My favorite web tool to type in Assamese

Pramukh IME, or in short, Pramukh, is a simple web tool to use the English keyboard to type in Assamese (and other Indian languages).  It can be used on all computers (e.g. Windows and Mac computers) as well as on tablet and smartphone devices (e.g. Android, iPad, and iPhone).

Typing in Pramukh is phonetic. To enter Assamese letters, we type similar sounding letters on the English keyboard. For example, we type m to write ম  and h to write হ, etc. This takes advantage of our familiarity with a standard English keyboard to type Assamese letters easily.

Pramukh does not need any software to be installed on your computer or your device. You can use Pramukh directly in an Internet browser (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Opera, etc.) by going to its webpage (detailed in the section below).

Getting started with Pramukh for Assamese

To get started:

• Go to the Pramukh IME webpage for Assamese https://www.pramukhime.com/type/assamese.

• On that web-page, click on the text field. This is where you can type in English letters and see the corresponding Assamese letters

Here is an example Assamese sentence you can try with Pramukh:

                আহক আমি সকলোৱে অসমীয়াত লিখোঁ

To type the above Assamese sentence, you will need to type the following English letters on your keyboard:
                ahok ami xokolOwe oxomIyat likhO.n

As you type the above English letters, you will see the corresponding Assamese letters appear in the text field on the Pramukh web page.

Finally, you can use regular copy/paste on your computer, phone, or tablet to copy the Assamese text from that text field to where you want it, e.g., a Word document, a web-page, or an email message.

Getting help for Assamese letters on Pramukh

You can bring up the Help page in Pramukh by clicking on the 'অ?' icon on that page. This icon is next to the language selector on the web-page (see Figure 1 above). Note that the 'অ?' icon becomes visible only after you select Assamese as the language as shown earlier on this page.

This Help page contains a clear chart showing the English letter(s) needed to produce each Assamese letter.  To remove the Help page and get back to typing text, you can click on the "Cancel" button at the bottom of the Help page.

Additional usage hints

These are some more hints to help you use the tool.

* Remembering to type 'o' for vowel অ after a consonant:

The one thing to keep in mind in Pramukh is to type in the vowel we want after the consonant, even for the vowel অ which is 'o'.

For the vowel অ, this takes a little getting used to, because in handwriting there is nothing to write for অ; we simply write the consonant, for example ক.  So, we may forget to type an 'o' after the consonant and will need to remind ourselves to do so in Pramukh.

There is one exception at the end of the word where typing in space is sufficient. There is no need to type in 'o' at the end of the word.

Here is an example to illustrate the rule. To get the word আহক, we type "ahok " in Pramukh. The 'o' after 'h' is for the vowel অ following the consonant হ. The space after 'k' is sufficient for the vowel অ following the last consonant in the word, ক.

Other than this mental note to regularly type 'o' for the vowel অ, Pramukh has kept the English letter(s) needed to write an Assamese script letter fairly intuitive.

* Always type the vowel letter after the consonant:

For vowels other than অ, it is easy to remember to type it with the consonant, because even in handwriting, we do write something for the vowel sign. As an example, for ই, we write it as a vowel sign, like in কি.  But, one thing to remember is that the letter for the vowel must always be typed in Pramukh after the consonant, even if the vowel sign in Assamese is written to the left of the consonant. For example, for কি, we have to type "ki", and not "ik".

Use the detailed help page for more tips

To get more detailed instructions in using Pramukh IME for Assamese, please click on this link.