Indo-Iranian languages

Chart classifying Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European language family

The Indo-Iranian languages (also known as Indo-Iranic languages<ref name="Mahulkar1990">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="PuglielliFrascarelli2011">Template:Cite book</ref> or collectively the Aryan languages<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>) constitute the largest branch of the Indo-European language family. They include over 300 languages,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> spoken by around 1.7 billion speakers worldwide, predominantly in South Asia, West Asia and parts of Central Asia.

Indo-Iranian languages are divided into three major branches: Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and Nuristani languages. The Badeshi language remains unclassified within the Indo-Iranian branch. The largest Indo-Iranian language is the Hindustani language (Hindi-Urdu).<ref name="ethnologue">"Hindi" L1: 322 million (2011 Indian census), including perhaps 150 million speakers of other languages that reported their language as "Hindi" on the census. L2: 274 million (2016, source unknown). Urdu L1: 67 million (2011 & 2017 censuses), L2: 102 million (1999 Pakistan, source unknown, and 2001 Indian census): Ethnologue 21. Template:E21. Template:E21.</ref>

The areas with Indo-Iranian languages stretch from Europe (Romani) and the Caucasus (Ossetian, Tat, Talysh), down to Mesopotamia and eastern Anatolia (Kurdish, Zaza),<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> the Levant and North Africa (Domari),Template:Sfn and Iran (Persian), eastward to Xinjiang (Sarikoli) and Assam (Assamese), and south to Sri Lanka (Sinhala) and the Maldives (Maldivian), with branches stretching as far out as Oceania and the Caribbean for Fiji Hindi and Caribbean Hindustani respectively. Furthermore, there are large diaspora communities of Indo-Iranian speakers in Northwestern Europe, North America, Oceania, East Africa, South Africa, the Caribbean, and the Persian Gulf.

EtymologyEdit

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 Indo-Aryan branch is spoken, also called Indic) up to the Iranian Plateau (where the Iranian branch is spoken, also called Iranic). It was later discovered that the Nuristani languages are also spoken in the isolated region of Nuristan, roughly situated in the intersection of these regions.

This branch is also known as Aryan languages, referring to the languages spoken by Aryan peoples, where the term Aryan is considered as the ethnocultural self-designation of ancient Indo-Iranians. Today, the term Aryan is generally avoided, owing to the perceived negative connotation associated with Aryanism.

ClassificationEdit

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Below is an abridged classification scheme of the Indo-Iranian languages. The Badeshi language remains unclassified within the Indo-Iranian branch.

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Proto-Indo-European (reconstructed)
- Proto-Indo-Iranian (reconstructed)
  - Proto-Iranian (reconstructed)
    - Iranian languages
      - Eastern
      - Western
  - Proto-Nuristani (reconstructed)
    - Nuristani languages
  - Proto-Indo-Aryan (reconstructed)
    - Indo-Aryan languages
      - Dardic
      - Northwestern
      - Northern
      - Western
      - Eastern
      - Southern
      - Chinali-Lahul (unclassified)
  - Badeshi (unclassified)

Template:Tree list/end

OriginEdit

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All Indo-Iranian languages can be traced back to a single hypothetical ancestral language: Proto-Indo-Iranian, which is the reconstructed proto-language to represent the latest point at which all modern-day Indo-Iranian languages were still unified. Proto-Indo-Iranian, in turn, is classified as belonging to the Indo-European language family, ultimately tracing back to the Proto-Indo-European language.

