Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages[1][note 1]) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Indo-Aryan peoples. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Maldives.[2] Moreover, apart from the Indian subcontinent, large immigrant and expatriate Indo-Aryan–speaking communities live in Northwestern Europe, Western Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Southeast Africa, Polynesia and Australia, along with several million speakers of Romani languages primarily concentrated in Southeastern Europe. There are over 200 known Indo-Aryan languages.[3]
Indo-Aryan | |
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Indic | |
Geographic distribution | South Asia |
Linguistic classification | Indo-European
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Proto-language | Proto-Indo-Aryan |
ISO 639-2 / 5 | inc |
Linguasphere | 59= (phylozone) |
Glottolog | indo1321 |
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Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as early Vedic Sanskrit, through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits).[4][5][6][7] The largest such languages in terms of first-speakers are Hindi–Urdu (c. 329 million),[8] Bengali (242 million),[9] Punjabi (about 120 million),[10] Marathi (112 million), Gujarati (60 million), Rajasthani (58 million), Bhojpuri (51 million), Odia (35 million), Maithili (about 34 million), Sindhi (25 million), Nepali (16 million), Assamese (15 million), Chhattisgarhi (18 million), Sinhala (17 million), and Romani (c. 3.5 million). A 2005 estimate placed the total number of native speakers of the Indo-Aryan languages at nearly 900 million people.[11]