwla [kʊla] ('lap'), and কুলা kula [kula] ('winnowing fan'). The near-close near-back rounded vowel /ʊ/ is unique in this branch of
4056-415: Is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth ), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper, or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink and accelerated the process. Typically used for texts, the invention and global spread of
4212-481: Is a neutral blend of the eastern variety without its distinctive features. This core is further embellished with Goalpariya and Kamrupi idioms and forms. Assamese is native to Assam . It is also spoken in states of Arunachal Pradesh , Meghalaya and Nagaland . The Assamese script can be found in of present-day Burma . The Pashupatinath Temple in Nepal also has inscriptions in Assamese showing its influence in
4368-557: Is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable than the previously used water-based inks. As printing material he used both paper and vellum (high-quality parchment). In the Gutenberg Bible , Gutenberg made a trial of colour printing for a few of the page headings, present only in some copies. A later work, the Mainz Psalter of 1453, presumably designed by Gutenberg but published under
4524-513: Is another important journal of this era, like Jonaki , it too was a student magazine being brought out from Calcutta by members of the Assamese Literary Club. Banhi , meaning flute, a monthly periodical magazine was the brainchild of Lakshminath Bezbaroa, the celebrated littérateur; he was both the editor and publisher of this magazine, which was influential in propagating many influential writers and poets of Assam. The magazine
4680-582: Is generally assumed—which suggests that when the Indo-Aryan centers formed in the 4th–5th centuries CE, there were substantial Austroasiatic speakers that later accepted the Indo-Aryan vernacular . Based on the 7th-century Chinese traveller Xuanzang 's observations, Chatterji (1926) suggests that the Indo-Aryan vernacular differentiated itself in Kamarupa before it did in Bengal, and that these differences could be attributed to non-Indo-Aryan speakers adopting
4836-399: Is generally taken that 9 February 1889 is the first date of publication. We get conflicting figures on how many copies of the magazine were published and the year of its last publication. But the general consensus is that Jonaki was printed until 1898 from Calcutta: 11 issues in the first year, 12 issues in the second year, 10 issues in the third year, 11 issues in the fourth year, 7 issues in
Modern Assamese - Misplaced Pages Continue
4992-618: Is more famous as the Walter Scott of Assamese literature, being a writer of historical novels, having spent much time as researcher for E. A Gait's A History of Assam . The first English weekly The Times of Assam was printed from the "Radhanath Press" in Dibrugarh and the first issue came out on 5 January 1895. It was edited by Radhanath Changkakoti, who with the help of the Chief surgeon of Lakhimpur district, Dr. John Berry White set up
5148-786: Is never deleted. Modern Assamese uses the Assamese script . In medieval times, the script came in three varieties: Bamuniya , Garhgaya , and Kaitheli/Lakhari , which developed from the Kamarupi script . It very closely resembles the Mithilakshar script of the Maithili language , as well as the Bengali script . There is a strong literary tradition from early times. Examples can be seen in edicts, land grants and copper plates of medieval kings. Assam had its own manuscript writing system on
5304-415: Is out of print now. Bronson's work was not really an etymological dictionary but contained a very considerable collection of words culled from the lips of local people but without derivations. Hem Chandra Baruah (1836–1897) was the first Assamese to compile an etymological dictionary called Hem Kosh of the Assamese language, published in 1900 under the supervision of Capt. P. R. Gordon, ISC 33 years after
5460-438: Is presently an ailing one, with most books being "outsourced" for printing to Calcutta and New Delhi and the quality of most local printing and publishing houses being called to question, various organizations are currently trying to remedy this situation. Assamese language Assamese ( / ˌ æ s ə ˈ m iː z / ) or Asamiya ( অসমীয়া [ɔxɔmija] ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in
5616-470: Is renowned for the growth and development of the "Charit Puthi" (biographies). It was only with the coming of the missionaries that the first printed book entered Assamese literary circles; the first printed book being the New Testament ( Dharmapustakar Antobhag ) printed by William Carey in 1813 with the help of Atmaram Sharma and in 1833 the entire Bible. As in the other parts of the country,
5772-425: Is rolled under the platen , using a windlass mechanism. A small rotating handle called the 'rounce' is used to do this, and the impression is made with a screw that transmits pressure through the platen. To turn the screw the long handle attached to it is turned. This is known as the bar or 'Devil's Tail.' In a well-set-up press, the springiness of the paper, frisket, and tympan caused the bar to spring back and raise
5928-536: Is the closely related group of eastern dialects of Bengali (although a contrast with dental stops remains in those dialects). / r / is normally realised as [ ɹ ] or [ ɻ ] . Assamese is unusual among Eastern Indo-Aryan languages for the presence of /x/ (realised as [ x ] or [ χ ] , depending on the speaker and speech register), due historically to the MIA sibilants' lenition to /x/ (initially) and /h/ (non-initially). The use of
6084-459: Is unique in the group of Indo-Aryan languages as it lacks a dental-retroflex distinction among the coronal stops as well as the lack of postalveolar affricates and fricatives. Historically, the dental and retroflex series merged into alveolar stops . This makes Assamese resemble non-Indic languages of Northeast India (such as Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan languages ). The only other language to have fronted retroflex stops into alveolars
6240-500: The 42-line Bible . After much experimentation, Gutenberg managed to overcome the difficulties which traditional water-based inks caused by soaking the paper, and found the formula for an oil-based ink suitable for high-quality printing with metal type. A printing press, in its classical form, is a standing mechanism, ranging from 5 to 7 feet (1.5 to 2.1 m) long, 3 feet (0.91 m) wide, and 7 feet (2.1 m) tall. The small individual metal letters known as type would be set up by
6396-1110: The Arabic script by Assamese Muslims . One example is Tariqul Haq Fi Bayane Nurul Haq by Zulqad Ali (1796–1891) of Sivasagar , which is one of the oldest works in modern Assamese prose. In the early 1970s, it was agreed upon that the Roman script was to be the standard writing system for Nagamese Creole . The following is a sample text in Assamese of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights : Assamese in Assamese alphabet Assamese in WRA Romanisation Assamese in SRA Romanisation Assamese in Common Romanisation Assamese in IAST Romanisation Assamese in
Modern Assamese - Misplaced Pages Continue
