Indo-Aryan languages

Indo-Aryan languages, subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. In the early 21st century, Indo-Aryan languages were spoken by more than 800 million people, primarily in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

General characteristics

Linguists generally recognize three major divisions of Indo-Aryan languages: Old, Middle, and New (or Modern) Indo-Aryan. These divisions are primarily linguistic and are named in the order in which they initially appeared, with later divisions coexisting with rather than completely replacing earlier ones.

Old Indo-Aryan includes different dialects and linguistic states that are referred to in common as Sanskrit. The most archaic Old Indo-Aryan is found in Hindu sacred texts called the Vedas, which date to approximately 1500 bce. There is a clear-cut difference between Vedic and post-Vedic Sanskrit in that the former has certain formations that the latter has eliminated. The grammarian Pāṇini (c. 5th–6th century bce) appropriately distinguishes between usage proper to the language of sacred texts (chandas, locative sg. chandasi)—that is, Vedic usage—and what occurs in the spoken language (bhāṣā, locative sg. bhāṣāyām) of his time. Other distinctions are also made within the language, so scholars speak of Classical Sanskrit and Epic Sanskrit. Despite differences in genre, however, the Sanskrit found in such works generally agrees with the language Pāṇini describes. So-called un-Pāṇinian forms not only reflect the influence of vernaculars but also continue a freedom of usage—referred to as ārṣaprayoga (usage of ṛṣis)—already to be seen in aspects of the living spoken language Pāṇini described.

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Middle Indo-Aryan includes the dialects of inscriptions from the 3rd century bce to the 4th century ce as well as various literary languages. Apabhraṃśa dialects represent the latest stage of Middle Indo-Aryan development. Though all Middle Indo-Aryan languages are included under the name Prākrit, it is customary to speak of the Prākrits as excluding Apabhraṃśa.

Uncertainties regarding the course of Indo-Aryan migration make it difficult to determine the domain of Proto-Indo-Aryan, the ancestral language of all the known Indo-Aryan tongues, if indeed there was any such single region (see Indo-Iranian languages). All that can be said with certainty is that the Indo-Aryan speakers on the Indian subcontinent first occupied the area comprising most of present-day Punjab state (India), Punjab province (Pakistan), Haryana, and the Upper Doab (of the Ganges–Yamuna Doab) of Uttar Pradesh. The structure of Proto-Indo-Aryan must have been similar to that of early Vedic, albeit with dialect variations.

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A wide variety of New Indo-Aryan languages are currently in use. According to the 2001 census of India, Indo-Aryan languages accounted for more than 790,625,000 speakers, or more than 75 percent of the population. By 2003 the constitution of India included 22 officially recognized, or Scheduled, languages. However, this number does not distinguish among many speech communities that could legitimately be considered distinct languages. For example, the Hindi census category includes not only Hindi proper (about 422,050,000 speakers in 2001) but also such languages as Bhojpuri (about 33,100,000), Magahi (about 13,975,000), and Maithili (more than 12,175,000).

Other Indo-Aryan languages that have been officially recognized in the constitution are as follows (the approximate numbers of speakers for each are drawn from the census report of 2001): Asamiya (Assamese, about 13,175,000 speakers), Bangla (Bengali, 83,875,000), Gujarati (46,100,000), Kashmiri (5,525,000), Konkani (2,500,000), Marathi (71,950,000), Nepali (2,875,000), Oriya (33,025,000), Punjabi (29,100,000), Sindhi (2,550,000), and Urdu (51,550,000).

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Some of the Indo-Aryan languages are used by relatively few speakers; others are used as the media of education and of official transactions. Hindi written in the Devanāgarī script is one of two official languages of the Republic of India (the other is English). It is widely used as a lingua franca throughout northern India, including Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, and in parts of the South. Asamiya, Bangla, Oriya, Punjabi, Gujarati, and Marathi are the state languages of Assam, West Bengal, Orissa, Punjab, Gujarat, and Maharashtra, respectively. There are other Modern Indo-Aryan languages with large numbers of speakers in India, though they lack official recognition; examples include various languages spoken in Rajasthan (e.g., Marwari, Mewari); several Pahari languages, spoken in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Sindhi, spoken by Sindhis in various parts of India. Each of the major state languages has several dialects in addition to the standard dialect adopted for official purposes, and Hindi has not only dialects but also several varieties according to the mother tongue of the area; e.g., Bombay Hindi and Calcutta Hindi.

Many New Indo-Aryan languages also have official status outside India. Urdu written in Perso-Arabic script is the official language of Pakistan, where it is spoken by most of the population as either a first or a second language. Structurally and historically, Hindi and Urdu are one, although they are now official languages of different countries, are written in different alphabets, and have been developing in divergent manners. The term hindī (also hindvī) is known from as early as the 13th century ce. The term zabān-e-urdū ‘language of the imperial camp’ came into use about the 17th century. In the south, Urdu was used by Muslim conquerors of the 14th century.

Bangla is the official language of Bangladesh, where it has approximately 107 million native speakers—a figure that nearly doubles when those who speak Bangla as a second language are included. Nepali is the official language of Nepal, where there are approximately 11.1 million speakers, and Nepali is also spoken by 3 to 4 million speakers in the Himalayan region west of Nepal. Sinhala (Sinhalese) has approximately 13.5 million speakers in Sri Lanka, where it has been an official language since 1956.