The Indo-Iranian languages (also known as Indo-Iranic languages or collectively the Aryan languages) constitute the largest branch of the

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

language family. They include over 300 languages, spoken by around 1.7 billion speakers worldwide, predominantly in

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

West Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...

and parts of

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. Indo-Iranian languages are divided into three major branches: Indo-Aryan,

Iranian Iranian () may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Iran ** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran ** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia ** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...

, and

Nuristani languages The Nuristani languages are one of the three groups within the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian language family, alongside the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages, Iranian languages. They have approximately 214,000 speakers ...

. The Badeshi language remains unclassified within the Indo-Iranian branch. The largest Indo-Iranian language is the

Hindustani language Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India and Pakistan as the lingua franca of the region. It is also spoken by the Deccani people, Deccani-speaking community in the Deccan plateau. Hindustani is a pluricentric language w ...

(

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

)."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. . . The areas with Indo-Iranian languages stretch from

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

( Romani) and the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

( Ossetian, Tat, Talysh), down to

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

and eastern

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

( Kurdish, Zaza), the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

and

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

( Domari), and

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

( Persian), eastward to

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

( Sarikoli) and

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

( Assamese), and south to

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

( Sinhala) and the

Maldives The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, and historically known as the Maldive Islands, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in South Asia located in the Indian Ocean. The Maldives is southwest of Sri Lanka and India, abou ...

( Maldivian), with branches stretching as far out as Oceania and the Caribbean for

Fiji Hindi Fiji Hindi (Devanagari: ; Kaithi: ; Perso-Arabic: ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Fijians. It is considered to be a ''koiné'' language based on Awadhi that has also been subject to considerable influence by other Eastern Hindi ...

and

Caribbean Hindustani Caribbean Hindustani () is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Caribbean people and the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. It is a koiné language mainly based on the Bhojpuri and Awadhi dialects. These Hindustani dialects were the most-spoken dialec ...

respectively. Furthermore, there are large diaspora communities of Indo-Iranian speakers in

Northwestern Europe Northwestern Europe, or Northwest Europe, is a loosely defined subregion of Europe, overlapping Northern and Western Europe. The term is used in geographic, history, and military contexts. Geographic definitions Geographically, Northwestern ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

, and the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

Etymology

The term ''Indo-Iranian languages'' refers to the spectrum of Indo-European languages spoken in the Southern Asian region of

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

, spanning from the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

(where the Indo-Aryan branch is spoken, also called Indic) up to the

Iranian Plateau The Iranian plateau or Persian plateau is a geological feature spanning parts of the Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. It makes up part of the Eurasian plate, and is wedged between the Arabian plate and the Indian plate. ...

(where the Iranian branch is spoken, also called Iranic). It was later discovered that the

are also spoken in the isolated region of

Nuristan Nuristan, also spelled as Nurestan or Nooristan (Pashto: ; Katë: ), is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. It is divided into seven districts and is Afghanistan's least populous province, with a ...

, roughly situated in the intersection of these regions. This branch is also known as ''Aryan languages'', referring to the languages spoken by

Aryan ''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from Sanskrit ''ārya''), Oxford English Dictionary Online 2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.'' is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood ...

peoples, where the term ''Aryan'' is considered as the ethnocultural self-designation of ancient

Indo-Iranians The Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Ā́rya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European speaking peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages to parts of Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia in waves from the f ...

. Today, the term ''Aryan'' is generally avoided, owing to the perceived negative connotation associated with

Aryanism Aryanism is an ideology of Germans, German racial Supremacism, supremacy which views the supposed Aryan race as a Master race, distinct and superior Race (human categorization), racial group which is entitled to rule the rest of humanity. Initia ...

Classification

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

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

(reconstructed) **

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

(reconstructed) *** Proto-Iranian (reconstructed) ****

Iranian languages The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian langu ...

***** Eastern *****

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

*** Proto-Nuristani (reconstructed) ****

*** Proto-Indo-Aryan (reconstructed) ****

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east ...

***** Dardic ***** Northwestern ***** Northern *****

***** Eastern ***** Southern ***** Chinali-Lahul (unclassified) *** Badeshi (unclassified)

Origin

All Indo-Iranian languages can be traced back to a single hypothetical ancestral language:

, which 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 unatte ...

to represent the latest point at which all modern-day Indo-Iranian languages were still unified.

, in turn, is classified as belonging to the

language family, ultimately tracing back to the

language. Historically, the Proto-Indo-Iranian speakers are thought to have originally referred to themselves using the reconstructed

root , from which it derives terms like ''Aryavarta'' (, ), '' Airyanem Vaejah'' (, ), '' Alania'' (), ''

'' (), and "

". The

-speakers are generally associated with the

Sintashta culture The Sintashta culture is a Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture of the Southern Urals, dated to the period 2200–1900 BCE. It is the first phase of the Sintashta–Petrovka complex, –1750 BCE. The culture is named after the Sintashta ...

, which is thought to represent an eastward migration of peoples from the

Corded Ware culture The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between – 2350 BC, thus from the Late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a vast area, from t ...

, which, in turn, is believed to represent an earlier westward migration of Yamnaya-related people from the

Pontic–Caspian steppe The Pontic–Caspian Steppe is a steppe extending across Eastern Europe to Central Asia, formed by the Caspian and Pontic steppes. It stretches from the northern shores of the Black Sea (the ''Pontus Euxinus'' of antiquity) to the northern a ...

zone into the territory of late Neolithic European cultures, possibly bringing with them the

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

. However, the exact genetic relationship between the Yamnaya culture, Corded Ware culture and Sinthasta culture remains unclear. "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." 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 The "Old World" () is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously ...

and played an important role in

ancient warfare Ancient warfare is war that was conducted from the beginning of recorded history to the end of the ancient period. The difference between prehistoric and ancient warfare is more organization oriented than technology oriented. The development of ...

. There is almost a general consensus among scholars that the

Andronovo culture The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished 2000–1150 BC,Grigoriev, Stanislav, (2021)"Andronovo Problem: Studies of Cultural Genesis in the Eurasian Bronze Age" in Open Archaeology 202 ...

, the successor of Sintasha culture, was an Indo-Iranian culture. Currently, only two sub-cultures are considered as part of Andronovo culture: Alakul and Fëdorovo cultures.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..." The Andronovo culture is considered as an "Indo-Iranic dialect continuum", with a later split between Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages. 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", despite the absence of the characteristic timber graves of the steppe in the Near East, or south of the region between Kopet Dag and Pamir-

Karakorum Karakorum (Khalkha Mongolian: Хархорум, ''Kharkhorum''; Mongolian script:, ''Qaraqorum'') was the capital city, capital of the Mongol Empire between 1235 and 1260 and of the Northern Yuan, Northern Yuan dynasty in the late 14th and 1 ...

.Francfort, in ; Fussman, in ; Francfort (1989), Fouilles de Shortugai. 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 The Medes were an Iron Age Iranian peoples, Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media (region), Media between western Iran, western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, they occupied the m ...

Persians Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...

or Indo-Aryans". He has developed the ''Kulturkugel'' () model that has the Indo-Iranians taking over cultural traits of BMAC, but preserving their language and religion while moving into Iran and India.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * . * * * * * *

External links

Swadesh lists of Indo-Iranian basic vocabulary words
(from Wiktionary'
Swadesh-list appendix

{{DEFAULTSORT:Indo-Iranian Languages Indo-European languages