| Indo-Aryan | |
|---|---|
| Indic[a] | |
| Geographic distribution | South Asia |
Native speakers | c. 800 million (2018)[1]–1.5 billion[2] |
| Linguistic classification | Indo-European
|
| Proto-language | Proto-Indo-Aryan |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 / 5 | inc |
| Linguasphere | 59= (phylozone) |
| Glottolog | indo1321 |
 Present-day geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan language groups. Romani, Domari, Kholosi, Luwati, and Lomavren are outside the scope of the map.
Khowar (Dardic)
Shina (Dardic)
Kohistani (Dardic)
Kashmiri (Dardic)
Sindhi (Northwestern)
Gujarati (Western)
Khandeshi (Western)
Bhili (Western)
Central Pahari (Northern)
Eastern Pahari (Northern)
Eastern Hindi (Central)
Bihari (Eastern)
Odia (Eastern)
Halbic (Eastern)
Sinhala (Southern)
Dhivehi (Southern)
(not shown: Kunar (Dardic), Chinali-Lahuli (Unclassified)) | |
| Part of a series on |
| Indo-European topics |
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The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes simply Indic languages[a]) 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 east of the Indus river in Bangladesh, North India, Eastern Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal.[1] Moreover, apart from the Indian subcontinent, large immigrant and expatriate Indo-Aryan–speaking communities live in Northwestern Europe, Western Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Southeast Africa, Polynesia and Australia, along with several million speakers of Romani languages primarily concentrated in Southeastern Europe. There are over 200 known Indo-Aryan languages.[5]
Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as early Vedic Sanskrit, through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits).[6][7][8][9] The largest such languages in terms of first-speakers are Hindi–Urdu (c. 330 million),[10] Bengali (242 million),[11] Punjabi (about 150 million),[12][13] Marathi (112 million), and Gujarati (60 million). A 2005 estimate placed the total number of native speakers of the Indo-Aryan languages at nearly 900 million people.[14] Other estimates are higher suggesting a figure of 1.5 billion speakers of Indo-Aryan languages.[2]
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
- ^ a b "Overview of Indo-Aryan languages". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
- ^ a b "Development team" (PDF). inflibnet.ac.in. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
- ^ Reynolds, Mike; Verma, Mahendra (2007). "Indic languages". In Britain, David (ed.). Language in the British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 293–307. ISBN 978-0-521-79488-6. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
- ^ Munshi, S (2009). "Indo-Aryan languages". In Keith Brown; Sarah Ogilvie (eds.). Concise Encyclopedia of Language of the World. Amsterdam: Elsevier. p. 522–528.
- ^ Various counts depend on where the line is drawn between a "dialect" and a "language".[citation needed] Glottolog 4.1 lists 224 languages.
- ^ Burde, Jayant (2004). Rituals, Mantras, and Science: An Integral Perspective. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. p. 3. ISBN 978-81-208-2053-1.
The Aryans spoke an Indo-European language sometimes called the Vedic language from which have descended Sanskrit and other Indic languages ... Prakrit was a group of variants which developed alongside Sanskrit.
- ^ Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (26 July 2007). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 163. ISBN 978-1-135-79711-9.
... a number of their morphophonological and lexical features betray the fact that they are not direct continuations of R̥gvedic Sanskrit, the main base of 'Classical' Sanskrit; rather they descend from dialects which, despite many similarities, were different from R̥gvedic and in some regards even more archaic.
- ^ Chamber's Encyclopaedia, Volume 7. International Learnings Systems. 1968.
Most Aryan languages of India and Pakistan belong to the Indo-Aryan family, and are descended from Sanskrit through the intermediate stage of Prakrit. The Indo-Aryan languages are by far the most important numerically and the territory occupied by them extends over the whole of northern and central India and reaches as far south as Goa.
- ^ Donkin, R. A. (2003). Between East and West: The Moluccas and the Traffic in Spices Up to the Arrival of Europeans. American Philosophical Society. p. 60. ISBN 9780871692481.
The modern, regional Indo-Aryan languages developed from Prakrt, an early 'unrefined' (prakrta) form of Sanskrit, around the close of the first millennium A.D.
- ^ Standard Hindi first language: 260.3 million (2001), as second language: 120 million (1999). Urdu L1: 68.9 million (2001–2014), L2: 94 million (1999): Ethnologue 19.
- ^ Bengali or Bangla-Bhasa, L1: 242.3 million (2011), L2: 19.2 million (2011), Ethnologue
- ^ "Världens 100 största språk 2010" [The world's 100 largest languages in 2010]. Nationalencyclopedin (in Swedish). Government of Sweden publication. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
- ^ "Punjabi speaking countries". WorldData.info.
- ^ Bryant, Edwin Francis; Patton, Laurie L. (2005). The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History. Routledge. pp. 246–247. ISBN 978-0-7007-1463-6.