Information about Indo Iranians
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Map of the Sintashta-Petrovka culture (red), its expansion into the Andronovo culture during the 2nd millennium BC, showing the overlap with the BMAC in the south. The location of the earliest chariots is shown in purple.
Origin
The Indo-Iranians are commonly identified with the Andronovo culture, and their homeland with an area of the Eurasian steppe that borders the Ural River on the west, the Tian Shan on the east (where the Indo-Iranians took over the area occupied by the earlier Afanasevo culture), and Transoxiana and the Hindu Kush on the south. Historical linguists broadly estimate that a continuum of Indo-Iranian languages probably began to diverge by 2000 BCE, if not earlier,[1] preceding both the Vedic and Iranian cultures. The earliest recorded forms of these languages, Vedic Sanskrit and Gathic Avestan, are remarkably similar, descended from the common Proto-Indo-Iranian language. The origin and earliest relationship between the Nuristani languages and that of the Iranian and Indic groups is unrecoverably obscure.Expansion
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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 and PGW cultures are candidates for cultures associated with Indo-Aryan movements.
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First wave
They left linguistic remains in a Hittite horse-training manual written by one "Kikkuli the Mitannian". Other evidence is found in references to the names of Mitanni rulers and the gods they swore by in treaties; these remains are found in the archives of the Mitanni's neighbors. The time period for this is about 1500 BCE.[2]
The standard model for the entry of the Indo-European languages into India is that this first wave went over the Hindu Kush, either into the headwaters of the Indus or the Ganges (and probably, both). The earliest stratum of Vedic Sanskrit, preserved only in the Rigveda, is assigned to roughly 1200 BCE.[2] From the Indus, the Indo-Aryan languages spread with the migrants who, from c. 1500 BCE to c. 500 BCE, were able to spread over the northern and central parts of the subcontinent, sparing the extreme south. The Indo-Aryans in these areas established several powerful kingdoms and principalities in the region, from eastern Afghanistan to the doorstep of Bengal. The most powerful of these kingdoms was Magadha, which lasted until the 4th century BCE, when it was conquered by Chandragupta Maurya and annexed into the Mauryan empire.
In eastern Afghanistan and southwestern Pakistan, whatever Indo-Aryan languages that were spoken they were eventually pushed out by the Iranian languages. Most Indo-Aryan languages, however, were and still are prominent in the rest of the Indian subcontinent. Today, Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
Second wave
The Second Wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave.[1] The Iranians would take over all of Central Asia, Iran, and for a considerable period, dominate the European steppe (the modern Ukraine) and intrude north into Russia and west into central and eastern Europe well into historic times and as late as the Common Era. The first Iranians to reach the Black Sea may have been the Cimmerians in the 8th century BCE, although their linguistic affiliation is uncertain. They were followed by the Scythians, who are considered a western branch of the Central Asian Sakas. The Rigvedic Kambojas may correspond to the Nuristani branch of Indo-Iranian. The Medes, Parthians and Persians begin to appear on the Persian plateau from ca. 800 BCE, and the Achaemenids replaced Elamite rule from 559 BC. Around the first millennium of the Common Era (CE), the Iranian Pashtuns and Baloch began to settle on the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau, on the mountainous frontier of northwestern India in what is now the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan, displacing the earlier Indo-Aryans from the area.In Central Asia, the Turkic languages and culture have replaced Iranian, but a substantial minority remains in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The Iranian languages are now confined to Iran, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, western Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey and the Caucasus.
