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Indo-Aryan peoples

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(Redirected from Indo Aryan)

Indo-Aryans
1978 map showing geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan languages. (Urdu is included under Hindi. Romani, Domari, and Lomavren are outside the scope of the map.) Dotted/striped areas indicate where multilingualism is common.
  Dardic
Total population
~1.4 billion[citation needed]
Regions with significant populations
 IndiaOver 1 billion
 PakistanOver 180 million
 BangladeshOver 195 million
 NepalOver 26 million
 Sri LankaOver 15 million
 United StatesOver 4 million
 United Arab EmiratesOver 3 million
 TurkeyOver 2 million
 AfghanistanOver 2 million
 United KingdomOver 1 million
 CanadaOver 1 million
 MauritiusOver 812,800
 RomaniaOver 569,000
 Trinidad and TobagoOver 560,000
 GuyanaOver 325,000
 BulgariaOver 325,000
 MaldivesOver 300,000
 FijiOver 252,000
 BhutanOver 240,000[1]
Languages
Indo-Aryan languages
Religion
Majority Hindu
Large minority: Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Christian and some non-religious atheist/agnostic
Related ethnic groups
Other Indo-European-peoples, especially Iranian peoples

Indo-Aryan peoples (also known as Indic peoples in the context of Indo-European studies) are a diverse collection of peoples predominantly found in South Asia, who (traditionally) speak Indo-Aryan languages. Historically, Aryans were the pastoralists who spoke Indo-Iranian languages, migrated from Central Asia into South Asia, and introduced the Proto-Indo-Aryan language.[2][3][4][5][6] The early Indo-Aryan peoples were known to be closely related to the Iranian group that have resided west of the Indus River on the Iranian Plateau; an evident connection in cultural, linguistic, and historical ties. Today, the majority of Indo-Aryan speakers are found south of Hindu Kush and east of the Indus, across the modern-day regions of Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and northern half of India as well as parts of Afghanistan (Kunar).[7]

Schematic representation of major ethno-linguistic regions of Indo-Aryan languages.[8]

History

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Proto-Indo-Iranians

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Archaeological cultures associated with Indo-Iranian migrations (after EIEC). The Andronovo, BMAC and Yaz cultures have often been associated with Indo-Iranian migrations. The GGC, Cemetery H, Copper Hoard, OCP, and PGW cultures are candidates for cultures associated with Indo-Aryan migrations.

The introduction of the Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent was the outcome of a migration of Indo-Aryan people from Central Asia into the northern Indian subcontinent (modern-day Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). Another group of Indo-Aryans migrated further westward and founded the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria[9] (c. 1500–1300 BC); the other group was the Vedic people.[10] According to Christopher I. Beckwith, the Wusun people of Inner Asia in antiquity could have been of Indo-Aryan origin.[11]

The Proto-Indo-Iranians, from which the Indo-Aryans developed, are identified with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE),[12][13] and the Andronovo culture,[14] which flourished ca. 1800–1400 BCE in the steppes around the Aral Sea, present-day Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Proto-Indo-Aryan split off around 1800–1600 BCE from the Iranians,[15] moved south through the Bactria-Margiana Culture, south of the Andronovo culture, borrowing some of their distinctive religious beliefs and practices from the BMAC, and then migrated further south into the Levant and north-western India.[16][2] The migration of the Indo-Aryans was part of the larger diffusion of Indo-European languages from the Proto-Indo-European homeland at the Pontic–Caspian steppe which started in the 4th millennium BCE.[2][17][18] The GGC, Cemetery H, Copper Hoard, OCP, and PGW cultures are candidates for cultures associated with Indo-Aryans.

The Indo-Aryans were united by shared cultural norms and language, referred to as aryā 'noble'. Over the last four millennia, the Indo-Aryan culture has evolved particularly inside India itself, but its origins are in the conflation of values and heritage of the Indo-Aryan and indigenous people groups of India.[19] Diffusion of this culture and language took place by patron-client systems, which allowed for the absorption and acculturation of other groups into this culture, and explains the strong influence on other cultures with which it interacted.

