Knowra Indo-Aryan migration Indo-Aryan migration The movement of Indo-Aryan-speaking groups into the Indian subcontinent during the second millennium BCE. It is inferred from linguistic, textual, archaeological, and genetic evidence.
Indo-Iranian languages : A branch of the Indo-European language family comprising Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages. Indo-Aryan languages share a reconstructed ancestor with Iranian languages before their speakers separated.
Historical linguistics : The study of how languages change and how their histories and relationships can be reconstructed. Comparative methods establish Indo-Aryan's relationship to other language branches.
Indigenous Aryanism : A family of claims that Indo-Aryan languages and Vedic culture originated within the Indian subcontinent. It contrasts with models placing Indo-Aryan linguistic origins and migration outside South Asia.
Indo-Aryan languages : A branch of Indo-Iranian languages spoken mainly in South Asia, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, and Punjabi. Their distribution records the long-term spread and diversification of Indo-Aryan speech.
Proto-Indo-Iranian language : The reconstructed ancestor of the Indo-Iranian languages, spoken before their division into Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches. Its vocabulary and sound changes help place Indo-Aryan linguistic ancestry outside South Asia.
Comparative method : A method for reconstructing language history by comparing systematic similarities across related languages. Regular sound correspondences underpin the reconstruction of Indo-Aryan's ancestral languages.
Indus Valley Civilisation : A Bronze Age urban civilisation centered in the Indus basin and adjoining regions, flourishing roughly 2600–1900 BCE. Its decline preceded the main period of Indo-Aryan textual evidence, but its people and languages remain debated.
Vedic Sanskrit : The early form of Sanskrit used in the Vedic texts, including the Rigveda. Its linguistic features preserve evidence of Indo-Aryan speech in the subcontinent.
Indo-European languages : A language family extending from much of Europe across Iran and South Asia. The Indo-Aryan branch belongs to this broader family, whose dispersal frames migration hypotheses.
Rigveda : The oldest surviving collection of Sanskrit hymns, composed in the second millennium BCE. Its language and geographic references are central evidence for early Indo-Aryan presence in South Asia.
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