Archaeology
Archaeological cultures associated with Indo-Iranian expansion include:- Central Asia
- Poltavka culture (2700-2100 BCE)
- Andronovo horizon (2200-1000 BCE)
- Sintashta-Petrovka-Arkaim (2200-1600 BCE),
- Alakul (2100-1400 BCE)
- Fedorovo (1400-1200 BCE)
- Alekseyevka (1200-1000 BCE)
- Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (2200-1700 BCE)
- Srubna culture (2000-1100 BCE)
- Abashevo culture (1700-1500 BCE)
- Yaz culture (1500-1100 BCE)
- India
- Swat culture (1600-500 BCE)
- Cemetery H culture (1900-1300 BCE)
- Painted Gray Ware culture (1100-350 BCE)
- Iran
- Early West Iranian Grey Ware (1500-1000 BCE)
- Late West Iranian Buff Ware (900-700 BCE)
| date range | archaeological culture | identification suggested by Parpola |
|---|---|---|
| 2800-2000 BCE | late Catacomb and Poltavka cultures | late PIE to Proto-Indo-Iranian |
| 2000-1800 BCE | Srubna and Abashevo cultures | Proto-Iranian |
| 2000-1800 BCE | Petrovka-Sintashta | Proto-Indo-Aryan |
| 1900-1700 BCE | BMAC | "Proto-Dasa" Indo-Aryans establishing themselves in the existing BMAC settlements, defeated by "Proto-Rigvedic" Indo-Aryans around 1700 |
| 1900-1400 BCE | Cemetery H | Indian Dasa |
| 1800-1000 BCE | Alakul-Fedorovo | Indo-Aryan, including "Proto-Sauma-Aryan" practicing the Soma cult |
| 1700-1400 BCE | early Swat culture | Proto-Rigvedic = Proto-Dardic |
| 1700-1500 BCE | late BMAC | "Proto-Sauma-Dasa", assimilation of Proto-Dasa and Proto-Sauma-Aryan |
| 1500-1000 BCE | Early West Iranian Grey Ware | Mitanni-Aryan (offshoot of "Proto-Sauma-Dasa") |
| 1400-800 BCE | late Swat culture and Punjab, Painted Grey Ware | late Rigvedic |
| 1400-1100 BCE | Yaz II-III, Seistan | Proto-Avestan |
| 1100-1000 BCE | Gurgan Buff Ware, Late West Iranian Buff Ware | Proto-Persian, Proto-Median |
| 1000-400 BCE | Iron Age cultures of Xinjang | Proto-Saka |
Language
Among the sound changes from Proto-Indo-Iranian to Indo-Aryan is the loss of the voiced sibilant *z, among those to Iranian is the de-aspiration of the PIE voiced aspirates.
See also
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Notes
Sources
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id="CITEREFDiakonoff1995">Diakonoff, Igor M. (1995), "Two Recent Studies of Indo-Iranian Origins", Journal of the American Oriental Society 115 (3): 473-477.
- Jones-Bley, K.; Zdanovich, D. G. (eds.), Complex Societies of Central Eurasia from the 3rd to the 1st Millennium BC, 2 vols, JIES Monograph Series Nos. 45, 46, Washington D.C. (2002), ISBN 0-941694-83-6, ISBN 0-941694-86-0.
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id="CITEREFKuz'mina1994">Kuz'mina, E. E. (1994), Откуда пришли индоарии? (Whence came the Indo-Aryans), Moscow: Российская академия наук (Russian Academy of Sciences).
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id="CITEREFMallory1989">Mallory, J.P. (1989), In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth, London: Thames & Hudson.
-
id="CITEREFMalloryAdams1997">Mallory, J. P. & Douglas Q. Adams (1997), "Indo-Iranian Languages", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn.
-
id="CITEREFMalloryMair2000">Mallory, J. P. & Victor H. Mair (2000), The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, London: Thames & Hudson.
-
id="CITEREFParpola1999">Parpola, Asko (1999), "The formation of the Aryan branch of Indo-European", in Blench, Roger & Matthew Spriggs, Archaeology and Language, vol. III: Artefacts, languages and texts, London and New York: Routledge.
-
id="CITEREFWitzel2000">Witzel, Michael (2000), "The Home of the Aryans", in Hintze, A. & E. Tichy, Anusantatyai. Fs. für Johanna Narten zum 70. Geburtstag, Dettelbach: J.H. Roell, pp. pp. 283-338.
External links
- The Origin of the Pre-Imperial Iranian Peoples by Oric Basirov (2001)
Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, the northern Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and much of Central Asia.
..... Click the link for more information.Albanian (gjuha shqipe IPA /ˈɟuˌha ˈʃciˌpɛ/
..... Click the link for more information.Anatolian languages are a group of extinct Indo-European languages, which were spoken in Asia Minor, the best attested of them being the Hittite language.List
- Hittite (nesili), attested from ca.
..... Click the link for more information.
Armenian}}}
Writing system: Armenian alphabet
Official status
Official language of: Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh
Regulated by: National Academy of Sciences of Armenia
Language codes
ISO 639-1: hy
ISO 639-2: arm (B)
..... Click the link for more information.Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe.
..... Click the link for more information.Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. During the 1st millennium BC, they were spoken across Europe, from the Bay of Biscay and the North Sea, up the Rhine and down the Danube to the
..... Click the link for more information.
Dacian}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: ine
ISO 639-3: xdc
Indo-European topics
Indo-European languages
Albanian Anatolian Armenian
Baltic Celtic Dacian Germanic
Greek Indo-Iranian Italic Phrygian
..... Click the link for more information.Germanic languages are a group of related languages constituting a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. The common ancestor of all languages comprising this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the latter mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age Northern Europe.