6552-544: The Assamese alphabet , an abugida system, from left to right, with many typographic ligatures . Assamese was designated as a classical Indian language by the Government of India on 3 October 2024 on account of its antiquity and literary traditions. Assamese originated in Old Indo-Aryan dialects, though the exact nature of its origin and growth is not clear yet. It is generally believed that Assamese and
6708-532: The International Phonetic Alphabet Gloss Translation The Assamese language has the following characteristic morphological features: Verbs in Assamese are negated by adding /n/ before the verb, with /n/ picking up the initial vowel of the verb. For example: Assamese has a large collection of classifiers , which are used extensively for different kinds of objects, acquired from
6864-593: The Kamatapuri lects derive from the Kamarupi dialect of Eastern Magadhi Prakrit though some authors contest a close connection of Assamese with Magadhi Prakrit. The Indo-Aryan, which appeared in the 4th–5th century in Assam, was probably spoken in the new settlements of Kamarupa —in urban centers and along the Brahmaputra river—surrounded by Tibeto-Burman and Austroasiatic communities. Kakati's (1941) assertion that Assamese has an Austroasiatic substrate
7020-603: The Mediterranean and medieval diet . The device was also used from very early on in urban contexts as a cloth press for printing patterns. Gutenberg may have also been inspired by the paper presses which had spread through the German lands since the late 14th century and which worked on the same mechanical principles. During the Islamic Golden Age , Arab Muslims were printing texts, including passages from
7176-624: The Qur’an , embracing the Chinese craft of paper making, developed it and adopted it widely in the Muslim world , which led to a major increase in the production of manuscript texts. In Egypt during the Fatimid era, the printing technique was adopted reproducing texts on paper strips by hand and supplying them in various copies to meet the demand. Gutenberg adopted the basic design, thereby mechanizing
7332-691: The Sino-Tibetan languages . A few examples of the most extensive and elaborate use of classifiers are given below: In Assamese, classifiers are generally used in the numeral + classifier + noun (e.g. /ezɔn manuh/ ejon manuh 'one man') or the noun + numeral + classifier (e.g. /manuh ezɔn/ manuh ejon 'one man') forms. Most verbs can be converted into nouns by the addition of the suffix /ɔn/ . For example, /kʰa/ ('to eat') can be converted to /kʰaɔn/ khaon ('good eating'). Assamese has 8 grammatical cases : বাৰীত barit garden- LOC গৰু góru- Printing press A printing press
7488-642: The United States by Richard M. Hoe , ultimately allowed millions of copies of a page in a single day. Mass production of printed works flourished after the transition to rolled paper, as continuous feed allowed the presses to run at a much faster pace. Hoe's original design operated at up to 2,000 revolutions per hour where each revolution deposited 4 page images, giving the press a throughput of 8,000 pages per hour. By 1891, The New York World and Philadelphia Item were operating presses producing either 90,000 4-page sheets per hour or 48,000 8-page sheets. In
7644-693: The north-eastern Indian state of Assam , where it is an official language. It serves as a lingua franca in parts of the Northeast India from a long time, in Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland of India the Assamese language developed as a creole and pidgin language known as Nefamese and Nagamese creole which has become a lingua franca in Nagaland. It has over 15 million native speakers according to Ethnologue . Nefamese , an Assamese-based pidgin in Arunachal Pradesh ,
7800-507: The typographical principle , the idea of creating a text by reusing individual characters, was known and had been cropping up since the 12th century and possibly before (the oldest known application dating back as far as the Phaistos disc ). The first movable type was invented by Chinese engineer Bi Sheng in the 11th century during the Song dynasty , and a book dating to 1193 recorded
7956-478: The velar nasal (the English ng in sing ) extensively. While in many languages, the velar nasal is commonly restricted to preceding velar sounds, in Assamese it can occur intervocalically. This is another feature it shares with other languages of Northeast India , though in Assamese the velar nasal never occurs word-initially. Eastern Indic languages like Assamese, Bengali, Sylheti , and Odia do not have
SECTION 50
#17327799487458112-408: The "Radhanath Press". Shivnath Bhattacharya established the "Bhattacharya Press", around the same time, printing mostly school text books and religious books. Nandeswar Chakravarty, a tea planter set up the "Sadasiva Press" in 1905, while the "Ahom Press" established in 1910 was another important press. It was due to the effort of Chandra Kumar Agarwalla that the "Assam Printers and Publishers Limited"
8268-645: The 15th and subsequent centuries. In these writings the 13th/14th-century archaic forms are no longer found. Sankardev pioneered a prose-style of writing in the Ankia Naat . This was further developed by Bhattadeva who translated the Bhagavata Purana and Bhagavad Gita into Assamese prose. Bhattadev's prose was classical and restrained, with a high usage of Sanskrit forms and expressions in an Assamese syntax; and though subsequent authors tried to follow this style, it soon fell into disuse. In this writing
8424-454: The 19th century. Prominent among these were Asam Bilasini , (1871, published by Dharma Prakash Press, Auniati Satra, Majuli) Asam Darpan (1874, Tezpur), Asam Mihir (1872, Guwahati), Goalpara Hitshadini (1876, Goalpara), Chandrodaya (1876, Nagaon), Asam Dipak (1876, Guwahati) Jonaki (Calcutta, 1889) and Assam News (an Anglo-Assamese weekly, 1885, Guwahati), Assam Bandhu (1885, Nagaon), Mau (1886, Calcutta). Oliver Thomas Cutter
8580-912: The 27 works composed by him the most important are the last canto of the Ramayana , some portions of the Bhagvata Purana, Kirttanaghosha, Rukmini-harana , a narrative poem depicting an episode of the life of Krishna , the Bhakti-pradipa and the Nimi-nava-siddha-samvada . He also wrote a number of dramas that show a Maithili influence. Another kind of poetry introduced by him was "Bargeet", devotional poems, extremely popular to even this day. The father of Assamese prose literature Bhattadeva wrote three major books of Vaishnavism - Katha Geeta, Katha Bhagawat and Katha Ratnawali . He also penned other great books. The 17th century,
8736-466: The Assamese Language and on Vernacular Education (1855), Bronson's A Spelling Book and Vocabulary in English, Assamese, Singpho and Naga (1839) printed at the Mission Press in Sibsagar are worth mentioning. After Brown, the Orunodoi was in circulation with occasional breaks until 1880. Following the example of Orunodoi , several newspapers and magazines were published in Assam in the second half of
8892-566: The Baptist Missionary Press in Sibsagar; it was first published in January 1846. The tag line for the magazine was, "The Orunodoi, monthly paper, devoted to religion, science and general intelligence". It continued to be published until 1879; the press however was sold in 1883. The editors of this magazine include Dr. Nathan Brown, A.H Denforth, William Ward, Miles Bronson and others. Though propagation of Christianity remained
