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800 million speakers
- As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal.
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The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal .
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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
The Indo-Iranian languages (also known as Indo-Iranic languages or collectively the Aryan languages) constitute the largest and southeasternmost extant branch of the Indo-European language family. They include over 300 languages, spoken by around 1.5 billion speakers, predominantly in South Asia , West Asia and parts of Central Asia .
Indo-European: Indo-Aryan: 345 million 266 million: 610 million Spanish (excl. creole languages) Indo-European: Romance: 485 million 74 million: 559 million French (excl. creole languages) Indo-European: Romance: 81 million 229 million: 310 million Modern Standard Arabic (excl. dialects) Afro-Asiatic: Semitic: 0: 274 million: 274 million ...
LanguageFamilyBranchFirst-language (l1) SpeakersEnglish (excl. creole languages )380 millionMandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese, ...939 millionHindi (excl. Urdu )345 millionSpanish (excl. creole languages )485 millionIndo-Aryan languages are spoken by more than 800 million people, principally in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. The Old Indo-Aryan period is represented by Sanskrit. Middle Indo-Aryan ( c. 600 bce –1000 ce) consists principally of the Prakrit dialects, including Pali.
Indo-Aryan languages - Characteristics of the modern Indo-Aryan languages: The trends noted in Middle Indo-Aryan continue in New Indo-Aryan. The Middle Indo-Aryan vowel sequences ai and au were changed to single vowels during the development of New Indo-Aryan, final vowels were shortened and deleted, and ḍ and ḍh sounds between vowels were replaced by the sounds ṛ and ṛh. The noun ...
Aug 3, 2021 · Whether Indo-Aryan languages entered India from outside ... Indian-related ancestry “was a characteristic feature of many IVC people” (p. 12). ... descendants today live in tribal groups in ...
