Assamese personal pronouns are somewhat similar to English pronouns, having different words for first, second, and third person, and also for singular and plural (unlike for verbs, below). However, Assamese has two different third-person pronouns for proximity. The first, called proximal, are used for someone who is present in the discussion, and the second, called distal, are for those who are nearby or at a distance but not present in the discussion. Gendered pronouns are present only in third person non-honorific. Additionally, each of the second- and third-person pronouns have different forms for the familiar and polite forms; the second person also has a "very familiar" form (sometimes called "despective"). It may be noted that the "very familiar" form is used when addressing particularly close friends or family as well as for addressing subordinates, or in abusive language.
In the following tables, the abbreviations used are as follows:
m. = masculine,
f. = feminine,
ng. = no specific gender,
— = same as the absolutive forms
The absolutive and ergative/nominative cases are used for pronouns that are the subject of the sentence, such as "I already did that" or "Will you go there?". The ergative/nominative case is used when the verb in a sentence is transitive. If intransitive then the absolutive forms are used. The oblique forms are used when other case suffixes are added, similar to English hi- in hi-, hi-s. See Nouns for details on cases.
^Only the pronouns having plural suffixes get the ergative case marking -e due to historical reasons. The singular pronoun এখেত (ekhet)/তেখেত (tekhet) also gets the ergative marking because the -খেত (-khet) was originally a suffix.
^All the plural pronouns except আমি (ami, we) are formed by adding plural suffixes. The suffixes are -হঁত (-hõt) for very familiar and familiar, and -লোক (-lük), -সকল (-xokol) for familiar or honorific.
The demonstrative pronouns share most of the characteristics with personal pronouns. They are different from the personal sub-class with regard to the feature of demonstration. The personal demonstratives are already given in the previous table (see 3rd person). Therefore only the common demonstratives are given here. Apart from the 2 types of pronounce for proximity found in 3rd person pronouns, the common demonstrative pronouns have a 3rd one, far distal.
× = no forms
— = same as absolutive
Common demonstrative pronouns
relative distance from the speaker →
proximal
distal
far distal
ëia (this/these)
xëia (that/those)
xöua (that/those)
ëi- (this/these)
xëi- (that/those)
xöu- (that/those)
i (this/these)
xi (that/those)
xöu (that/those)
The common demonstratives ëia, xëia and xöua are absolute words. They are invariable and bear no formal distinction of number, gender and status. Their use is restricted to the subject and complement functions only. The rest of the common demonstratives are found forms. They can be used only after they are inflected for the determinative affixes (or words) that function as their classifier.
^"Population by Religious Communities". Census India – 2001. Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Retrieved 2019-07-01. Census Data Finder/C Series/Population by Religious Communities
^Bhattacharjya, Dwijen (2001). The genesis and development of Nagamese: Its social history and linguistic structure (PhD). City University of New York. ProQuest304688285.
^"Axomiya is the major language spoken in Assam, and serves almost as a lingua franca among the different speech communities in the whole area." (Goswami 2003:394)
Goswami, G. C.; Tamuli, Jyotiprakash (2003). "Asamiya". In Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh (eds.). The Indo-Aryan languages. Routledge. pp. 391–443. ISBN978-0-7007-1130-7.
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