9048-553: The Baptist missionaries printed books in Assamese and his son Chandra Kumar Agarwalla became a leading literary figure in the late 19th and early 20th century, and it was Chandra Kumar Agarwalla who helped in printing, publishing and editing Jonaki . Chandra Kumar was himself a student of Presidency College, Calcutta and a member of the Sabha; it was also he who named the magazine Jonaki . Chandra Kumar came forward to publish and edit
9204-460: The Buranjis is nearly modern with some minor differences in grammar and with a pre-modern orthography. The Assamese plural suffixes ( -bor , -hat ) and the conjunctive participles ( -gai : dharile-gai ; -hi : pale-hi , baril-hi ) become well established. The Buranjis, dealing with statecraft, was also the vehicle by which Arabic and Persian elements crept into the language in abundance. Due to
9360-644: The Commissioner of Assam. This request was made in order to launch the "Shan Mission" aiming to help the British administration to enlighten, refine and educate the warrior tribes of Shan , Khamtis and Singphos . Brown and his associate Oliver Cutter along with their printing press sailed to Calcutta . After a stopover in Calcutta, they set out for Sadiya by river. A long, tiresome and dangerous trip brought them to their destination on 23 March 1836. With
9516-473: The EIC officials in an intense debate in the 1850s to reinstate Assamese. Among the local personalities Anandaram Dhekial Phukan drew up an extensive catalogue of medieval Assamese literature (among other works) and pioneered the effort among the natives to reinstate Assamese in Assam. Though this effort was not immediately successful the administration eventually declared Assamese the official vernacular in 1873 on
SECTION 60
#17327799487459672-530: The Gauda-Kamarupa stage is generally accepted and partially supported by recent linguistic research, it has not been fully reconstructed. A distinctly Assamese literary form appeared first in the 13th-century in the courts of the Kamata kingdom when Hema Sarasvati composed the poem Prahlāda Carita . In the 14th-century, Madhava Kandali translated the Ramayana into Assamese ( Saptakanda Ramayana ) in
9828-488: The Jatiiya Sikha Samanay Parishad. Under the guidance of Prof Sudmerson, the principal of Cotton College Chaliha completed the task in 1909 after putting in two years of effort. Chaliha however could not find a publisher for it. Nandeswar Chakravarty, the owner of "The Agency Company", a publishing firm, stepped forward to help him and printed the dictionary in his "Sadasiva Press". The dictionary
9984-733: The Reverend William Ward, played an important role in propagating the printing of the book in Assam. Ward was born on 28 August 1821 at Sheffield, Ohio , USA. He graduated from Madison University in 1848. The American Baptist Missionary Union appointed him as a missionary to Assam. He and his wife, Cordelia, reached Guwahati in April 1851. He worked in Guwahati for the first six years and then another ten years in Sibsagar . Ward's wife, Cordelia, died in 1859 and he married one Susan,
10140-534: The Shan Mission. Jenkins, the commissioner of Assam also promised to contribute Rs 2,000 for a printing press. Cutter's main role was to print and publish books that were mostly translated or written by Brown. On arrival Captain Jenkins presented them a large printing press, and contributed Rs 500 for its support. They published Khamti, Singpho and Assamese books. Cutter's wife was actively involved in teaching in
10296-417: The age of seventeen by contributing articles to Orunodoi . He then wrote Axomiya Loraar Mitro , a textbook for schoolchildren modeled on English textbooks, publishing it from the Mission Press at Sibsagar. He wrote a pamphlet called A few remarks on the Assamese Language, and on the Vernacular Education in Assam printing 100 copies from the Mission Press and distributing it to various government officials for
10452-486: The areas of Assam". It was however, rather strangely a Marwari businessman from Tezpur who would finally come to the aid of the Sabha, which did not have the financial means to have the magazine printed. The "Agarwalla" family of Tezpur, is of course not an unfamiliar name in the world of Assamese literature, the most famous of them being the illustrious poet, writer, filmmaker, musician, freedom fighter Jyotiprasad Agarwalla (1903–1951). Haribilash Agarwalla (1842–1916), like
10608-551: The author was less important, since a copy of Aristotle made in Paris would not be exactly identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author has been entirely lost. Because the printing process ensured that the same information fell on the same pages, page numbering, tables of contents , and indices became common, though they previously had not been unknown. The process of reading also changed, gradually moving over several centuries from oral readings to silent, private reading. Over
10764-415: The bark of the saanchi tree in which religious texts and chronicles were written, as opposed to the pan-Indian system of Palm leaf manuscript writing. The present-day spellings in Assamese are not necessarily phonetic. Hemkosh ( হেমকোষ [ɦɛmkʊx] ), the second Assamese dictionary, introduced spellings based on Sanskrit , which are now the standard. Assamese has also historically been written using
10920-406: The board also helps in publishing rare manuscripts of historical, academic and cultural importance and also helps in preserving the originals, as well as reprinting classics, such as the great Sanskrit scholar Anandaram Borooah's English-Sanskrit Dictionary, Ancient Geography of India, Namalinganushashana, Bhabhabhuti and His Place in Sanskrit Literature , etc. and other such works, republished nearly
11076-522: The book existing in the format of the codex , which had originated in the Roman period . Considered the most important advance in the history of the book prior to printing itself, the codex had completely replaced the ancient scroll at the onset of the Middle Ages (AD 500). The codex holds considerable practical advantages over the scroll format: it is more convenient to read (by turning pages), more compact, and less costly, and both recto and verso sides could be used for writing or printing, unlike
11232-472: The cantonment. Along with Brown he was involved in translating and printing numerous and diverse books and pamphlets. Apart from portions of the Bible, hymn books, tracts and school books in Assamese, a good number of other works were published under Cutter's care at the Mission Press. In 1853, Cutter left the mission work and joined as superintendent of the Government Press in Calcutta. Even today,
11388-586: The colonial economic exploitation, the Bengali linguistic hegemony was perceived as the real threat to the burgeoning Assamese nationality". Jonaki Era, Age of Romanticism in Assamese Literature Jonaki era is also known as the age of Romanticism in Assamese literature. The Jonaki magazine, published by "probashi" Assamese students in Calcutta, was the result of this zeal. 'Bhāxār bikāx holehe jātir bikāx hobo' (The nation develops only when
