Indo-Aryan languages

History

Indian subcontinent

Dates indicate only a rough time frame.

• Proto-Indo-Aryan (before 1500 BCE, reconstructed)
• Old Indo-Aryan (c. 1500–500 BCE)
  • early Old Indo-Aryan: includes Vedic Sanskrit (c. 1500 to 500 BCE)
  • late Old Indo-Aryan: Epic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit (c. 200 CE to 1300 CE)
  • Mitanni Indo-Aryan (c. 1400 BCE)
• Middle Indo-Aryan or Prakrits (c. 600 BCE to 1400 CE)
  • early Middle Indo-Aryan: e.g. early Jain and Buddhist texts (c. 6th or 5th century BCE), Ashokan Prakrits, Pali, Gandhari, (c. 600 BCE to 200 BCE)
  • middle Middle Indo-Aryan: e.g. Dramatic Prakrits, Elu (c. 300 BCE to 700 CE)
  • late Middle Indo-Aryan: e.g. Abahattha (c. 600 CE to 1400 CE)
• Early Modern Indo-Aryan (Late Medieval India): e.g. early Dakhini and emergence of the Dehlavi dialect

Proto-Indo-Aryan

Proto-Indo-Aryan (or sometimes Proto-Indic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Aryan languages. It is intended to reconstruct the language of the pre-Vedic Indo-Aryans. Proto-Indo-Aryan is meant to be the predecessor of Old Indo-Aryan (1500–300 BCE), which is directly attested as Vedic and Mitanni-Aryan. Despite the great archaicity of Vedic, however, the other Indo-Aryan languages preserve a small number of conservative features lost in Vedic.

Mitanni-Aryan hypothesis

Some theonyms, proper names, and other terminology of the Late Bronze Age Mitanni civilisation of Upper Mesopotamia exhibit an Indo-Aryan superstrate. While what few written records left by the Mittani are either in Hurrian (which appears to have been the predominant language of their kingdom) or Akkadian (the main diplomatic language of the Late Bronze Age Near East), these apparently Indo-Aryan names suggest that an Indo-Aryan elite imposed itself over the Hurrians in the course of the Indo-Aryan expansion. If these traces are Indo-Aryan, they would be the earliest known direct evidence of Indo-Aryan, and would increase the precision in dating the split between the Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages (as the texts in which the apparent Indicisms occur can be dated with some accuracy).

In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni, the deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the Ashvins (Nasatya) are invoked. Kikkuli's horse training text includes technical terms such as aika (cf. Sanskrit eka, "one"), tera (tri, "three"), panza (panca, "five"), satta (sapta, seven), na (nava, "nine"), vartana (vartana, "turn", round in the horse race). The numeral aika "one" is of particular importance because it places the superstrate in the vicinity of Indo-Aryan proper as opposed to Indo-Iranian in general or early Iranian (which has aiva). Another text has babru (babhru, "brown"), parita (palita, "grey"), and pinkara (pingala, "red"). Their chief festival was the celebration of the solstice (vishuva) which was common in most cultures in the ancient world. The Mitanni warriors were called marya, the term for "warrior" in Sanskrit as well; note mišta-nnu (= miẓḍha, ≈ Sanskrit mīḍha) "payment (for catching a fugitive)" (M. Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen, Heidelberg, 1986–2000; Vol. II:358).

Sanskritic interpretations of Mitanni royal names render Artashumara (artaššumara) as Ṛtasmara "who thinks of Ṛta" (Mayrhofer II 780), Biridashva (biridašṷa, biriiašṷa) as Prītāśva "whose horse is dear" (Mayrhofer II 182), Priyamazda (priiamazda) as Priyamedha "whose wisdom is dear" (Mayrhofer II 189, II378), Citrarata as Citraratha "whose chariot is shining" (Mayrhofer I 553), Indaruda/Endaruta as Indrota "helped by Indra" (Mayrhofer I 134), Shativaza (šattiṷaza) as Sātivāja "winning the race price" (Mayrhofer II 540, 696), Šubandhu as Subandhu "having good relatives" (a name in Palestine, Mayrhofer II 209, 735), Tushratta (tṷišeratta, tušratta, etc.) as *tṷaiašaratha, Vedic Tvastar "whose chariot is vehement" (Mayrhofer, Etym. Wb., I 686, I 736).

