Indo-Aryan languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Indo-Aryan Indic
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|---|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: | South Asia | |
| Genetic classification: | Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan | |
| Subdivisions: | ||
| ISO 639-2: | inc | |
| Image:Indoarische Sprachen.png
Indo-Aryan languages spoken in South Asia | ||
The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic[1]) form a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian languages, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages.
SIL International in a 2005 estimate counted a total of 209 varieties, the largest in terms of native speakers being Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu, about 540 million), Bengali (about 200 million), Punjabi (about 100 million), Marathi (about 90 million), Gujarati (about 45 million), Nepali (about 40 million),Oriya (about 30 million), and Sindhi (about 20 million), with a total number of native speakers of more than 900 million.
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[edit] History
The earliest evidence of the group is from Vedic Sanskrit, the language used in the ancient preserved texts of the Indian subcontinent, the foundational canon of Hinduism known as the Vedas. The Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni is of similar age as the Rigveda, but the only evidence is a number of loanwords.
In about the 4th century BCE, the Sanskrit language was codified and standardised by the grammarian Panini, called "Classical Sanskrit" by convention. Outside the learned sphere of Sanskrit, vernacular dialects (Prakrits) continued to evolve.
In medieval times, the Prakrits diversified into various Middle Indic dialects. "Apabhramsa" is the conventional cover term for transitional dialects connecting late Middle Indic with early Modern Indic, spanning roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. Some of these dialects showed considerable literary production; the Sravakachar of Devasena (dated to the 930s) is now considered to be the first Hindi book.
The next major milestone occurred with the Muslim invasions of India in the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. Under the flourishing Mughal empire, Persian became very influential as the language of prestige of the Islamic courts. However, Persian was soon displaced by Urdu. This Indo-Aryan language is a combination with Persian elements in its vocabulary, with the grammar of the local dialects.
The two largest languages that formed from Apabhransa were Bengali and Hindi; others include Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, and Punjabi.
In the Hindi-speaking areas, the main form was Braj-bhasha, which is still spoken today, but was replaced in the 19th century by the Khari Boli dialect. However, a large amount of modern spoken Hindi vocabulary is derived from Perso-Arabic.
This state of affairs continued until the Partition of India in 1947. Hindustani (a mixture of Urdu and Hindi) was replaced by Hindi as the official language of India, and soon the Perso-Arabic words of Urdu began to be excised from the official Hindi corpus, in a bid to make the language more "Indian". A return to Hindi poets such as Tulsidas resulted in what is known as a Sanskritisation of the language. Persian words in common parlance were slowly replaced by Sanskrit words, sometimes borrowed wholesale, or in new compounds. In contemporary times, there is a continuum of Hindi–Urdu, with heavily-Persianised Urdu at one end and Sanskritised Hindi at the other, although the basic grammar remains identical. Most people speak somewhere in the middle: Hindustani.
[edit] References
- ^ Note that, unlike the generic adjective "Indian", "Indic" is the term used in the context of Indo-European linguistics, and is not strictly a geographical term; non-Indo-European languages spoken in India are not included in the term, while the Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni, on the other hand, probably testifies to speakers of an Indic language that never settled on the Indian subcontinent
- John Beames, A comparative grammar of the modern Aryan languages of India: to wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bangali. Londinii: Trübner, 1872-1879. 3 vols.
- Cardona, George & Dhanesh Jain (2003), The Indo-Aryan Languages (Paperback ed.), Routledge, ISBN 041577294X.
- Madhav Deshpande (1979). Sociolinguistic attitudes in India: An historical reconstruction. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers. ISBN 0-89720-007-1, ISBN 0-89720-008-X (pbk).
- Chakrabarti,Byomkes (1994). A comparative study of Santali and Bengali. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co. ISBN 8170741289
- Erdosy, George. (1995). The Indo-Aryans of ancient South Asia: Language, material culture and ethnicity. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-014447-6.
- Kobayashi, Masato.; & George Cardona (2004). Historical phonology of old Indo-Aryan consonants. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. ISBN 4-87297-894-3.
- Masica, Colin (1991), written at Cambridge, The Indo-Aryan Languages (Paperback ed.), Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521299446.
- Misra, Satya Swarup. (1980). Fresh light on Indo-European classification and chronology. Varanasi: Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan.
- Misra, Satya Swarup. (1991-1993). The Old-Indo-Aryan, a historical & comparative grammar (Vols. 1-2). Varanasi: Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan.
- Sen, Sukumar. (1995). Syntactic studies of Indo-Aryan languages. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Foreign Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
- Vacek, Jaroslav. (1976). The sibilants in Old Indo-Aryan: A contribution to the history of a linguistic area. Prague: Charles University.
[edit] See also
- List of Indo-Aryan languages
- Indo-Aryans
- Indo-Iranians
- Indo-Aryan migration
- Proto-Vedic Continuity
- The family of Brahmic scripts
- Linguistic history of India
[edit] External links
- The Indo Aryan languages
- The Indic languages
- Transliteration of Indic Languages & Scripts - Dr. Anthony Stone's Page
Languages of South Asia |
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Main articles Historic languages Contemporary languages Scripts Language activism |
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