11544-629: The court of Mahamanikya , a Kachari king from central Assam. Though the Assamese idiom in these works is fully individualised, some archaic forms and conjunctive particles too are found. This period corresponds to the common stage of proto-Kamta and early Assamese. The emergence of Sankardev 's Ekasarana Dharma in the 15th century triggered a revival in language and literature . Sankardev produced many translated works and created new literary forms— Borgeets (songs), Ankia Naat (one-act plays)—infusing them with Brajavali idioms; and these were sustained by his followers Madhavdev and others in
11700-415: The detriment of Latin 's status as lingua franca . In the 19th century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on an industrial scale. The rapid economic and socio-cultural development of late medieval society in Europe created favorable intellectual and technological conditions for Gutenberg's improved version of the printing press:
11856-485: The development of Assamese language and literature is the primary aim of the organization. For that purpose it strives to preserve the old Assamese texts available, to translate different important books from Sanskrit and other languages into Assamese which are not available in the mother tongue, to develop reading habit among the masses to introduce pure grammar and orthography instead of the impure orthography and grammar, and to create one standard written language all through
12012-613: The development of Bengali to replace Persian, the language of administration in Mughal India, and maintained that Assamese was a dialect of Bengali. Amidst this loss of status the American Baptist Mission (ABM) established a press in Sibsagar in 1846 leading to publications of an Assamese periodical ( Orunodoi ), the first Assamese grammar by Nathan Brown (1846), and the first Assamese-English dictionary by Miles Bronson (1863). The ABM argued strongly with
12168-474: The early birthplace of the printed book in Assam. He remained there until 1855. Towards the end of 1844, Brown travelled on foot from Sibsagar to Guwahati , visiting villages in order to study the diverse cultural backgrounds of the people. He along with two other missionaries, Miles Bronson and Cyrus Barker, organized and founded the first Baptist church at Panbazar in Guwahati on 25 January 1845. Brown also pioneered in establishing schools in different parts of
12324-568: The editorial work whereas Oliver Cutter was involved in printing and publishing the magazine. Brown was the editor of this magazine until he left for US. Under his editorship, Orunodoi published history by bringing out the texts of old chronicles in properly edited form such as Chutia Buranji, Purani Asom Buranji and Kamrupar Buranji . He also patronized various Assamese scholars and helped them publish. Among these publications Kashinath Tamuly Phukan's Asom Buranji (1842) and Anandaram Dhekial Phukan's Axomiya Lorar Mitro (1849) and A Few Remarks on
12480-456: The emergence of different styles of secular prose in medicine, astrology, arithmetic, dance, music, besides religious biographies and the archaic prose of magical charms. Most importantly this was also when Assamese developed a standardised prose in the Buranjis —documents related to the Ahom state dealing with diplomatic writings, administrative records and general history. The language of
12636-492: The end of those negotiations was a standard close to the language of the Buranjis with the Sanskritised orthography of Hemchandra Barua. As the political and commercial center moved to Guwahati in the mid-twentieth century, of which Dispur the capital of Assam is a suburb and which is situated at the border between the western and central dialect speaking regions, standard Assamese used in media and communications today
12792-420: The entrepreneurial spirit of emerging capitalism increasingly made its impact on medieval modes of production, fostering economic thinking and improving the efficiency of traditional work processes. The sharp rise of medieval learning and literacy amongst the middle class led to an increased demand for books which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating. Technologies preceding
12948-522: The establishment of the first printing press in Assam, Brown's arrival ushered in an era of literary development in the region. Due to inadequate assistance from the Mission and due to tribal aggression in Sadiya, Brown had to shift his base to Joypur near Naharkatiya in 1839 and then to Sibsagar in 1843. He found Sibsagar to be a better place to work from. In fact Upper Assam is seen the hub of printing and
13104-537: The establishment of widely disseminated scholarly journals, helping to bring on the Scientific Revolution . Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, "One Author, one work (title), one piece of information" (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before,
13260-404: The eve of Assam becoming a Chief Commissioner's Province in 1874. In the extant medieval Assamese manuscripts the orthography was not uniform. The ABM had evolved a phonemic orthography based on a contracted set of characters. Working independently Hemchandra Barua provided an etymological orthography and his etymological dictionary, Hemkosh , was published posthumously. He also provided
13416-512: The fifth year, 11 issues in the sixth year, 6 issues in the seventh year, 1 issue in the eighth year, with the total number of 69 issues were published. Jonaki was again published from Guwahati in the year 1901 which continued until 1903. A pioneer in the journalism movement of Assam, Chandra Kumar started an Assamese weekly called Asamiya from Dibrugarh in 1918. From 1924, he published it from his newly established press at Kharghuli (Guwahati) called "Asamiya Press". Bijuli (1891) meaning thunder
13572-447: The first copyright laws were passed. On the other hand, the printing press was criticized for allowing the dissemination of information that may have been incorrect. A second outgrowth of this popularization of knowledge was the decline of Latin as the language of most published works, to be replaced by the vernacular language of each area, increasing the variety of published works. The printed word also helped to unify and standardize
13728-445: The first Assamese grammar book. He wrote books on elementary arithmetic and geography which were much superior to Bengali books used in schools at that time. In this he was assisted by his wife Eliza, who was a translator in her own right. Brown was also a pioneer in the unearthing of old manuscripts and in editing and publishing them. Brown was involved in teaching, translating and preparing books in Assamese. He translated and published
13884-669: The first copper movable type. This received limited use compared to woodblock printing. The technology spread outside China, as the oldest printed book using metal movable type was the Jikji , printed in Korea in 1377 during the Goryeo era. Other notable examples include the Prüfening inscription from Germany, letter tiles from England and Altarpiece of Pellegrino II in Italy. However,
14040-425: The first person future tense ending -m ( korim : "will do"; kham : "will eat") is seen for the first time. The language moved to the court of the Ahom kingdom in the seventeenth century, where it became the state language. In parallel, the proselytising Ekasarana dharma converted many Bodo-Kachari peoples and there emerged many new Assamese speakers who were speakers of Tibeto-Burman languages. This period saw