Old Indo-Aryan

The earliest evidence of the group is from Vedic Sanskrit, which is used in the ancient preserved texts of the Indian subcontinent, the foundational canon of the Hindu synthesis known as the Vedas. The Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni is of similar age to the language of the Rigveda, but the only evidence of it is a few proper names and specialised loanwords.

While Old Indo-Aryan is the earliest stage of the Indo-Aryan branch, from which all known languages of the later stages Middle and New Indo-Aryan are derived, some documented Middle Indo-Aryan variants cannot fully be derived from the documented form of Old Indo-Aryan (on which Vedic and Classical Sanskrit are based), but betray features that must go back to other undocumented dialects of Old Indo-Aryan.

From Vedic Sanskrit, "Sanskrit" (literally 'put together, perfected, elaborated') developed as the prestige language of culture, science and religion, as well as the court, theatre, etc. Sanskrit of the later Vedic texts is comparable to Classical Sanskrit, but is largely mutually unintelligible with Vedic Sanskrit.

Middle Indo-Aryan (Prakrits)

Outside the learned sphere of Sanskrit, vernacular dialects (Prakrits) continued to evolve. The oldest attested Prakrits are the Buddhist and Jain canonical languages Pali and Ardhamagadhi Prakrit, respectively. Inscriptions in Ashokan Prakrit were also part of this early Middle Indo-Aryan stage, developing into Gandhari Prakrit and Monumental Prakrit.

By medieval times, the Prakrits had diversified into various Middle Indo-Aryan languages. Apabhraṃśa is the conventional cover term for transitional dialects connecting late Middle Indo-Aryan with early modern Indo-Aryan, spanning roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. Some of these dialects showed considerable literary production; the Śravakacāra of Devasena (dated to the 930s) is now considered to be the first book written in Hindi.

The next major milestone occurred with the Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent in the 13th–16th centuries. Under the flourishing Turco-Mongol Mughal Empire, Persian became very influential as the language of prestige of the Islamic courts due to adoption of the foreign language by the Mughal emperors.

The largest languages that formed from Apabhraṃśa were Bengali, Bhojpuri, Hindustani, Assamese, Sindhi, Gujarati, Odia, Marathi, and Punjabi.

New Indo-Aryan

Medieval Hindustani

In the Central Zone Hindi-speaking areas, for a long time the prestige dialect was Braj Bhasha, but this was replaced in the 13th century by Dehlavi-based Hindustani. Hindustani was strongly influenced by Persian, with these and later Sanskrit influence leading to the emergence of Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu as registers of the Hindustani language. This state of affairs continued until the division of the British Indian Empire in 1947, when Modern Standard Hindi became the official language in India and Modern Standard Urdu became official in Pakistan. Despite the different script the fundamental grammar remains identical, the difference is more sociolinguistic than purely linguistic. Today it is widely understood/spoken as a second or third language throughout South Asia and one of the most widely known languages in the world in terms of number of speakers.

Outside the Indian subcontinent

Domari

Domari is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by older Dom people scattered across the Middle East. The language is reported to be spoken as far north as Azerbaijan and as far south as central Sudan. Based on the systematicity of sound changes, linguists have concluded that the ethnonyms Domari and Romani derive from the Indo-Aryan word ḍom.

Lomavren

Lomavren is a nearly extinct mixed language, spoken by the Lom people, that arose from language contact between a language related to Romani and Domari and the Armenian language.

Parya

Parya is spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the descendants of migrants from the Indian subcontinent. The language retains many features similar to Punjabi and the Western Hindi dialects, while also bearing some influence from Tajik Persian.

