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 earliest coins minted in the Ahom script and language were made during the reign of Subinphaa (1281-1293 AD). 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. Assamese replaced Ahom during the 17th century. 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 chants and to read literature. Ahom's literary tradition provides a window into the past, of Ahom's culture. A printed form of the font was developed in 1920, to be used in the first "Ahom-Assamese-English Dictionary". Characteristics 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. The Ahom script is further complicated as it contains inconsistencies; a consonant may be written once in a word, but pronounced twice, common words may be shortened, and consecutive words with the same initial consonant may be contracted. Consonants The following medial consonant diacritics are used to form consonant clusters with /l/ and /r/, such as /kl/ and /kr/. Vowels The following vowel diacritics are added to an initial consonant: To write a consonant without a vowel, the virama is used. Punctuation The following characters are used for punctuation: Numerals The Ahom script contains its own set of numerals: Unicode Ahom script was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2015 with the release of version 8.0. The Ahom block was expended by 16 code points with Unicode 14.0. The Unicode block for Ahom is U+11700–U+1174F: See also List of writing systems Ahom people Ahom kingdom All Tai Ahom Students Union Notes References External links Entry on Ahom at Omniglot.com -- A guide to writing systems Brahmic scripts Culture of Assam Obsolete writing systems Ahom kingdom