14196-473: The force required by 90%, while doubling the size of the printed area. With a capacity of 480 pages per hour, the Stanhope press doubled the output of the old style press. Nonetheless, the limitations inherent to the traditional method of printing became obvious. Two ideas altered the design of the printing press radically: First, the use of steam power for running the machinery, and second the replacement of
14352-559: The foundation of the novel in Assamese literature. Padmanath Gohain Baruah's Bhanumati is generally taken to be the first "genuine" novel in Assamese, first serialized in Bijuli magazine from 1890 to 1891 Lakshminath Bezbaroa 's Padumkuwori published in 1891 was the other important novel. Miri Jiyori (1894) is an important novel in Assamese, written by Rajnikanta Bordoloi, Bordoloi was a member of Axomiā Bhāxā Unnati Xādhini Xabhā. Bordoloi
14508-482: The imprint of his successors Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer , had elaborate red and blue printed initials. The Printing Revolution occurred when the spread of the printing press facilitated the wide circulation of information and ideas, acting as an "agent of change" through the societies that it reached. Demand for bibles and other religious literature was one of the main drivers of the very rapid initial expansion of printing. Much later, printed literature played
14664-819: The influence of the Ahom state the speech in eastern Assam took a homogeneous and standard form. The general schwa deletion that occurs in the final position of words came into use in this period. The modern period of Assamese begins with printing—the publication of the Assamese Bible in 1813 from the Serampore Mission Press . But after the British East India Company (EIC) removed the Burmese in 1826 and took complete administrative control of Assam in 1836, it filled administrative positions with people from Bengal, and introduced Bengali language in its offices, schools and courts. The EIC had earlier promoted
14820-522: The language develops) was the slogan of the early Assamese intelligentsia and they began the process of standardization of the language by standardizing orthography, writing grammars and dictionary, and most importantly by using a standardized version in print. By the end of the nineteenth century the language spoken in Upper and Middle Assam became the accepted standard language of Assam as a direct intervention of this group of young men", writes Uddipan Dutta in
14976-601: The language family. But in lower Assam, ও is pronounced the same as অ' (ó): compare কোলা kwla [kóla] and মোৰ mwr [mór] . Assamese has vowel harmony . The vowels [i] and [u] cause the preceding mid vowels and the high back vowels to change to [e] and [o] and [u] respectively. Assamese is one of the few languages spoken in India which exhibit a systematic process of vowel harmony. The inherent vowel in standard Assamese, / ɔ /, follows deletion rules analogous to " schwa deletion " in other Indian languages. Assamese follows
15132-536: The language. The newly differentiated vernacular, from which Assamese eventually emerged, is evident in the Prakritisms present in the Sanskrit of the Kamarupa inscriptions . The earliest forms of Assamese in literature are found in the 9th-century Buddhist verses called Charyapada the language of which bear affinities with Assamese (as well as Bengali, Bhojpuri, Maithili and Odia) and which belongs to
15288-416: The magazine on two conditions - that every member of the Sabha participate in the operational activities of the magazine and that every member should write an article for the magazine. Violation of any of these two conditions would result in a fine of Rs 15. The date of the first publication of the magazine is not mentioned in it. Only the Assamese month "Māgho" and the year of publication 1889 are mentioned. It
15444-423: The main aim of the paper, it contained other articles related to science, current affairs, astrology, history, and local trivia. This paper helped in entrenching the Assamese intelligentsia, bringing into the forefront three key figures of Assamese literary world, Anandaram Dhekial Phukan , Hem Chandra Baruah and Nidhi Levi Pharowal. The crowning glory of Brown's career was Orunodoi which means 'the dawn'. Brown did
15600-469: The masses in the Reformation , and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. The sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class . Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its peoples led to the rise of proto- nationalism and accelerated the development of European vernaculars , to
15756-551: The middle of the 19th century, there was a separate development of jobbing presses , small presses capable of printing small-format pieces such as billheads , letterheads, business cards, and envelopes. Jobbing presses were capable of quick setup, with an average setup time for a small job was under 15 minutes, and quick production. Even on treadle-powered jobbing presses it was considered normal to get 1,000 impressions per hour [iph] with one pressman, with speeds of 1,500 iph often attained on simple envelope work. Job printing emerged as
15912-548: The missionaries with their interest in propagating Christianity were the initiators in the establishment of the first printing press in Assam as well. Christianity being the religion of the book and the missionaries seeking easy accessibility to the locals, almost always learnt the local languages, translating the word of God (the New Testament more so than the Old Testament ) for the use of the common people. For this purpose various pamphlets , magazines and other such media
16068-538: The next 200 years, the wider availability of printed materials led to a dramatic rise in the adult literacy rate throughout Europe. The printing press was an important step towards the democratization of knowledge . Within 50 or 60 years of the invention of the printing press, the entire classical canon had been reprinted and widely promulgated throughout Europe (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). More people had access to knowledge both new and old, more people could discuss these works. Book production became more commercialised, and
16224-472: The operations of the presses under his care. However tribal protest at the conversion activities carried on by the missionaries soon made Joypur an extremely difficult place to work in and also inconvenient for printing due to threats from the locals, for which Cutter had to hide his presses. Finally, in 1843 Cutter moved to Sibsagar and established the printing press along the bank of the Dikhow River near
16380-589: The page, did not exceed an output of forty pages per day. Of Erasmus 's work, at least 750,000 copies were sold during his lifetime alone (1469–1536). In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and papacy alike by surprise. In the period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone skyrocketed sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, Luther 's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies. The rapidity of typographical text production, as well as
16536-492: The paper. Earlier, too he had managed a paper called Sadinia Batori . When the Dainik Batori was started, Bagmibor Nilmoni Phukan was appointed as its editor. "Though Nagarar Katha , a single-page local daily, was published by Mafajal Hussain (Baputa), which included only news pertaining to Jorhat town about one month earlier than the Dainik Batori , critics hesitate to consider it as a full-fledged daily newspaper. It