Historically, the Proto-Indo-Iranian speakers are thought to have originally referred to themselves using the reconstructed Proto-Indo-Iranian root {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, from which it derives terms like Aryavarta (Template:Langx, Template:Literal translation), Airyanem Vaejah (Template:Langx, Template:Literal translation), Alania ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), Iran ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}),<ref>Mallory & Adams 1997, p. 213: "Iran Alani (< *aryana) (the name of an Iranian group whose descendants are the Ossetes, one of whose subdivisions is the Iron [< *aryana-)), *aryanam (pl.) 'of the Aryans' (> MPers Iran)."</ref> and "Aryan".<ref name=":422">Template:Harvnb</ref>Template:Sfn

The Proto-Indo-Iranian-speakers are generally associated with the Sintashta culture,Template:Sfn<ref name="Anthony 2007 pp. 408-411">Template:Harvnb</ref>Template:Sfn which is thought to represent an eastward migration of peoples from the Corded Ware culture,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn which, in turn, is believed to represent an earlier westward migration of Yamnaya-related people from the Pontic–Caspian steppe zone into the territory of late Neolithic European cultures, possibly bringing with them the Proto-Indo-European language.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> However, the exact genetic relationship between the Yamnaya culture, Corded Ware culture and Sinthasta culture remains unclear.<ref>Pamjav H, Feher T, Nemeth E, Padar Z (2012). "Brief communication: new Y-chromosome binary markers improve phylogenetic resolution within haplogroup R1a1". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 149 (4): 611–615. doi:10.1002/ajpa.22167. PMID 23115110. "However, with the discovery of the Z280 and Z93 substitutions within Phase 1 1000 Genomes Project data and subsequent genotyping of these SNPs in ~200 samples, a schism between European and Asian R1a chromosomes has emerged" </ref><ref name=Kristiansen2023>Template:Cite book "How exactly the emergence and expansion of the Corded Ware are linked to the emergence and expansion of the Yamnaya horizon remains unclear. However, the Y chromosome record of both groups indicates that Corded Ware cannot be derived directly from the Yamnaya or late eastern farming groups sampled thus far, and is therefore likely to constitute a parallel development in the forest steppe and temperate forest zones of Eastern Europe. Even in Central Europe, the formation of the earliest regional Corded Ware identities was the result of local and regional social practices that resulted in the typical Corded Ware rite of passage."</ref>

The earliest known chariots have been found in Sintashta burials, and the culture is considered a strong candidate for the origin of the technology, which spread throughout the Old World and played an important role in ancient warfare.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn<ref>Holm, Hans J. J. G. (2019): The Earliest Wheel Finds, their Archeology and Indo-European Terminology in Time and Space, and Early Migrations around the Caucasus. Series Minor 43. Budapest: ARCHAEOLINGUA ALAPÍTVÁNY. Template:ISBN</ref> There is almost a general consensus among scholars that the Andronovo culture, the successor of Sintasha culture, was an Indo-Iranian culture.<ref name="EOIC">Template:Harvnb</ref>Template:Sfn Currently, only two sub-cultures are considered as part of Andronovo culture: Alakul and Fëdorovo cultures.<ref name="Grigoriev">Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021). "Andronovo Problem: Studies of Cultural Genesis in the Eurasian Bronze Age", in Open Archaeology 2021 (7), p.3: "...By Andronovo cultures we may understand only Fyodorovka and Alakul cultures..."</ref> The Andronovo culture is considered as an "Indo-Iranic dialect continuum", with a later split between Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> However, according to Hiebert, an expansion of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) into Iran and the margin of the Indus Valley is "the best candidate for an archaeological correlate of the introduction of Indo-Iranian speakers to Iran and South Asia",Template:Sfn despite the absence of the characteristic timber graves of the steppe in the Near East,Template:Sfn or south of the region between Kopet Dag and Pamir-Karakorum.<ref>Francfort, in Template:Harv; Fussman, in Template:Harv; Francfort (1989), Fouilles de Shortugai.</ref>Template:Efn J. P. Mallory acknowledges the difficulties of making a case for expansions from Andronovo to northern India, and that attempts to link the Indo-Aryans to such sites as the Beshkent and Vakhsh cultures "only gets the Indo-Iranian to Central Asia, but not as far as the seats of the Medes, Persians or Indo-Aryans". He has developed the Kulturkugel (Template:Literal translation) model that has the Indo-Iranians taking over cultural traits of BMAC, but preserving their language and religion while moving into Iran and India.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn