Indo-Aryan peoples

history

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Indo-Aryan is an ethno-linguistic term referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Today, there are slightly over approximately one billion native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages, most of them native to South Asia, where they form the majority. Their cultural influence, from early on in the 1st millennium CE, reached as far east as modern Cambodia and Vietnam (Khmer and Champa kingdoms) as well as Indonesia, where it survives in Bali and in the Philippines. Modern migration gave rise to Indo-Aryan speaking minorities on most continents.

Pre-Vedic Indo-Aryans

The separation of Indo-Aryans proper from Proto-Indo-Iranians is commonly dated, on linguistic grounds, to roughly 2000 BCE. The Nuristani languages probably split in such early times, and are classified as either remote Indo-Aryan dialects or as an independent branch of Indo-Iranian. By the mid 2nd millennium BCE early Indo-Aryans had reached Assyria in the west (the Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni) and the northern Punjab in the east (the Rigvedic tribes).e.g. EIEC, s.v. "Indo-Iranian languages", p. 306.

The spread of Indo-Aryan languages has been connected with the spread of the chariot in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Some scholars trace the Indo-Iranians (both Indo-Aryans and Iranians) back to the Andronovo culture (2nd millennium BCE). Other scholarsBrentjes (1981), Klejn (1974), Francfort (1989), Lyonnet (1993), Hiebert (1998) and Sarianidi (1993) have argued that the Andronovo culture proper formed too late to be associated with the Indo-Aryans of India, and that no actual traces of the Andronovo culture (e.g. warrior burials or timber-frame materials) have been found in India or Mesopotamia.Edwin Bryant. 2001

Archaeologist J.P. Mallory (1998) finds it "extraordinarily difficult to make a case for expansions from this northern region to northern India" and remarks that the proposed migration routes "only »get the Indo-Iranian to Central Asia, but not as far as the seats of the Medes, Persians or Indo-Aryans" (Mallory 1998; Bryant 2001: 216). Therefore he prefers to derive the Indo-Aryans from the intermediate stage of the BMAC culture, in terms of a "Kulturkugel" model of expansion. Likewise, Asko Parpola (1988) connects the Indo-Aryans to the BMAC. But although horses were known to the Indo-Aryans, evidence for their presence in the form of horse bones is missing in the BMAC.e.g. Bernard Sergent. Genèse de l'Inde. 1997:161 ff. Parpola (1988) has argued that the Dasas were the "carriers of the Bronze Age culture of Greater Iran" living in the BMAC and that the forts with circular walls destroyed by the Indo-Aryans were actually located in the BMAC. Parpola (1999)Parpola, Asko (1999), "The formation of the Aryan branch of Indo-European", in Blench, Roger & Spriggs, Matthew, Archaeology and Language, vol. III: Artefacts, languages and texts, London and New York: Routledge. elaborates the model and has "Proto-Rigvedic" Indo-Aryans intrude the BMAC around 1700 BCE. He assumes early Indo-Aryan presence in the Late Harappan horizon from about 1900 BCE, and "Proto-Rigvedic" (Proto-Dardic) intrusion to the Punjab as corresponding to the Swat culture from about 1700 BCE.

Indigenous Aryans

The alternative hypothesis is that the Indo-Aryans are indigenous to India. The notion of Indigenous Aryans posits that speakers of Indo-Aryan languages are "indigenous" to the Indian subcontinent. It is widespread in Hindu nationalism, but not limited to it and can take various forms, all of them emphasizing that Vedic Sanskrit and Vedism are native to Northern India.

Out of India Theory

There is also yet another theory that supposes that the first Indo-European speakers originated from India. The Out of India theory (OIT, also called the Indian Urheimat Theory) is the proposition that the Indo-European language family originated in the Indian subcontinent and spread to the remainder of the Indo-European region through a series of migrations. A notable proponent was Friedrich Schlegel.

Antiquity

An influx of early Indo-Aryan speakers over the Hindukush (comparable to the Kushan expansion of the first centuries CE) together with Late Harappan cultures gave rise to the Vedic civilization of the Early Iron Age. This civilization is marked by a continual shift to the east, first to the Gangetic plain with the Kurus and Panchalas, and further east with the Kosala and Videha. This Iron Age expansion corresponds to the black and red ware and painted grey ware cultures.

For Hellenistic times, Oleg N. Trubachev (1999; elaborating on a hypothesis by Kretschmer 1944) suggests that there were Indo-Aryan speakers in the Pontic steppe. The Maeotes and the Sindes, the latter also known as "Indoi" and described by Hesychius as an "an Indian people".Sindoi (or Sindi etc.) were also described by e.g. Herodotus, Strabo, Dionysius, Stephen Byzantine, Polienus. »http://indoeuro.bizland.com/archive/article17.html

Middle Ages

The various Prakrit vernaculars developed into independent languages in the course of the Middle Ages (see Apabhramsha), forming the Abahatta group in the east and the Hindustani group in the west. The Roma people (also known as Gypsies) are believed to have left India around 1000 CE.

Contemporary Indo-Aryans

Contemporary Indo-Aryans are spread over most of the northern, western, central and eastern regions of the Indian subcontinent, Hyderabad in southern India, and in most parts of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Non-native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages also reach the south of the peninsula. The largest group are the Hindi and Urdu (Hindustani) speakers of India and Pakistan, together with other dialects also grouped as Hindustani, numbering at roughly half a billion native speakers, constituting the largest community of speakers of any of the Indo-European languages. Of the 23 national languages of India, 16 are Indo-Aryan languages (see also languages of India).


List of Indo-Aryan people

Ancient

Modern

Notes

References

  • Mallory, JP. 1998. "A European Perspective on Indo-Europeans in Asia". In The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern and Central Asia. Ed. Mair. Washington DC: Institute for the Study of Man.
  • Trubachov, Oleg N., 1999: Indoarica, Nauka, Moscow.

See also

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