16692-410: The past, it was the court language of the Ahom kingdom from the 17th century. Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages , Assamese evolved at least before the 7th century CE from the middle Indo-Aryan Magadhi Prakrit . Its sister languages include Angika , Bengali , Bishnupriya Manipuri , Chakma , Chittagonian , Hajong , Rajbangsi , Maithili , Rohingya and Sylheti . It is written in
16848-479: The past. There is a significant Assamese-speaking diaspora worldwide. Assamese is the official language of Assam, and one of the 22 official languages recognised by the Republic of India . The Assam Secretariat functions in Assamese. The Assamese phonemic inventory consists of eight vowels , ten diphthongs , and twenty-three consonants (including two semivowels ). The Assamese phoneme inventory
17004-424: The place at Sibsagar where Cutter established the printing press is locally known as Chapakhana. The Asom Year Book 2008 acknowledges Cutter, Brown and Bronson among the six foreigners (along with Edward Gait, John Berry White and Charles Alexander Bruce) who rendered benevolent service for Assam. While Nathan Brown and Miles Bronson are well known for their contributions, however, a lesser known junior missionary,
17160-399: The platen, the windlass turned again to move the bed back to its original position, the tympan and frisket raised and opened, and the printed sheet removed. Such presses were always worked by hand. After around 1800, iron presses were developed, some of which could be operated by steam power . The function of the printing press was described by William Skeen in 1872: this sketch represents
17316-431: The press that led to the press's invention included: manufacturing of paper , development of ink, woodblock printing , and invention of eyeglasses . At the same time, a number of medieval products and technological processes had reached a level of maturity which allowed their potential use for printing purposes. Gutenberg took up these far-flung strands, combined them into one complete and functioning system, and perfected
17472-540: The press. Dr. Berry White himself was a shareholder in this press, holding twenty five shares, while at his recommendation Mr. John Davidson, the Superintendent of the Upper Assam Tea Company also purchased twenty five shares. But Berry White left for England before the company could be consolidated and though it is rumoured that a press was sent by the man which was not delivered to Radhanath by
17628-465: The price of paper to one-sixth of parchment and then falling further. Papermaking centers reached Germany a century later. Despite this it appears that the final breakthrough of paper depended just as much on the rapid spread of movable-type printing. Codices of parchment, which in terms of quality is superior to any other writing material , still had a substantial share in Gutenberg's edition of
17784-459: The printing flatbed with the rotary motion of cylinders. Both elements were for the first time successfully implemented by the German printer Friedrich Koenig in a series of press designs devised between 1802 and 1818. Having moved to London in 1804, Koenig soon met Thomas Bensley and secured financial support for his project in 1807. Patented in 1810, Koenig had designed a steam press "much like
17940-497: The printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium. In Germany , around 1440, the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press, which started the Printing Revolution . Modelled on the design of existing screw presses , a single Renaissance movable-type printing press could produce up to 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty by hand-printing and
18096-420: The printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million copies. In the following century, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. European printing presses of around 1600 were capable of producing between 1,500 and 3,600 impressions per workday. By comparison, Far Eastern printing, where the back of the paper was manually rubbed to
18252-522: The printing process through all its stages by adding a number of inventions and innovations of his own: The screw press which allowed direct pressure to be applied on a flat plane was already of great antiquity in Gutenberg's time and was used for a wide range of tasks. Introduced in the 1st century AD by the Romans , it was commonly employed in agricultural production for pressing grapes for wine and olives for oil, both of which formed an integral part of
18408-501: The printing process. Printing, however, put a demand on the machine quite different from pressing. Gutenberg adapted the construction so that the pressing power exerted by the platen on the paper was now applied both evenly and with the required sudden elasticity. To speed up the printing process, he introduced a movable undertable with a plane surface on which the sheets could be swiftly changed. The concept of movable type existed prior to 15th century Europe; sporadic evidence that
18564-505: The printing speed and produced more than 40 copies a day. Printing technology reached its peak at this point. At the same time, then, as the printing press in the physical, technological sense was invented, 'the press' in the extended sense of the word also entered the historical stage. The phenomenon of publishing was born. The outstanding difference between the two ends of the Old World was the absence of screw-presses from China, but this
18720-628: The publication of the Hem Kosh . The dictionary contains 36,816 words in all. A third edition of this dictionary was also published by the University of Guwahati in 1987 duly edited by Dr. Maheswar Neog and Dr. Upendranath Goswami. Another Assamese dictionary called Adhunik Asamiya Abhidhan has been published by Assam Prakasan Parishad in 1977 under the editorship of Dr. Maheswar Neog, Rajanikanta Deva Sarma and Nava Kanta Baruah. The Asam Sahitya Sabha with its motto "Chiro Senehi Mur Bhaxa Jononi"
18876-584: The publication of the Bronson dictionary. It contained about 22,346 words. It was published and is still under publication by the Hemkosh Printers. In 1873 he wrote a first Primer of the Assamese Language for which he obtained a reward of Rs. 500. He was the author of a treatise called "Notes on the marriage system of the people of Assam" and of two farcical plays the Kania Kirtan which exposed
19032-580: The purpose of putting forward the case of Assamese language. Printing in Assamese became part of the greater movement against "foreigners". The identity crisis caused due to the removal of Assamese as official language of Assam in favour of Bengali, gave rise to a movement against "bohiragata", a resentment to the enforced language and a parallel struggle to regain the collective voice of a community. Uddipan Dutta says in his essay "The Growth of Print Nationalism and Assamese Identity in Two early Magazines", "Instead of
19188-488: The railway manager, however Radhanath set up the press with money collected from friends, the press sadly caught fire in 1883. However Radhanath started working to set up another press. In 1893, he went to Calcutta as a witness before the Royal Opium Commission, and while returning to Assam, collected enough money to publish a newspaper. He set up The Times of Assam with a sum of rupees six hundred. The paper
