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Indo-Aryan languages


Major subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Indo-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 BC – AD 1000) consists principally of the Prakrit dialects, including Pali. Modern Indo-Aryan speech is largely a single dialect continuum spread over an undivided geographical space, so demarcations between languages and dialects are somewhat artificial. Complicating the situation are competing distinctions between languages with an old literary tradition, local language identification by native speakers (as in censuses), supraregional languages such as Modern Standard Hindi and Urdu, and labels introduced by linguists, particularly those of George Abraham Grierson. In the centre of the Indo-Aryan speech area (the "Hindi zone"), covering northern India and extending south as far as Madhya Pradesh, the most common language of administration and education is Modern Standard Hindi. Important regional languages in the northern Indian plain are Haryanvi, Kauravi, Braj, Awadhi, Chhattisgarhi, Bhojpuri, Magahi, and Maithili. Regional languages in Rajasthan include Marwari, Dhundhari, Harauti, and Malvi. In the Himalayan foothills of Himachal Pradesh are Grierson's Pahari languages. Surrounding the Hindi zone, the most significant languages are, moving clockwise, Nepali (East Pahari), Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Gujarati, Sindhi, the speech of southern, northwestern, and northern Punjab province in Pakistan (called West Punjabi or Lahnda by Grierson), Punjabi, and Dogri. In Jammu and Kashmir and the far north of Pakistan are the Dardic languages; the most important are Kashmiri, Kohistani, Shina, and Khowar. The Nuristani languages of northwestern Afghanistan are sometimes considered a separate branch of Indo-Iranian. Sinhalese (spoken in Sri Lanka), Divehi (spoken in the Maldive Islands), and Romany are also Indo-Aryan languages.

For more information on Indo-Aryan languages, visit Britannica.com.

 
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Indic languages,
group of languages belonging to the Indo-Iranian subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. See Indo-Iranian.

 
Wikipedia: Indo-Aryan languages
Indo-Aryan
Indic
Geographic
distribution:		 South Asia
Genetic
classification:		 Indo-European
 Indo-Iranian
  Indo-Aryan
Subdivisions:
ISO 639-2: inc

The Indo-Aryan languages form a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian languages, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages. The term "Indic" refers to the same group without what some see as the negative connotations of "Aryan". Note that, unlike the generic adjective "Indian", "Indic" is the term used in the context of Indo-European linguistics, and is not strictly a geographical term; non-Indo-European languages spoken in India are not included in the term, while the Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni, on the other hand, probably testifies to speakers of an Indic language that never settled on the Indian subcontinent.

SIL International in a 2005 estimate counted a total of 209 varieties, the largest in terms of native speakers being Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu, about 540 million), Bengali (about 200 million), Punjabi (about 100 million), Marathi (about 90 million), Gujarati (about 45 million), Nepali (about 40 million),Oriya (about 30 million), and Sindhi (about 20 million), with a total number of native speakers of more than 900 million.

History

The earliest evidence of the group is in Vedic Sanskrit, the language used in the ancient preserved texts of the Indian subcontinent, the foundational canon of Hinduism known as the Vedas. The Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni is of similar age, but the only evidence is a number of loanwords.

In about the 7th century to the 5th century BCE, the Sanskrit language was codified and standardised by the grammarian Panini; this led (in about 200 BCE) to what is now known as "Classical" Sanskrit. However, although this preserved the integrity of the written language for a long time, the spoken language continued to evolve, and by the 6th century, Sanskrit as a spoken language was rare, being by and large replaced by its descendants, the Prakrits. All the Prakrits share a common ancestry, but they are not necessarily mutually intelligible.

In medieval times, the Prakrits diversified into various Middle Indic dialects. "Apabhramsa" is the conventional cover term for transitional dialects connecting late Middle Indic with early Modern Indic, spanning roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. Some of these dialects showed considerable literary production; the Sravakachar of Devasena (dated to the 930s) is now considered to be the first Hindi book.

The next major milestone occurred with the Muslim invasions of India in the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. Under the flourishing Mughal empire, Persian became very influential as the language of prestige of the Islamic courts. However, Persian was soon displaced by Urdu. This Indo-Aryan language is a combination with Persian and Arabic elements in its vocabulary, with the grammar of the local dialects.

Indo-Aryan languages spoken in South Asia
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Indo-Aryan languages spoken in South Asia

The two largest languages that formed from Apabhransa were Bengali and Hindi; others include Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, and Punjabi.

