Page protected with pending changes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Indo-Aryans)

Part of a series on
Indo-European topics
Languages
Extant
Extinct
Reconstructed
Hypothetical
Grammar
Other
Philology
Origins
Mainstream
Alternative and fringe
Archaeology
Chalcolithic (Copper Age)

Pontic Steppe

Caucasus

East Asia

Eastern Europe

Northern Europe

Bronze Age

Pontic Steppe

Northern/Eastern Steppe

Europe

South Asia

Iron Age

Steppe

Europe

Caucasus

India

Peoples and societies
Bronze Age
Iron Age

Indo-Aryans

Iranians

East Asia

Europe

Middle Ages

East Asia

Europe

Indo-Aryan

Iranian

Religion and mythology
Reconstructed
Historical

Indo-Aryan

Iranian

Others

Europe

Practices
Indo-European studies
Scholars
Institutes
Publications
Indo-Aryan peoples
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.
   Central
   Dardic
   Eastern
   Northern
   Northwestern
   Western
   Southern
Total population
~1.5 billion [ citation needed]
Regions with significant populations
  Indiaover 911 million [1]
  Pakistanover 233 million [2]
  Bangladeshover 160 million [3]
    Nepalover 26 million
  Sri Lankaover 14 million
  Myanmarover 1 million
  Mauritiusover 725,400
  Maldivesover 300,000 [4]
  Bhutanover 240,000
Languages
Indo-Aryan languages
Religion
Indian religions (Mostly Hindu; with Buddhist, Sikh and Jain minorities) and Islam, Christians and some non-religious atheist/ agnostic

Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse collection of peoples speaking Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent. Historically, Aryans were the Indo-Iranian speaking pastoralists who migrated from Central Asia into South Asia and introduced the Proto-Indo-Aryan language. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] The early Indo-Aryan peoples were known to be closely related and belonging to the same Indo-Iranian group that have resided north of the Indus River; an evident connection in cultural, linguistic, and historical ties. Today, Indo-Aryan speakers are found south of the Indus, across the modern-day regions of Bangladesh, Nepal, eastern- Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and northern- India. [10]

History

Proto-Indo-Iranians

Main articles: Indo-Iranians, Proto-Indo-Europeans, Aryan, Indo-European migrations, and Indo-Aryan migrations
Further information: Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia and Peopling of India
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 result 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). These migrations started approximately 1,800 BCE, after the invention of the war chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner Asia.[ citation needed] Another group of Indo-Aryans migrated further westward and founded the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria; [11] (c. 1500–1300 BC) the other group was the Vedic people. [12] Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Wusun, an Indo-European Caucasoid people of Inner Asia in antiquity, were also of Indo-Aryan origin. [13]

The Proto-Indo-Iranians, from which the Indo-Aryans developed, are identified with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE), [14] [15] and the Andronovo culture,[ citation needed] 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, [16] 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. [17] [5] 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. [5] [18] [19] 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. [20] 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.

While the Indo-Aryan linguistic group occupies mainly northern parts of India, genetically, all South Asians across the Indian subcontinent are descendants of a mix of South Asian hunter-gatherers, Iranian hunter-gatherers, and Central Asian steppe pastoralists in varying proportion. [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

See also: List of ancient Indo-Aryan peoples and tribes

Contemporary Indo-Aryan people

See also

References

  1. ^ "India". The World Factbook. 16 November 2021.
  2. ^ "Pakistan". The World Factbook. 4 February 2022.
  3. ^ "Bangladesh". The World Factbook. 4 February 2022.
  4. ^ "Population of Lhotshampas in Bhutan". UNHCR. 2004. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  5. ^ a b c Anthony 2007.
  6. ^ Erdosy 2012.
  7. ^ "How ancient DNA may rewrite prehistory in India". bbc. 23 December 2018. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  8. ^ "New reports clearly confirm 'Arya' migration into India". thehindu. 13 September 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  9. ^ "Aryans or Harappans—Who drove the creation of caste system? DNA holds a clue". theprint. 29 June 2021. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  10. ^ Danesh Jain, George Cardona (2007). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 2.
  11. ^ Anthony 2007, p. 454.
  12. ^ Beckwith 2009, p. 33 note 20.
  13. ^ Beckwith 2009, p. 376-7.
  14. ^ Anthony 2007, p. 390 (fig. 15.9), 405–411.
  15. ^ Kuz'mina 2007, p. 222.
  16. ^ Anthony 2007, p. 408.
  17. ^ George Erdosy (1995). "The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity", p. 279
  18. ^ Johannes Krause mit Thomas Trappe: Die Reise unserer Gene. Eine Geschichte über uns und unsere Vorfahren. Propyläen Verlag, Berlin 2019, p. 148 ff.
  19. ^ "All Indo-European Languages May Have Originated From This One Place". IFLScience. 24 May 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  20. ^ 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.
  21. ^ Reich et al. 2009.
  22. ^ Narasimhan et al. 2019.
  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.

Sources

External links

Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Indo-Aryan_peoples&oldid=1219215806"