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Contemporary Indo-Aryan speaking groups
	1978 map showing geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan languages. (Urdu is included under Hindi. Romani, Domari, and Lomavren are outside the scope of the map.) Dotted/striped areas indicate where multilingualism is common. Central Dardic Eastern Northern Northwestern Southern Western
Total population
	~1.5 billion[]
Regions with significant populations
India	over 911 million
Pakistan	over 233 million
Bangladesh	over 160 million
Nepal	over 26 million
Sri Lanka	over 14 million
Myanmar	over 1 million
Maldives	over 300,000
Bhutan	over 240,000
Languages
	Indo-Aryan languages
Religion
	Indian religions (Mostly Hindu; with Buddhist, Sikh and Jain minorities) and Islam, Christians and some non-religious atheist/agnostic

The Indo-Aryan peoples were the people coming from Central Asia with the Indo-Aryan migrations who settled in South Asia in the second millennium BCE, introducing the Proto-Indo-Aryan language. The term is also used for contemporary ethnolinguistic groups speaking modern Indo-Aryan languages, a subgroup of the Indo-European language family.

History

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 migrations.

The Indo-Aryan migration theory,^{[note 1]} proposed among others by anthropologist David W. Anthony (in The Horse, The Wheel and Language) and by archaeologists Elena Efimovna Kuzmina and J. P. Mallory, shows that the introduction of the Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent was the result of a migration of people from the Sintashta culture^[2]^[3] through the Bactria-Margiana Culture and into the northern Indian subcontinent (modern-day India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka). These migrations started approximately 1,800 BCE, after the invention of the war chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner Asia and western China.^[4]

The Proto-Indo-Iranians, from which the Indo-Aryans developed, are identified with the Sintashta culture (2100-1800 BCE),^[5] and the Andronovo culture,^[4] which flourished ca. 1800-1400 BCE in the steppes around the Aral sea, present-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The proto-Indo-Iranians were influenced by the Bactria-Margiana Culture, south of the Andronovo culture, from which they borrowed their distinctive religious beliefs and practices. The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800-1600 BCE from the Iranians,^[6] whereafter the Indo-Aryans migrated into the Levant and north-western India and western China.^[7] This migration was part of the diffusion of Indo-European languages from the Proto-Indo-European homeland at the Pontic steppe which started in the 4th millennia BCE.^[8]^[9]

The Indo-Aryans were united by shared cultural norms and language, referred to as ary?, "noble." Diffusion of this culture and language took place by patron-client systems, which allowed for the absorption and acculturalisation of other groups into this culture, and explains the strong influence on other cultures with which it interacted.

The Indigenous Aryans theory places the Indo-Aryans languages as being entirely indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and later they spread outside the subcontinent. Contemporary support for this idea is ideologically driven, and has no support in mainstream scholarship.^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]

List of historical Indo-Aryan peoples

Contemporary ethnic groups speaking Indo-Aryan languages

Notes

^ The term "invasion" is only being used by opponents of the Indo-Aryan Migration theory.^[1] The term "invasion" does not reflect the contemporary scholarly understanding of the Indo-Aryan migrations,^[1] and is merely being used in a polemical and distractive way.

References

^ ^a ^b Witzel 2005, p. 348.
^ Anthony 2007, pp. 408-411.
^ Kuz'mina 2007, p. 222.
^ ^a ^b Anthony 2009, p. 49.
^ Anthony 2007, p. 390 (fig. 15.9), 405-411.
^ Anthony 2007, p. 408.
^ George Erdosy(1995) "The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity.", p.279
^ Johannes Krause mit Thomas Trappe: Die Reise unserer Gene.Eine Geschichte über uns und unsere Vorfahren. Propyläen Verlag, Berlin 2019, p. 148 ff.
^ "All Indo-European Languages May Have Originated From This One Place". IFLScience. Retrieved 2019.
^ Witzel 2001, p. 95.
^ Jamison 2006.
^ Guha 2007, p. 341.
^ Fosse 2005, p. 438.
^ Olson 2016, p. 136.
^ "India". The World Factbook.
^ "Pakistan". The World Factbook.
^ "Bangladesh". The World Factbook.
^ "Population of Lhotshampas in Bhutan". UNHCR. 2004. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012. Retrieved 2016.

