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Which Indo-European branch includes Hindi, Bengali, and Punjabi?

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Indo-European languages Approximate locations of Indo-European languages in contemporary Eurasia.

Hindi, Bengali, and Punjabi belong to the Indo-Aryan subfamily, which is a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.12

While these languages are part of the broader Indo-Iranian branch, they are specifically categorized as Indo-Aryan languages, which are spoken primarily across the Indian subcontinent, including in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. These modern languages ultimately derive from Sanskrit through the development of Prakrit vernaculars.132