Proto-Indo-Aryan (sometimes Proto-Indic) is the reconstructed

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...

of the

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...

. It is intended to reconstruct the language of the

Proto-Indo-Aryans The Indo-Aryan migrations were the migrations into the Indian subcontinent of Indo-Aryan peoples, an ethnolinguistic group that spoke Indo-Aryan languages, the predominant languages of today's North India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lank ...

. Being descended from Proto-Indo-Iranian (which in turn is descended from

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...

), it has the characteristics of a

Satem Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An e ...

language.

History

Proto-Indo-Aryan is meant to be the predecessor of Old Indo-Aryan (1500–300 BCE), which is directly attested as

Vedic upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...

and Classical Sanskrit, as well as by the

Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni Some loanwords in the variant of the Hurrian language spoken in the Mitanni kingdom, during the 2nd millennium BCE, are identifiable as originating in an Indo-Aryan language; these are considered to constitute an Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni ...

. Indeed, Vedic Sanskrit is very close to Proto-Indo-Aryan. Some of the

Prakrits The Prakrits (; sa, prākṛta; psu, 𑀧𑀸𑀉𑀤, ; pka, ) are a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The term Prakrit is usua ...

display a few minor features derived from Proto-Indo-Aryan that had already disappeared in Vedic Sanskrit. Today, numerous modern

are extant.

Differences from Vedic

Despite the great archaicity of Vedic, the other Indo-Aryan languages preserve a small number of

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

features lost in Vedic. One of these is the representation of Proto-Indo-European *l and *r. Vedic (as also most Iranic languages) merge both as . Later, however, some instances of Indo-European again surface in Classical Sanskrit, indicating that the contrast survived in an early Indo-Aryan dialect parallel to Vedic. (A dialect with only is additionally posited to underlie Magadhi Prakrit.) However, it is not clear that the contrast actually survived anywhere in Indo-Iranian, not even in Proto-Indo-Iranian, as is also found in place of original *r in Indo-Iranian languages. The common consonant cluster ''kṣ'' of Vedic and later Sanskrit has a particularly wide range of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and Proto-Indo-Iranian (PII) sources, which partly remain distinct in later Indo-Aryan languages: * PIE *ks, *kʷs, *gs, *gʷs > PII *kš > Middle Indo-Aryan ''kh-'', ''-kkh-'' * PIE *dʰgʷʰ, *gʰs, *gʷʰs > PII *gʱžʱ > Middle Indo-Aryan ''gh-'', ''-ggh-'' * PIE *tḱ; *ǵs, *ḱs > PII *tć, *ćš > Middle Indo-Aryan ''ch-'', ''-cch-'' * PIE *dʰǵʰ, *ǵʰs > PII *ȷ́ʱžʱ > Middle Indo-Aryan ''jh-'', ''-jh-''

References

External links

* Proto-Indo-Aryan language on

Wiktionary Wiktionary ( , , rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in all natural languages and in a number ...

{{Old and Middle Indo-Aryan Indo-Aryan Indo-Aryan languages Languages of India History of India

History

Differences from Vedic

Further reading

References

External links