Sources

Anthony, David W. (2007). The Horse The Wheel And Language. How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World. Princeton University Press.
Basu A, Sarkar-Roy N, Majumder PP (February 2016). "Genomic reconstruction of the history of extant populations of India reveals five distinct ancestral components and a complex structure". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 113 (6): 1594-9. Bibcode:2016PNAS..113.1594B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1513197113. PMC 4760789. PMID 26811443.
Beckwith, Christopher I. (16 March 2009). Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1400829941. Retrieved 2014.
Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513777-9.
Fosse, Lars Martin (2005), "ARYAN PAST AND POST-COLONIAL PRESENT. The polemics and politics of indigenous Aryanism", in Bryant, Edwin; Patton, Laurie L. (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Controversy. Evidence and inference in Indian history, Routledge
Guha, Sudeshna (2007), "Review. Reviewed Work: The Indo-Aryan Controversy: Evidence and Inference in Indian History by Edwin F. Bryant, Laurie Patton", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, 17 (3): 340-343, doi:10.1017/S135618630700733X
Jamison, Stephanie W. (2006). "The Indo-Aryan controversy: Evidence and inference in Indian history (Book review)" (PDF). Journal of Indo-European Studies. 34: 255-261.
Kuz'mina, Elena Efimovna (2007), J. P. Mallory (ed.), The Origin of the Indo-Iranians, Brill, ISBN 978-9004160545
Loewe, Michael; Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1999). The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC. Cambridge University Press. pp. 87-88. ISBN 0-5214-7030-7. Retrieved 2013.
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.
Narasimhan, Vagheesh M.; Patterson, N.J.; Moorjani, Priya; Rohland, Nadin; et al. (2019), "The Formation of Human Populations in South and Central Asia", Science, 365 (6457): eaat7487, doi:10.1126/science.aat7487, PMC 6822619, PMID 31488661
Reich, David; Thangaraj, Kumarasamy; Patterson, Nick; Price, Alkes L.; Singh, Lalji (2009), "Reconstructing Indian population history", Nature, 461 (7263): 489-494, Bibcode:2009Natur.461..489R, doi:10.1038/nature08365, ISSN 0028-0836, PMC 2842210, PMID 19779445
Trubachov, Oleg N., 1999: Indoarica, Nauka, Moscow.
Witzel, Michael (2001), "Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts" (PDF), Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, 7 (3): 1-115
Witzel, Michael (2005), "Indocentrism", in Bryant, Edwin; Patton, Laurie L. (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Controversy. Evidence and inference in Indian history, Routledge

External links

[2] The term "invasion" is only being used by opponents of the Indo-Aryan Migration theory.^[1] The term "invasion" does not reflect the contemporary scholarly understanding of the Indo-Aryan migrations,^[1] and is merely being used in a polemical and distractive way.

[FOOTNOTEWitzel2005348-1] Witzel 2005, p. 348.

[Anthony_2007_pp._408-411-3] Anthony 2007, pp. 408-411.

[Kuz'mina_2007_p._222-4] Kuz'mina 2007, p. 222.

[FOOTNOTEAnthony200949-5] Anthony 2009, p. 49.

[FOOTNOTEAnthony2007390_(fig._15.9),_405-411-6] Anthony 2007, p. 390 (fig. 15.9), 405-411.

[FOOTNOTEAnthony2007408-7] Anthony 2007, p. 408.

[8] George Erdosy(1995) "The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity.", p.279

[9] Johannes Krause mit Thomas Trappe: Die Reise unserer Gene.Eine Geschichte über uns und unsere Vorfahren. Propyläen Verlag, Berlin 2019, p. 148 ff.

[10] "All Indo-European Languages May Have Originated From This One Place". IFLScience. Retrieved 2019.

[FOOTNOTEWitzel200195-11] Witzel 2001, p. 95.

[FOOTNOTEJamison2006-12] Jamison 2006.

[FOOTNOTEGuha2007341-13] Guha 2007, p. 341.

[FOOTNOTEFosse2005438-14] Fosse 2005, p. 438.

[FOOTNOTEOlson2016136-15] Olson 2016, p. 136.

[16] "India". The World Factbook.

[17] "Pakistan". The World Factbook.

[18] "Bangladesh". The World Factbook.

[UNHCR1-19] "Population of Lhotshampas in Bhutan". UNHCR. 2004. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012. Retrieved 2016.

[note 1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[1]

Total population
1978 map showing geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan languages. (Urdu is included under Hindi. Romani, Domari, and Lomavren are outside the scope of the map.) Dotted/striped areas indicate where multilingualism is common. Central Dardic Eastern Northern Northwestern Southern Western
~1.5 billion^[]
Regions with significant populations
India	over 911 million^[15]
Pakistan	over 233 million^[16]
Bangladesh	over 160 million^[17]
Nepal	over 26 million
Sri Lanka	over 14 million
Myanmar	over 1 million
Maldives	over 300,000
Bhutan	over 240,000^[18]
Languages
Indo-Aryan languages
Religion
Indian religions (Mostly Hindu; with Buddhist, Sikh and Jain minorities) and Islam, Christians and some non-religious atheist/agnostic