Romani

The Romani language is usually included in the Western Indo-Aryan languages. Romani varieties, which are mainly spoken throughout Europe, are noted for their relatively conservative nature; maintaining the Middle Indo-Aryan present-tense person concord markers, alongside consonantal endings for nominal case. Indeed, these features are no longer evident in most other modern Central Indo-Aryan languages. Moreover, Romani shares an innovative pattern of past-tense person, which corresponds to Dardic languages, such as Kashmiri and Shina. This is believed to be further indication that proto-Romani speakers were originally situated in central regions of the subcontinent, before migrating to northwestern regions. However, there are no known historical sources regarding the development of the Romani language specifically within India.

Research conducted by nineteenth-century scholars Pott (1845) and Miklosich (1882–1888) demonstrated that the Romani language is most aptly designated as a New Indo-Aryan language (NIA), as opposed to Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA); establishing that proto-Romani speakers could not have left India significantly earlier than 1000 CE.

The principal argument favouring a migration during or after the transition period to NIA is the loss of the old system of nominal case, coupled with its reduction to a two-way nominative-oblique case system. A secondary argument concerns the system of gender differentiation, due to the fact that Romani has only two genders (masculine and feminine). Middle Indo-Aryan languages (named MIA) generally employed three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), and some modern Indo-Aryan languages retain this aspect today.

It is suggested that loss of the neuter gender did not occur until the transition to NIA. During this process, most of the neuter nouns became masculine, while several became feminine. For example, the neuter aggi "fire" in Prakrit morphed into the feminine āg in Hindustani, and jag in Romani. The parallels in grammatical gender evolution between Romani and other NIA languages have additionally been cited as indications that the forerunner of Romani remained on the Indian subcontinent until a later period, possibly as late as the tenth century.

Sindhic migrations

Kholosi, Jadgali, Luwati, Maimani and Al Sayigh represent offshoots of the Sindhic subfamily of Indo-Aryan that have established themselves in the Persian Gulf region, perhaps through sea-based migrations. These are of a later origin than the Rom and Dom migrations which represent a different part of Indo-Aryan as well.

Indentured labourer migrations

The use by the British East India Company of indentured labourers led to the transplanting of Indo-Aryan languages around the world, leading to locally influenced lects that diverged from the source language, such as Fiji Hindi and Caribbean Hindustani.

Phonology

Consonants

Stop positions

The normative system of New Indo-Aryan stops consists of five places of articulation: labial, dental, "retroflex", palatal, and velar, which is the same as that of Sanskrit. The "retroflex" position may involve retroflexion, or curling the tongue to make the contact with the underside of the tip, or merely retraction. The point of contact may be alveolar or postalveolar, and the distinctive quality may arise more from the shaping than from the position of the tongue. Palatal stops have affricated release and are traditionally included as involving a distinctive tongue position (blade in contact with hard palate). Widely transcribed as , Masica (1991:94) claims to be a more accurate rendering.

Moving away from the normative system, some languages and dialects have alveolar affricates instead of palatal, though some among them retain in certain positions: before front vowels (esp. ), before , or when geminated. Alveolar as an additional point of articulation occurs in Marathi and Konkani where dialect mixture and others factors upset the aforementioned complementation to produce minimal environments, in some West Pahari dialects through internal developments (, > ), and in Kashmiri. The addition of a retroflex affricate to this in some Dardic languages maxes out the number of stop positions at seven (barring borrowed ), while a reduction to the inventory involves *ts > , which has happened in Assamese, Chittagonian, Sinhala (though there have been other sources of a secondary ), and Southern Mewari.

Further reductions in the number of stop articulations are in Assamese and Romani, which have lost the characteristic dental/retroflex contrast, and in Chittagonian, which may lose its labial and velar articulations through spirantisation in many positions (> ). /q x ɣ f/ are restricted to Perso-Arabic loanwords in most IA languages but they occur natively in Khowar. According to Masica (1991) some dialects of Pashayi have a /θ/ which is unusual for IA languages. Domari which is spoken in the Middle East and had high contact with Middle Eastern languages has /q ħ ʕ ʔ/ and emphatic consonants from loanwords.

