Proto-Indo-Aryan (sometimes Proto-Indic) is the reconstructed

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattes ...

of the

Indo-Aryan languages 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 India, P ...

. It is intended to reconstruct the language of the Proto-Indo-Aryans. Being descended from

Proto-Indo-Iranian Proto-Indo-Iranian, also Proto-Indo-Iranic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian/Indo-Iranic branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium ...

(which in turn is descended from

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

), it has the characteristics of a

Satem Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An ...

language.

History

Proto-Indo-Aryan is meant to be the predecessor of Old Indo-Aryan (1500–300 BCE), which is directly attested as

Vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute th ...

and

Classical Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the l ...

, as well as by the

Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni Some loanwords in the variant of the Hurrian language spoken in the Mitanni kingdom, during the 2nd millennium BCE, are identifiable as originating in an Indo-Aryan language; these are considered to constitute an Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni ...

. Indeed, Vedic Sanskrit is very close to Proto-Indo-Aryan. Some of the Prakrits display a few minor features derived from Proto-Indo-Aryan that had already disappeared in Vedic Sanskrit. Today, numerous modern

are extant.

Differences from Vedic

Despite the great archaicity of Vedic, the other Indo-Aryan languages preserve a small number of

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

features lost in Vedic. One of these is the representation of Proto-Indo-European *l and *r. Vedic (as also most Iranic languages) merge both as . Later, however, some instances of Indo-European again surface in

, indicating that the contrast survived in an early Indo-Aryan dialect parallel to Vedic. (A dialect with only is additionally posited to underlie

Magadhi Prakrit Magadhi Prakrit (''Māgadhī'') is of one of the three Dramatic Prakrits, the written languages of Ancient India following the decline of Pali and Sanskrit. It was a vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan language, replacing earlier Vedic Sanskrit. H ...

.) However, it is not clear that the contrast actually survived anywhere in Indo-Iranian, not even in Proto-Indo-Iranian, as is also found in place of original *r in Indo-Iranian languages. The common consonant cluster ''kṣ'' of Vedic and later Sanskrit has a particularly wide range of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and Proto-Indo-Iranian (PII) sources, which partly remain distinct in later Indo-Aryan languages: * PIE *ks, *kʷs, *gs, *gʷs > PII *kš > Middle Indo-Aryan ''kh-'', ''-kkh-'' * PIE *dʰgʷʰ, *gʰs, *gʷʰs > PII *gʱžʱ > Middle Indo-Aryan ''gh-'', ''-ggh-'' * PIE *tḱ; *ǵs, *ḱs > PII *tć, *ćš > Middle Indo-Aryan ''ch-'', ''-cch-'' * PIE *dʰǵʰ, *ǵʰs > PII *ȷ́ʱžʱ > Middle Indo-Aryan ''jh-'', ''-jh-''

References

External links

* Proto-Indo-Aryan language on

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{{Old and Middle Indo-Aryan Indo-Aryan Indo-Aryan languages Languages of India History of India

History

Differences from Vedic

Further reading

References

External links