Genetically, most Indo-Aryan-speaking populations are descendants of a mix of Central Asian steppe pastoralists, Iranian hunter-gatherers, and, to a lesser extent, South Asian hunter-gatherers—commonly known as Ancient Ancestral South Indians (AASI). Dravidians are descendants of a mix of South Asian hunter-gatherers and Iranian hunter-gatherers, and to a lesser extent, Central Asian steppe pastoralists. South Indian Tribal Dravidians descend majorly from South Asian hunter-gatherers, and to a lesser extent Iranian hunter-gatherers.[20][21][22] Additionally, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burmese speaking people contributed to the genetic make-up of South Asia.[23]

Indigenous Aryanism propagates the idea that the Indo-Aryans were indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages spread from there to central Asia and Europe. Contemporary support for this idea is ideologically driven, and has no basis in objective data and mainstream scholarship.[24][25][26][27][28]

List of historical Indo-Aryan peoples

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Contemporary Indo-Aryan people

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A

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B

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C

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D

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G

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H

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J

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K

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L

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M

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N

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O

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P

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Q

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R

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S

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T

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V

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W

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See also

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References

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  1. ↑ "Population of Lhotshampas in Bhutan". UNHCR. 2004. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 Anthony 2007.
  3. ↑ Erdosy 2012.
  4. ↑ "How ancient DNA may rewrite prehistory in India". bbc. 23 December 2018. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  5. ↑ "New reports clearly confirm 'Arya' migration into India". thehindu. 13 September 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  6. ↑ "Aryans or Harappans—Who drove the creation of caste system? DNA holds a clue". theprint. 29 June 2021. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  7. ↑ Danesh Jain, George Cardona (2007). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 2.
  8. ↑
  9. ↑ Anthony 2007, p. 454.
  10. ↑ Beckwith 2009, p. 33 note 20.
  11. ↑ Beckwith 2009, p. 376.
  12. ↑ Anthony 2007, p. 390 (fig. 15.9), 405–411.
  13. ↑ Kuz'mina 2007, p. 222.
  14. ↑ Smith, Frederick M. (March 2009). "The Origin of the Indo-Iranians by Elena E. Kuz'mina". Religious Studies Review. 35 (1): 72. doi:10.1111/j.1748-0922.2009.01329_5.x.
  15. ↑ Anthony 2007, p. 408.
  16. ↑ George Erdosy (1995). "The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity", p. 279
  17. ↑ Johannes Krause mit Thomas Trappe: Die Reise unserer Gene. Eine Geschichte über uns und unsere Vorfahren. Propyläen Verlag, Berlin 2019, p. 148 ff.
  18. ↑ "All Indo-European Languages May Have Originated From This One Place". IFLScience. 24 May 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  19. ↑ Avari, Burjor (11 June 2007). India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Sub-Continent from c. 7000 BC to AD 1200. Routledge. pp. xvii. ISBN 978-1-134-25161-2.
  20. ↑ Reich et al. 2009.
  21. ↑ Narasimhan et al. 2019.
  22. ↑ Yelmen, Burak; Mondal, Mayukh; Marnetto, Davide; Pathak, Ajai K; Montinaro, Francesco; Gallego Romero, Irene; Kivisild, Toomas; Metspalu, Mait; Pagani, Luca (5 April 2019). "Ancestry-Specific Analyses Reveal Differential Demographic Histories and Opposite Selective Pressures in Modern South Asian Populations". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 36 (8): 1628–1642. doi:10.1093/molbev/msz037. ISSN 0737-4038. PMC 6657728. PMID 30952160.
  23. ↑ Basu et al. 2016.
  24. ↑ Witzel 2001, p. 95.
  25. ↑ Jamison 2006.
  26. ↑ Guha 2007, p. 341.
  27. ↑ Fosse 2005, p. 438.
  28. ↑ Olson 2016, p. 136.
  29. ↑ "Veddah Language (Ved)". Ethnologue. SIL International. Retrieved 15 February 2026.

Sources

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