Nasals

Sanskrit was noted as having five nasal-stop articulations corresponding to its oral stops, with the palatal and velar nasals only appearing in homorganic clusters.

Among modern Indo-Aryan languages, Dogri, Kacchi, Kalasha, Rudhari, Shina, Saurashtri, and Sindhi have been analysed as having this full set of phonemic nasals , with the last two generally as the result of the loss of the stop from a homorganic nasal + stop cluster ( > and > ), though there are other sources as well.

In languages that lack phonemic nasals at some places of articulation, they can still occur allophonically from place assimilation in a nasal + stop cluster, e.g. Hindustani > . Furthermore, some nasals are restricted to certain positions as a merger of several sounds, e.g. being the realization of any nasal in final position in Sinhala and Dhivehi. These allophonic and derived examples are not included in the following table.

Aspiration and breathy-voice

Most Indo-Aryan languages have contrastive aspiration (), and some retain historical breathy voice on voiced consonants (). Sometimes both phenomena are analysed as a single aspiration contrast. The places and manners of articulation which allow contrastive aspiration vary by language; e.g. Sindhi permits phonemic , but the phonemic status of this sound in Hindustani is uncertain, and many "Dardic" languages lack aspirated retroflex sibilants despite having unaspirated equivalents.

In languages that have lost breathy-voice, the contrast has often been replaced with tone.

Regional developments

Some of these are mentioned in Masica (1991:104–105).

• Implosives: Languages in the Sindhic subfamily, as well as Saraiki, western Marwari dialects, and some dialects of Gujarati have developed implosive consonants from historical intervocalic geminates and word-initial stops. Sindhi has a full implosive series except for the dental implosive: . It has been claimed that Wadiyari Koli has the dental implosive too. Other languages have less complete implosive series, e.g. Kacchi has just .
• Prenasalized stops: Sinhala and Maldivian (Dhivehi) have a series of prenasalised stops covering all places except for palatal: .
• Palatalization: Kashmiri (natively) and some Romani dialects (from contact with Slavic languages) have contrastive palatalisation.
• Voiceless lateral In Gawarbati, some Pashai dialects, partly Bashkarik and some Shina dialects have /ɬ/ from clusters of tr kr or sometimes pr; dr gr and br merged with /l/ in these languages.
• Lateral affricates: Bhadarwahi has an unusual series of lateral retroflex affricates ( derived from historical clusters.

Vowels

Vowel typologies are varied across Indo-Aryan due to diachronic mergers and (in some cases) splits, as well as different accounts by linguists for even the widely-spoken languages. Vowel systems per Masica (1991:108–113) are listed below. Many languages also have phonemic nasal vowels.

Sylheti language is one of the few tonal Indo-Aryan languages, others being Punjabi and a few Dardic languages. The vowels of Sylheti language listed below.

Consonants

The following are consonant systems of major and representative New Indo-Aryan languages, mostly following Masica (1991:106–107), though here they are in IPA. Parentheses indicate those consonants found only in loanwords: square brackets indicate those with "very low functional load". The arrangement is roughly geographical.

Sociolinguistics

Register

In many Indo-Aryan languages, the literary register is often more archaic and utilises a different lexicon (Sanskrit or Perso-Arabic) than spoken vernacular. One example is Bengali's high literary form, Sādhū bhāṣā, as opposed to the more modern Calita bhāṣā (Cholito-bhasha). This distinction approaches diglossia.

Language and dialect

In the context of South Asia, the choice between the appellations "language" and "dialect" is a difficult one, and any distinction made using these terms is obscured by their ambiguity. In one general colloquial sense, a language is a "developed" dialect: one that is standardised, has a written tradition and enjoys social prestige. As there are degrees of development, the boundary between a language and a dialect thus defined is not clear-cut, and there is a large middle ground where assignment is contestable. There is a second meaning of these terms, in which the distinction is drawn on the basis of linguistic similarity. Though seemingly a "proper" linguistics sense of the terms, it is still problematic: methods that have been proposed for quantifying difference (for example, based on mutual intelligibility) have not been seriously applied in practice; and any relationship established in this framework is relative.