In the Hindi-speaking areas, the main form was Braj-bhasha, which is still spoken today, but was replaced in the 19th century by the Khari Boli dialect. However, a large amount of modern spoken Hindi vocabulary is derived from Perso-Arabic.

This state of affairs continued until the Partition of India in 1947. Hindustani (a mixture of Urdu and Hindi) was replaced by Hindi as the official language of India, and soon the Perso-Arabic words of Urdu began to be excised from the official Hindi corpus, in a bid to make the language more "Indian". A return to Hindi poets such as Tulsidas resulted in what is known as a Sanskritisation of the language. Arabic or Persian words in common parlance were slowly replaced by Sanskrit words, sometimes borrowed wholesale, or in new compounds. In contemporary times, there is a continuum of Hindi–Urdu, with heavily-Persianised Urdu at one end and Sanskritised Hindi at the other, although the basic grammar remains identical. Most people speak somewhere in the middle: Hindustani.

Bibliography

  • John Beames, A comparative grammar of the modern Aryan languages of India: to wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bangali. Londinii: Trübner, 1872-1879. 3 vols.
  • Cardona, George & Dhanesh Jain (2003), The Indo-Aryan Languages (Paperback ed.), Routledge, ISBN 041577294X.
  • Madhav Deshpande (1979). Sociolinguistic attitudes in India: An historical reconstruction. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers. ISBN 0-89720-007-1, ISBN 0-89720-008-X (pbk).
  • Erdosy, George. (1995). The Indo-Aryans of ancient South Asia: Language, material culture and ethnicity. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-014447-6.
  • Kobayashi, Masato.; & George Cardona (2004). Historical phonology of old Indo-Aryan consonants. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. ISBN 4-87297-894-3.
  • Masica, Colin (1991), written at Cambridge, The Indo-Aryan Languages (Paperback ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521299446.
  • Misra, Satya Swarup. (1980). Fresh light on Indo-European classification and chronology. Varanasi: Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan.
  • Misra, Satya Swarup. (1991-1993). The Old-Indo-Aryan, a historical & comparative grammar (Vols. 1-2). Varanasi: Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan.
  • Sen, Sukumar. (1995). Syntactic studies of Indo-Aryan languages. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Foreign Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
  • Vacek, Jaroslav. (1976). The sibilants in Old Indo-Aryan: A contribution to the history of a linguistic area. Prague: Charles University.

See also

External links

Indo-Iranian languages
Indic (Indo-Aryan)
Iranian
Dardic Dameli · Domaaki · Gawar-Bati · Kalash · Kashmiri · Khowar · Kohistani · Nangalami · Pashayi · Palula · Shina · Shumashti
Nuristani Askunu · Kamkata-viri · Tregami · Vasi-vari · Waigali
Languages of South Asia

Main articles
Languages of India (list by number of speakers - scheduled)  · Languages of Pakistan · Languages of Bangladesh  · Languages of Nepal · Languages of Sri Lanka

Historic languages
Linguistic history of India · Vedic Sanskrit · Classical Sanskrit · Prakrit · Pāli · Classical Tamil  · Middle Indic

Contemporary languages
Indo-Aryan: Hindustani: Hindi · Urdu · Bengali · Gujarati · Maithili · Marathi · Oriya · Punjabi · Assamese · Sindhi · Dogri · Nepali · Konkani · Kashmiri · Dravidian: Telugu · Tamil · Kannada · Malayalam · Brahui · Iranian: Persian · Balochi · Pashto · Tajik · Tibeto-Burman: Nepal Bhasa · Tibetan · Meitei · Bodo · Sikkimese · Mizo · Kokborok · Ao · Tenyidie · Garo · Munda: Santhali · Ho · Mon-Khmer: Nicobarese · Khasi  · isolates: Nihali · Burushaski · Andamanese · of European influence: French · English · Portuguese

Scripts
Indus · Brahmi · Brahmic family: Devanagari · Telugu · Tamil · Gurmukhi · Bengali · Ranjana · Oriya · Malayalam · Kannada · Gujarati · Arabic: Nasta'liq · Shahmukhi

Language activism
Sanskrit revival · Language movement · Pure Tamil movement · Nepal Bhasa movement · Anti-Hindi agitations


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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Indo-Aryan languages".  Read more

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