19344-516: The reliability of trade and led to the decline of merchant guilds and the rise of individual traders. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution , the mechanics of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press were still essentially unchanged, although new materials in its construction, amongst other innovations, had gradually improved its printing efficiency. By 1800, Lord Stanhope had built a press completely from cast iron which reduced
19500-510: The rich historical details of the pre-Ahom kingdom, literary history of Assam has been traced to the mystic lyrics, known as the "caryas" - esoteric doctrines and erotic practices of the later Sahajayana form of Mahayana Buddhism , written by 23 "siddha-purusas" (8th to 12th century AD). The oldest Assamese writer is Hema Saraswati of the late 13th century. His Prahlada-Charita based on the Sanskrit Vishnu Purana depicts
19656-440: The same essay. The students living in Calcutta at the end of the nineteenth century in various "messes" strove towards the development of the Assamese language. One issue of the magazine (Vol. 5, No. 7) relates the inception of the magazine as the outcome of the expat students' meeting on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 67 Mirzapur Street mess on Saturday 25 August 1888. Thus a committee was set up - Asamiya Bhasa Unnati Sadhini Sabha ,
19812-502: The school and preparing books for the press. Cutter went to Calcutta for a supply of additional type for his press. After shifting their base to Joypur near Naharkatiya in 1839, Cutter became involved in establishing more Assamese schools and wrote a 252-page Vocabulary and Phrases in English and Assamese, published in 1840 from the Mission Press at Joypur. Looking for a more hygienic and conducive place for work, Brown shifted to Sibsagar in 1841 while Cutter continued at Joypur superintending
19968-497: The schools at that time. He also translated and published John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress into Assamese. Brown's wife, Eliza, also translated a dozen tracts into Assamese and wrote arithmetic textbooks and story books for children. Due to ill health and certain problems in Home Mission, Brown, after 20 years of successful service, left Assam on 13 February 1855 for US. Orunodoi was the first Assamese magazine, printed by
20124-491: The scroll. A fourth development was the early success of medieval papermakers at mechanizing paper manufacture. The introduction of water-powered paper mills , the first certain evidence of which dates to 1282, allowed for a massive expansion of production and replaced the laborious handcraft characteristic of both Chinese and Muslim papermaking. Papermaking centres began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy , reducing
20280-464: The sharp fall in unit costs, led to the issuing of the first newspapers (see Relation ) which opened up an entirely new field for conveying up-to-date information to the public. Incunable are surviving pre-16th century print works which are collected by many of the libraries in Europe and North America . The printing press was also a factor in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through
20436-489: The sheet from contact with any thing but the inked surface of the types, when the pull, which brings down the screw and forces the platten to produce the impression, is made by the pressman who works the lever,—to whom is facetiously given the title of "the practitioner at the bar.". Johannes Gutenberg 's work on the printing press began in approximately 1436 when he partnered with Andreas Dritzehn—a man who had previously instructed in gem-cutting —and Andreas Heilmann, owner of
20592-403: The sheet to be printed is laid. The frisket is a slender frame-work, covered with coarse paper, on which an impression is first taken; the whole of the printed part is then cut out, leaving apertures exactly corresponding with the pages of type on the carriage of the press. The frisket when folded on to the tympans, and both turned down over the forme of types and run in under the platten, preserves
20748-492: The spelling and syntax of these vernaculars, in effect 'decreasing' their variability. This rise in importance of national languages as opposed to pan-European Latin is cited as one of the causes of the rise of nationalism in Europe. A third consequence of popularization of printing was on the economy. The printing press was associated with higher levels of city growth. The publication of trade-related manuals and books teaching techniques like double-entry bookkeeping increased
20904-419: The state. He established 14 Assamese medium schools in and around Sibsagar by 1846. Rev. Nathan Brown's Grammatical notes of the Assamese Language first published in 1848 originally was not intended to be regarded as a grammar of the Assamese language but "they were commenced with the intention of printing only a few sheets, for private use of the most common grammatical forms". However this book soon served as
21060-513: The symbol the phrase "Aai! Tur batori pahare-bhoiyame, Jane-juriye bowak", meaning 'The news of Assam will reach everywhere, all the hills and dales in the State' was inscribed. Two other important papers of the early 20th century Assam were Eastern Herald and Citizen . Miles Bronson , an American missionary was the first to compile a dictionary of the Assamese language. His Dictionary published in 1867 at American Baptist Mission Press Sibsagar,
21216-513: The various techniques employed (imprinting, punching and assembling individual letters) did not have the refinement and efficiency needed to become widely accepted. Tsuen-Hsuin and Needham, and Briggs and Burke suggest that the movable-type printing in China and Korea was rarely employed. Gutenberg greatly improved the process by treating typesetting and printing as two separate work steps. A goldsmith by profession, he created his type pieces from
21372-528: The vice of excessive opium eating, and Bahire Rangchang Bhitare Kowan Bhuturi which was a satire on the contemporary Assamese Society. Hem Chandra also edited the Assam News at Guwahati for some time. The first Anglo-Assamese dictionary was compiled by a student of Cotton College in the year 1910, Makhan Lal Chaliha of Chiring Chapori, which was found in the British Library by a researcher of
21528-411: The voiceless velar fricative is heavy in the eastern Assamese dialects and decreases progressively to the west—from Kamrupi to eastern Goalparia , and disappears completely in western Goalpariya. The change of /s/ to /h/ and then to /x/ has been attributed to Tibeto-Burman influence by Suniti Kumar Chatterjee . Assamese, Odia , and Bengali , in contrast to other Indo-Aryan languages , use
21684-409: Was Durgavara who retold the story of the Ramayana in songs. A large group of manuscripts known as the "Mantras" of unknown authorship is extant probably going back to the period before 1500. The "Mantras" contain magical formulae against snakebite, against ghosts and demons and against various kinds of diseases. Perhaps the most important contribution of the Ahom rule was the writing of the buranji
