In what can be called as one of the earliest accounts of the Assamese language, Grierson (1927) mentions the form of speech spoken in and around Sibsagar to be the standard dialect of Assamese. This dialect, as he points out, does not change across the upper part of the Assam valley, however, towards the west a distinct variety which he calls Western Assamese is spoken in Kamrup and Eastern Goalpara districts. Grierson however does not mention in what aspects the two varieties he identified are different.
Studies on the Assamese language have maintained that there are noticeable variations in the language. Grierson (1927), Kakati (1941), both mention that Assamese has two distinct varieties – the Eastern Assamese (EA) and Western Assamese (WA). Goswami & Tamuli (2003), on the other hand, divide Assamese into three distinct
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Diphthongs in the Eastern and Central dialects are generally falling, whereas Western dialects have both falling and rising dialects.
f. /ɔu/ is common in Eastern and Central Assamese.
g. /ɔi/ has a tendency to become /ɔ/ medially and /e/ or/ey/ finally in eastern Assamese. In western Assamese, the final /ɔu/ and /ɔi/ either become monophthongs or change the quality and become /ow/ and /ey/ respectively.
h. Triphthongization in common in western Assamese but absent in central and Eastern Assamese.
Goswami (1970) observes that while Eastern Assamese is more or less homogeneous in its linguistic features, Western Assamese is not. Based on this observation he divides Western Assamese into three further sub varieties namely, Barpeta, Nalbari and Palashbari-Chaigaon subvarieties. Further, Das (2010) claims that both the EA and WA variety can be divided into two subvarieties each, namely, Sibsagar variety, and Central Assam variety, Kamrup variety and Goalpara variety. Apart from that they also suggest that the Assamese spoken in Guwahati area is a mixture of Eastern and Western Assamese varieties and can also be considered a distinct