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Indo-Aryan peoples

Regions with significant populations
India	821 mil
Pakistan	Over 164 mil
Bangladesh	Over 150 mil
Nepal	Over 26 mil
Sri Lanka	Over 14 mil
Maldives	Over 300,000
Languages
Indo-Aryan languages
Religion
Primarily Indian religions (Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain) and Islam, some non-religious atheist/agnostic and Christians
Related ethnic groups
Other Indian people · Banglas · Sri Lankans · Nepalese · Maldivians · Pakistanis · Afghans · Iranians · Europeans

Indo-Aryan is an ethno-linguistic term referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Today, there are over one billion native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages, most of them native to South Asia, where they form the majority. They trace their ancestry to a branch of the Indo-Europeans known as Indo-Iranians.

Origins

Part of a series on
Indo-European topics
Languages List of Indo-European languages Extant Albanoid Albanian Armenian Balto-Slavic Baltic Slavic Celtic Germanic Hellenic Greek Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Nuristani Italic Romance Extinct Anatolian Tocharian Paleo-Balkan Dacian Illyrian Liburnian Messapic Mysian Paeonian Phrygian Thracian Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language Phonology: Sound laws, Accent, Ablaut Hypothetical Balkanic Daco-Thracian Graeco-Albanian Graeco-Armenian Graeco-Aryan Graeco-Phrygian Indo-Hittite Italo-Celtic Thraco-Illyrian Grammar Vocabulary Root Verbs Nouns Pronouns Numerals Particles Other Proto-Albanian Proto-Anatolian Proto-Armenian Proto-Germanic (Proto-Norse) Proto-Italo-Celtic (Proto-Celtic · Proto-Italic) Proto-Greek Proto-Balto-Slavic (Proto-Slavic · Proto-Baltic) Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-Iranian)
Philology Hittite inscriptions Hieroglyphic Luwian Linear B Rigveda Avesta Homer Behistun Greek epigraphy Phrygian epigraphy Messapic epigraphy Latin epigraphy Gaulish epigraphy Runic epigraphy Ogham Gothic Bible Bible translations into Armenian Tocharian script Old Irish glosses Albanian Kanun
Origins Homeland Proto-Indo-Europeans Society Religion Mainstream Kurgan hypothesis Indo-European migrations Eurasian nomads Alternative and fringe Anatolian hypothesis Armenian hypothesis Beech argument Indigenous Aryanism Baltic homeland Paleolithic continuity theory
Archaeology Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Pontic Steppe Domestication of the horse Kurgan Kurgan stelae Kurgan culture Steppe cultures Bug–Dniester Sredny Stog Dnieper–Donets Samara Khvalynsk Yamnaya Mikhaylovka culture Novotitarovskaya culture Caucasus Maykop East Asia Afanasievo Eastern Europe Usatovo Cernavodă Cucuteni Northern Europe Corded ware Baden Middle Dnieper Bronze Age Pontic Steppe Chariot Yamnaya Catacomb Multi-cordoned ware Poltavka Srubnaya Northern/Eastern Steppe Abashevo culture Andronovo Sintashta Europe Globular Amphora Corded ware Bell Beaker Únětice Trzciniec Nordic Bronze Age Terramare Tumulus Urnfield Lusatian South Asia BMAC Yaz Gandhara grave Iron Age Steppe Chernoles Europe Thraco-Cimmerian Hallstatt Jastorf Caucasus Colchian India Painted Grey Ware Northern Black Polished Ware
Peoples and societies Bronze Age Anatolian peoples (Hittites) Armenians Mycenaean Greeks Indo-Iranians Iron Age Indo-Aryans Indo-Aryans Iranians Iranians East Asia Wusun Yuezhi Europe Celts Gauls Celtiberians Insular Celts Cimmerians Hellenic peoples Italic peoples Germanic peoples Paleo-Balkan/Anatolia Thracians Dacians Illyrians Paeonians Phrygians Scythians Middle Ages East Asia Tocharians Europe Albanians Balts Slavs Norsemen/Medieval Scandinavians Middle Ages Indo-Aryan Medieval India Iranian Greater Iran
Religion and mythology Reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology Proto-Indo-Iranian paganism Historical Vedic religion Ancient Iranian religion Historical Hittite Indo-Aryan Vedic Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Sikhism Iranian Persian Zoroastrianism Kurdish Yazidism Yarsanism Scythian Ossetian Others Armenian European Paleo-Balkan (Albanian · Illyrian · Thracian · Dacian) Greek Roman Celtic Irish Scottish Breton Welsh Cornish Germanic Anglo-Saxon Continental Norse Baltic Latvian Lithuanian Slavic Practices Fire rituals Horse sacrifice Sati Winter solstice/Yule
Indo-European studies Scholars Marija Gimbutas J. P. Mallory Institutes Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European Publications Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture The Horse, the Wheel, and Language Journal of Indo-European Studies Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch Indo-European Etymological Dictionary
v t e

The separation of Indo-Aryans proper from the Iranians is commonly dated, on linguistic grounds, to roughly 1800 BCE. 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).

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-aryans (both Indo-Aryans and European aryans) back to the Andronovo culture (2nd millennium BCE). Other scholars 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 and Southern countries like Sri Lanka and the Maldives

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 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. 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) 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.

Antiquity

An influx of early Indo-Aryan speakers over the Hindukush (comparable to the Kushan expansion of the first centuries CE) 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".

Middle Ages

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 Romani people (also known as Gypsies) are believed to have left India around 1000 CE.

Contemporary Indo-Aryan peoples

Contemporary Indo-Aryans are spread over most of the northern, western, central and eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent, Hyderabad in southern India, and in most parts of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Non-native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages also reach the south of the peninsula. The largest groups are the Hindi, Bengali and Urdu (Hindustani) speakers of India, Bangladesh 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).

Genetic studies

A genetic study in Andhra Pradesh state of India found that the upper caste Hindus were closer relatives to Eastern-Europeans than to Hindus from lower castes.

A study conducted by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in 2009 (in collaboration with Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT) analyzed half a million genetic markers across the genomes of 132 individuals from 25 ethnic groups from 13 states in India across multiple caste groups. The study asserts, based on the impossibility of identifying any genetic indicators across caste lines, that castes in South Asia grew out of traditional tribal organizations during the formation of Indian society, and was not the product of any Aryan invasion and "subjugation" of Dravidian people.

List of Indo-Aryan peoples

Historical

Contemporary

Notes

1. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html#People
2. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html#People
3. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bg.html#People
4. Mallory, J.P. (1989), In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth, London: Thames & Hudson, p. 38f.
5. e.g. EIEC, s.v. "Indo-Iranian languages", p. 306.
6. Brentjes (1981), Klejn (1974), Francfort (1989), Lyonnet (1993), Hiebert (1998) and Sarianidi (1993)
7. Edwin Bryant. 2001
8. e.g. Bernard Sergent. Genèse de l'Inde. 1997:161 ff.
9. 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.
10. Sindoi (or Sindi etc.) were also described by e.g. Herodotus, Strabo, Dionysius, Stephen Byzantine, Polienus.
11. Bamshad et al. Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations (2000)
12. Indians are one people descended from two tribes
13. Aryan-Dravidian divide a myth: Study, Times of India

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.

See also

• Aryan
• Arya
• Aryavarta
• Aryan race
• Iranian Peoples
• Indo-Aryan migration
• Dasa
• Kshatriya
• Proto-Indo-Europeans
• Indo-Aryan languages

• Misplaced Pages neutral point of view disputes from November 2008
• Indo-Aryan peoples
• Pre-Islamic heritage of Pakistan