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Proto-Indo-Aryan (or sometimes Proto-Indic [a]) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Aryan languages. It is intended to reconstruct the language of the pre-Vedic Indo-Aryans. Proto-Indo-Aryan is meant to be the predecessor of Old Indo-Aryan (1500–300 BCE), which is directly attested as Vedic and Mitanni-Aryan.
- c. 800 million (2018)–1.5 billion
- Proto-Indo-Aryan
- Overview
- General characteristics
Indo-Aryan languages, subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. In the early 21st century, Indo-Aryan languages were spoken by more than 800 million people, primarily in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
Linguists generally recognize three major divisions of Indo-Aryan languages: Old, Middle, and New (or Modern) Indo-Aryan. These divisions are primarily linguistic and are named in the order in which they initially appeared, with later divisions coexisting with rather than completely replacing earlier ones.
Old Indo-Aryan includes different dialects and linguistic states that are referred to in common as Sanskrit. The most archaic Old Indo-Aryan is found in Hindu sacred texts called the Vedas, which date to approximately 1500 bce. There is a clear-cut difference between Vedic and post-Vedic Sanskrit in that the former has certain formations that the latter has eliminated. The grammarian Pāṇini (c. 5th–6th century bce) appropriately distinguishes between usage proper to the language of sacred texts (chandas, locative sg. chandasi)—that is, Vedic usage—and what occurs in the spoken language (bhāṣā, locative sg. bhāṣāyām) of his time. Other distinctions are also made within the language, so scholars speak of Classical Sanskrit and Epic Sanskrit. Despite differences in genre, however, the Sanskrit found in such works generally agrees with the language Pāṇini describes. So-called un-Pāṇinian forms not only reflect the influence of vernaculars but also continue a freedom of usage—referred to as ārṣaprayoga (usage of ṛṣis)—already to be seen in aspects of the living spoken language Pāṇini described.
Middle Indo-Aryan includes the dialects of inscriptions from the 3rd century bce to the 4th century ce as well as various literary languages. Apabhraṃśa dialects represent the latest stage of Middle Indo-Aryan development. Though all Middle Indo-Aryan languages are included under the name Prākrit, it is customary to speak of the Prākrits as excluding Apabhraṃśa.
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Uncertainties regarding the course of Indo-Aryan migration make it difficult to determine the domain of Proto-Indo-Aryan, the ancestral language of all the known Indo-Aryan tongues, if indeed there was any such single region (see Indo-Iranian languages). All that can be said with certainty is that the Indo-Aryan speakers on the Indian subcontinent first occupied the area comprising most of present-day Punjab state (India), Punjab province (Pakistan), Haryana, and the Upper Doab (of the Ganges–Yamuna Doab) of Uttar Pradesh. The structure of Proto-Indo-Aryan must have been similar to that of early Vedic, albeit with dialect variations.
- George Cardona
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The term Indo-Iranian languages refers to the spectrum of Indo-European languages spoken in the Southern Asian region of Eurasia, spanning from the Indian subcontinent (where the Indic branch is spoken, also called Indo-Aryan) up to the Iranian Plateau (where the Iranic branch is spoken). This branch is also known as Aryan languages, referring ...
- Indo-EuropeanIndo-Iranian
Distribution. In the early 21st century, Indo-Iranian languages were spoken by nearly one billion individuals, most of whom resided in a broad region of southwestern and southern Asia. Speakers of modern Iranian languages number between 150 and 200 million; Persian, Pashto, and Kurdish are the most widely spoken of these languages.
- George Cardona
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family— English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, and Spanish —have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several ...
- † indicates this branch of the language family is extinct
- Proto-Indo-European
- One of the world's primary language families
The six branches of Afro-Asiatic are Semitic, Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Omotic, and Egyptian. The Semitic branch has 78 languages, including Arabic, the first language of up to 300 million throughout North Africa and widely spoken in the Middle East. Among the world’s languages, Arabic ranks fourth in the number of speakers.
The Indo-Aryan languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian language family. They are mostly spoken in Southern Asia, including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bangladesh. However, some are also spoken in other places, such as Europe. The Indo-Aryan languages come from a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-Aryan, and today include ...
