Indo-Aryans

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Indo-Aryans
Total population

1.045 Billion
Regions with significant populations
Flag of India India
Flag of Pakistan Pakistan
Flag of Bangladesh Bangladesh
Flag of Nepal Nepal
Flag of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka
Flag of the Maldives Maldives
Languages
Indo-Aryan languages
Religions
Primarily Indian religion and Islam

The Indo-Aryans are a wide collection of peoples united by their common status as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Today, there are slightly over approximately one billion native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages, most of them native to South Asia, where they form the majority. Their cultural influence, from early on in the 1st millennium CE, reached as far east as modern Cambodia and Vietnam (Khmer and Champa kingdoms) as well as Indonesia, where it survives in Bali and in the Philippines. Modern migration gave rise to Indo-Aryan minorities on most continents.

Contents

[edit] Pre-Vedic Indo-Aryans

Indo-European topics
Indo-European languages
Albanian · Armenian · Baltic
Celtic · Germanic · Greek
Indo-Iranian (Indo-Aryan, Iranian)
Italic · Slavic  

extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkans (Dacian,
Phrygian, Thracian) · Tocharian
Indo-European peoples
Albanians · Armenians
Balts · Celts · Germanic peoples
Greeks · Indo-Aryans
Iranians · Latins · Slavs

historical: Anatolians (Hittites, Luwians)
Celts (Galatians, Gauls) · Germanic tribes
Illyrians · Italics  · Sarmatians
Scythians  · Thracians  · Tocharians
Indo-Iranians (Rigvedic tribes, Iranian tribes) 
Proto-Indo-Europeans
Language · Society · Religion
 
Urheimat hypotheses
Kurgan hypothesis · Anatolia
Armenia · India · PCT
 
Indo-European studies
Main article: Indo-Aryan migration

The separation of Indo-Aryans proper from Proto-Indo-Iranians is commonly dated, on linguistic grounds, to roughly 2000 BCE.[1] The Nuristani languages probably split in such early times, and are classified as either remote Indo-Aryan dialects or as an independent branch of Indo-Iranian. By the mid 2nd millennium BCE early Indo-Aryans had reached Assyria in the west (the Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni) and the northern Punjab in the east (the Rigvedic tribes).[2]

The spread of Indo-Aryan languages has been connected with the spread of the chariot in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Some scholars trace the Indo-Iranians (both Indo-Aryans and Iranians) back to the Andronovo culture (2nd millennium BCE). Other scholars[3] have argued that the Andronovo culture proper formed too late to be associated with the Indo-Aryans of India, and that no actual traces of the Andronovo culture (e.g. warrior burials or timber-frame materials) have been found in India or Mesopotamia.[4]

Archaeologist J.P. Mallory (1998) finds it "extraordinarily difficult to make a case for expansions from this northern region to northern India" and remarks that the proposed migration routes "only [get] the Indo-Iranian to Central Asia, but not as far as the seats of the Medes, Persians or Indo-Aryans" (Mallory 1998; Bryant 2001: 216). Therefore he prefers to derive the Indo-Aryans from the intermediate stage of the BMAC culture, in terms of a "Kulturkugel" model of expansion. Likewise, Asko Parpola (1988) connects the Indo-Aryans to the BMAC. But although horses were known to the Indo-Aryans, evidence for their presence in the form of horse bones is missing in the BMAC.[5] Parpola (1988) has argued that the Dasas were the "carriers of the Bronze Age culture of Greater Iran" living in the BMAC and that the forts with circular walls destroyed by the Indo-Aryans were actually located in the BMAC. Parpola (1999)[6] elaborates the model and has "Proto-Rigvedic" Indo-Aryans intrude the BMAC around 1700 BCE. He assumes early Indo-Aryan presence in the Late Harappan horizon from about 1900 BCE, and "Proto-Rigvedic" (Proto-Dardic) intrusion to the Punjab as corresponding to the Swat culture from about 1700 BCE.

[edit] Antiquity

See also: Vedic period, Rigvedic tribes, Iron Age India, Mahajanapadas, and Maurya Empire

An influx of early Indo-Aryan speakers over the Hindukush (comparable to the Kushan expansion of the first centuries AD) together with Late Harappan cultures gave rise to the Vedic civilization of the Early Iron Age. This civilization is marked by a continual shift to the east, first to the Gangetic plain with the Kurus and Panchalas, and further east with the Kosala and Videha. This Iron Age expansion corresponds to the black and red ware and painted grey ware cultures.

For Hellenistic times, Oleg N. Trubachev (1999; elaborating on a hypothesis by Kretschmer 1944) suggests that there were Indo-Aryan speakers in the Pontic steppe. The Maeotes and the Sindes, the latter also known as "Indoi" and described by Hesychius as an "an Indian people".[7]

[edit] Middle Ages

Further information: Middle Indic, Middle Kingdoms of India, and History of Hindustani

The various Prakrit vernaculars developed into independent languages in the course of the Middle Ages (see Apabhramsha), forming the Abahatta group in the east and the Hindustani group in the west. The Roma people (also known as Gypsies) are believed to have left India around AD 1000.

[edit] Contemporary Indo-Aryans

Contemporary Indo-Aryans are spread over most of the northern, western, central and eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent, and in most parts of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Non-native speakers of Indo-Aryans languages also reach the south of the peninsula. The largest group are the Hindi and Urdu (Hindustani) speakers of India and Pakistan, together with other dialects also grouped as Hindustani, numbering at roughly half a billion native speakers, constituting the largest community of speakers of any of the Indo-European languages. Of the 23 national languages of India, 16 are Indo-Aryan languages (see also languages of India).


[edit] List of Indo-Aryan peoples

[edit] Ancient

[edit] Modern

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Mallory, J.P. (1989), In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth, London: Thames & Hudson, p. 38f. 
  2. ^ e.g. EIEC, s.v. "Indo-Iranian languages", p. 306.
  3. ^ Brentjes (1981), Klejn (1974), Francfort (1989), Lyonnet (1993), Hiebert (1998) and Sarianidi (1993)
  4. ^ Edwin Bryant. 2001
  5. ^ e.g. Bernard Sergent. Genèse de l'Inde. 1997:161 ff.
  6. ^ Parpola, Asko (1999), "The formation of the Aryan branch of Indo-European", in Blench, Roger & Spriggs, Matthew, Archaeology and Language, vol. III: Artefacts, languages and texts, London and New York: Routledge.
  7. ^ Sindoi (or Sindi etc.) were also described by e.g. Herodotus, Strabo, Dionysius, Stephen Byzantine, Polienus. [1]

[edit] References

  • Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513777-9. 
  • Mallory, JP. 1998. "A European Perspective on Indo-Europeans in Asia". In The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern and Central Asia. Ed. Mair. Washington DC: Institute for the Study of Man.
  • Trubachov, Oleg N., 1999: Indoarica, Nauka, Moscow.

[edit] See also

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