21840-488: Was a writer, government employee and supporter of the American Baptist Mission Press and of its leaders Brown and Bronson for their work in the propagation of Assamese. Phukan was a great scholar and studied English literature , was one of the first students of the school established by Francis Jenkins in 1835 and went on to study at Presidency College , Calcutta. He started his literary career at
21996-428: Was also involved in editing and publishing it from 1861 to 1873. According to Hem Chandra Baruah 's advice, Ward changed the system of orthography of Orunodoi from the previous and simplified one of Jaduram Deka Baruah that was adapted by Brown, to the Sanskrit system as it is used today. Replacing the dental 'n' by cerebral 'n' of Assamese alphabets, Ward corrected the spelling of Orunudoi in January 1861. This laid
22152-629: Was also used. In connection with the American Baptist Mission Press , which is the first press to be established in Assam, the first name that comes to the forefront is that of the Reverend Dr. Nathan Brown . Nathan Brown was born on 22 June 1807 in New Ipswich , New Hampshire , USA. He graduated from Williams College in 1827 holding the highest position in the class. He married Eliza Ballard on 5 May 1830. For
22308-518: Was appreciated by N.L Halward, the Director of Public Instructor for Eastern Bengal and Asom, and A Majid, the District and Session Judge and fellow of Calcutta University . The third Assamese Dictionary Chandrakanta Abhidhan , a comprehensive bilingual dictionary with words and their meanings in Assamese and English, originally compiled and published by Asam Sahitya Sabha in 1933, 32 years after
22464-461: Was born on 19 March 1811 at Lexington, Massachusetts . The American Baptist Missionary Union appointed him as a missionary printer and publisher to Burma at the age of twenty. With his wife, Harriet Low Cutter, he sailed from Boston in 1831, taking with him a steam printing press. He was joined by Nathan Brown and his wife Eliza Brown in Burma. The Cutters and Browns sailed for Assam in order to launch
22620-558: Was critical for producing durable type that produced high-quality printed books and proved to be much better suited for printing than all other known materials. To create these lead types, Gutenberg used what is considered one of his most ingenious inventions, a special matrix enabling the quick and precise molding of new type blocks from a uniform template. His type case is estimated to have contained around 290 separate letter boxes, most of which were required for special characters, ligatures , punctuation marks , and so forth. Gutenberg
22776-519: Was discontinued in 1947, unable to meet the competition of the nationalist Assam Tribune (4 August 1939, Baruah Press, Dibrugarh); the paper was also tainted as pro-British. Though it was revived for a while in 1948, by a Congressman Jivan Ram Phukan, yet the attempt was unsuccessful. The First Assamese newspaper was Dainik Batori , published from the Thengal Bhawan, 8 km from Jorhat town on 12 August 1935. Tea baron Shivaprasad Barua started
22932-553: Was established in 1917 for the propagation of the Assamese language and took up the publication of various books in Assamese. It still publishes important books in Assamese. The Publication Board of Assam established in 1958 by a legislation of the Assam Legislative Assembly with the vision of publishing and editing books in the languages of the state (including Bodo, Mising, Kachari and other such languages), as well as English. Along with providing aid to authors,
23088-415: Was formed, a joint company established along with Nimoni Phukan, Sadananda Dowerah, Lakshminath Phukan. The "Borooah Press" established in 1928 by Guna Govinda Borooah, "Bholanath Press" established by Bholanath Gohain, "Rajkhowa Press", "Jagaran Press" etc. were important presses established during that period. One of the first indigenous names of Assamese print is Anandaram Dhekial Phukan. Phukan (1829–1858)
23244-548: Was in universal use in Europe". In Italy, a center of early printing, print shops had been established in 77 cities and towns by 1500. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, with a total of nearly three thousand printers known to be active. Despite this proliferation, printing centres soon emerged; thus, one third of the Italian printers published in Venice . By 1500,
23400-452: Was published from 1909 to 1940. In 1848, Dr Nathan Brown serialized the Assamese translation of John Bunyan's Pilgrims' Progress in Orunodoi as Jatrikor Jatra . It was the first taste of a "novel" for Assamese readers. It came out in a book form in 1857. In 1854, another missionary translated into Assamese a Bengali novel with the title - Phulmoni Aru Karuna . In 1877, the first original "novel" in Assamese, Kaminikanta by A. K. Gurney,
23556-477: Was published from the Baptist Mission Press. M. E. Lesley's Alokeshi Beshyar Bishay was also published in the same year. Gurney's Koni Beheruar Bishay came out the next year. All these books were written for the propagation of Christianity. They are called novels because they are continuous narratives with a unified theme. These can at best be called prototypes of novels and they helped in laying
23712-420: Was recognised as a local daily paper of the town". Shivaprasad Barua bought a printing machine from Calcutta and appointed as many as 55 employees for the proper running of the paper. It consisted of eight pages. The length of the paper was 45 cm and the breadth was 30 cm. The symbol with a banana tree and a garland of flowers on the first issue of the paper was designed by Mahendra Deka Phukan. Inside
23868-522: Was the first book of this kind until Bronson's A Dictionary in Assamese and English was published in 1867. She also authored A Glimpse of Assam (1884). Printing and publishing began in Assam from around the end of the 19th century, a number of presses being established in Dibrugarh (also in Upper Assam). The first press in Dibrugarh was established by Radhanath Changkakoti, on 9 May 1881 called
24024-420: Was then applied to the text evenly. One damp piece of paper was then taken from a heap of paper and placed on the tympan. The paper was damp as this lets the type 'bite' into the paper better. Small pins hold the paper in place. The paper is now held between a frisket and tympan (two frames covered with paper or parchment). These are folded down, so that the paper lies on the surface of the inked type. The bed
24180-515: Was used as the lingua franca till it was replaced by Hindi ; and Nagamese , an Assamese-based Creole language , continues to be widely used in Nagaland . The Kamtapuri language of Rangpur division of Bangladesh and the Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri districts of India is linguistically closer to Assamese, though the speakers identify with the Bengali culture and the literary language. In
24336-436: Was ushered in with the "Bhakti" movement started by the great Sankardev. To spread this movement a lot of literature was created, songs song, poems and chants. Shankari religion like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism is again centered on the written word, in this case that of Srimanta Sankardev. The evening prayers in the "Namghar" or "The House of Praise" celebrate God through songs and chant or reading of sacred texts. Among
#744255