..... Click the link for more information.Greek}}}
Writing system: Greek alphabet
Official status
Official language of: Greece
Cyprus
European Union
recognised as minority language in parts of:
European Union
Italy
Turkey
Regulated by:
..... Click the link for more information.Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of four language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Nuristani, and Dardic.
..... Click the link for more information.Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. It includes the Romance languages (including Italian, Catalan, Occitan, French, Corsican, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish), and a number of extinct languages.
..... Click the link for more information.Phrygian language was the Indo-European language of the Phrygians, a people of the central Asia Minor.Inscriptions
Phrygian is attested by two corpora, one from around 800 BC and later (Paleo-Phrygian), and then after a period of several centuries from around the
..... Click the link for more information.Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of
..... Click the link for more information.
Thracian}}}
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: ine
ISO 639-3: txh
Indo-European topics
Indo-European languages
Albanian Anatolian Armenian
Baltic Celtic Dacian Germanic
Greek Indo-Iranian Italic Phrygian
..... Click the link for more information.
Tocharian languages}}}
Writing system: Tocharian script
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: ine
ISO 639-3: either:
xto —
txb — Tocharian or Tokharian
..... Click the link for more information.Indo-European people are the speakers of the Indo-European languages, a major language family of Eurasia. In the context of linguistics, the term usually refers to Bronze Age (third to second millennia BC) speakers of Indo-European languages that had not yet split into the attested
..... Click the link for more information.- For demographic information, see Demographics of Albania.
Albanians
Shqiptarë
Total population Approximately 8 million
Regions with significant populations
Albania
..... Click the link for more information.This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling.
You can assist by [ editing it] now. A how-to guide is available, as is general .
This article has been tagged since September 2007.
..... Click the link for more information.8 to 10 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
Armenia
Russia
United States
..... Click the link for more information.Balts or Baltic peoples (Latvian: balti; Lithuanian: baltai; Latgalian: bolti
..... Click the link for more information.Celts, normally pronounced /kɛlts/ (see article on pronunciation), is widely used to refer to the members of any of the peoples in Europe using the Celtic languages or descended from those who did.
..... Click the link for more information.Germanic peoples are a historical group of Indo-European-speaking peoples, originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Germanic languages which diversified out of Common Germanic in the course of the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
..... Click the link for more information.17,000,000
Regions with significant populations
Greece [1]
United States
Cyprus
..... Click the link for more information.Indo-Aryans are a wide collection of peoples united by their common status as speakers of the Indo-Aryan (Indic/Indian) branch of the family of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian languages.
..... Click the link for more information.The Iranian peoples (See[1] for local names) are a collection of ethnic groups defined by their usage of Iranian languages and their descent from ancient Iranian peoples.
..... Click the link for more information.Ancient Italic peoples are all those peoples that lived in Italy before the Roman domination. Not all of these various peoples are linguistically or ethnically closely related.
..... Click the link for more information.Slavic peoples are a branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in Europe, where they constitute roughly a third of the population. Since emerging from their original homeland (most commonly thought to be in Eastern Europe) in the early 6th century, they have inhabited most of
..... Click the link for more information.Thracians were a group of ancient Indo-European tribes who spoke the Thracian language - a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family. Those peoples inhabited the Eastern, Central and Southern part of the Balkan peninsula, as well as the adjacent parts of Eastern
..... Click the link for more information.Tocharians were the Tocharian-speaking inhabitants of the Tarim basin, making them the easternmost speakers of an Indo-European language in antiquity.Archaeology
The Tarim mummies suggest that precursors of these easternmost speakers of an Indo-European language may have
..... Click the link for more information.Proto-Indo-Europeans are the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language, a prehistoric people of the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age or according to some modern theories at Neolithic or even Paleolithic.
..... Click the link for more information.
-
id="CITEREFWitzel2000">Witzel, Michael (2000), "The Home of the Aryans", in Hintze, A. & E. Tichy, Anusantatyai. Fs. für Johanna Narten zum 70. Geburtstag, Dettelbach: J.H. Roell, pp. pp. 283-338.
-
id="CITEREFParpola1999">Parpola, Asko (1999), "The formation of the Aryan branch of Indo-European", in Blench, Roger & Matthew Spriggs, Archaeology and Language, vol. III: Artefacts, languages and texts, London and New York: Routledge.
-
id="CITEREFMalloryMair2000">Mallory, J. P. & Victor H. Mair (2000), The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, London: Thames & Hudson.
-
id="CITEREFMalloryAdams1997">Mallory, J. P. & Douglas Q. Adams (1997), "Indo-Iranian Languages", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn.
-
id="CITEREFMallory1989">Mallory, J.P. (1989), In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth, London: Thames & Hudson.
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