Indo-Aryan peoples
GroupIndo-Aryan peoples
Population~1.4 billion[citation needed]
Region 1India
Pop 1Over 1 billion
Ref 1[1]
Region 2Pakistan
Pop 2Over 180 million
Ref 2[2]
Region 3Bangladesh
Pop 3Over 170 million
Ref 3[3]
Region 4Nepal
Pop 4Over 26 million
Region 5Sri Lanka
Pop 5Over 14 million
Region 6Afghanistan
Pop 6Over 2 million
Region 7Mauritius
Pop 7Over 725,400
Region 8Maldives
Pop 8Over 300,000
Region 9Bhutan
Pop 9Over 240,000
Ref 8[4]
LangsIndo-Aryan languages
RelsPredominantly Hindu and Muslim
Large minority : Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Christian and some non-religious atheist/agnostic
RelatedIranian peoples
Not to be confused with Indian people.

Indo-Aryan peoples (also known as Indic peoples in the context of Indo-European studies) are a diverse collection of peoples predominantly found in South Asia, who (traditionally) speak Indo-Aryan languages. Historically, Aryans were the pastoralists who spoke Indo-Iranian languages, migrated from Central Asia into South Asia, and introduced the Proto-Indo-Aryan language.[5][6][7][8][9] The early Indo-Aryan peoples were known to be closely related to the Iranian group that have resided west of the Indus River on the Iranian Plateau; an evident connection in cultural, linguistic, and historical ties. Today, the majority of Indo-Aryan speakers are found south of Hindu Kush and east of the Indus, across the modern-day regions of Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and northern half of India as well as parts of Afghanistan (Kunar).[10]

History

Proto-Indo-Iranians

Main articles: Indo-Iranians, Proto-Indo-Europeans, Aryan, Indo-European migrations and Indo-Aryan migrations
Further information: Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia and Peopling of India

The introduction of the Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent was the outcome of a migration of Indo-Aryan people from Central Asia into the northern Indian subcontinent (modern-day Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). Another group of Indo-Aryans migrated further westward and founded the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria[11] (c. 1500–1300 BC); the other group was the Vedic people.[12] According to Christopher I. Beckwith, the Wusun people of Inner Asia in antiquity could have been of Indo-Aryan origin.[13]

The Proto-Indo-Iranians, from which the Indo-Aryans developed, are identified with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE),[14][15] and the Andronovo culture,[16] which flourished ca. 1800–1400 BCE in the steppes around the Aral Sea, present-day Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Proto-Indo-Aryan split off around 1800–1600 BCE from the Iranians,[17] moved south through the Bactria-Margiana Culture, south of the Andronovo culture, borrowing some of their distinctive religious beliefs and practices from the BMAC, and then migrated further south into the Levant and north-western India.[18][5] The migration of the Indo-Aryans was part of the larger diffusion of Indo-European languages from the Proto-Indo-European homeland at the Pontic–Caspian steppe which started in the 4th millennium BCE.[5][19][20] The GGC, Cemetery H, Copper Hoard, OCP, and PGW cultures are candidates for cultures associated with Indo-Aryans.

The Indo-Aryans were united by shared cultural norms and language, referred to as aryā 'noble'. Over the last four millennia, the Indo-Aryan culture has evolved particularly inside India itself, but its origins are in the conflation of values and heritage of the Indo-Aryan and indigenous people groups of India.[21] Diffusion of this culture and language took place by patron-client systems, which allowed for the absorption and acculturation of other groups into this culture, and explains the strong influence on other cultures with which it interacted.

Genetically, most Indo-Aryan-speaking populations are descendants of a mix of Central Asian steppe pastoralists, Iranian hunter-gatherers, and, to a lesser extent, South Asian hunter-gatherers—commonly known as Ancient Ancestral South Indians (AASI). Dravidians are descendants of a mix of South Asian hunter-gatherers and Iranian hunter-gatherers, and to a lesser extent, Central Asian steppe pastoralists. South Indian Tribal Dravidians descend majorly from South Asian hunter-gatherers, and to a lesser extent Iranian hunter-gatherers.[22][23][24] Additionally, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burmese speaking people contributed to the genetic make-up of South Asia.[25]

Indigenous Aryanism propagates the idea that the Indo-Aryans were indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages spread from there to central Asia and Europe. Contemporary support for this idea is ideologically driven, and has no basis in objective data and mainstream scholarship.[26][27][28][29]

List of historical Indo-Aryan peoples

See also: List of ancient Indo-Aryan peoples and tribes

A

B

C

D

G

K

L

M

N

O

P

S

T

U

V

Y

Contemporary Indo-Aryan people

A

B

C

D

G

H

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

V

W

See also

References

  1. ^ "India". The World Factbook. 18 January 2026. Archived from the original on 18 March 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  2. ^ "Pakistan". The World Factbook. 4 February 2022. Archived from the original on 10 January 2021.
  3. ^ "Bangladesh". The World Factbook. 4 February 2022. Archived from the original on 10 January 2021.
  4. ^ "Population of Lhotshampas in Bhutan". UNHCR. 2004. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  5. ^ Anthony 2007.
  6. ^ Erdosy 2012.
  7. ^ "How ancient DNA may rewrite prehistory in India". bbc. 23 December 2018. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  8. ^ "New reports clearly confirm 'Arya' migration into India". thehindu. 13 September 2019. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  9. ^ "Aryans or Harappans—Who drove the creation of caste system? DNA holds a clue". theprint. 29 June 2021. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  10. ^ Danesh Jain, George Cardona (2007). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 2.
  11. ^ Anthony 2007, p. 454.
  12. ^ Beckwith 2009, p. 33 note 20.
  13. ^ Beckwith 2009, p. 376.
  14. ^ Anthony 2007, pp. 390 (fig. 15.9), 405–411.
  15. ^ Kuz'mina 2007, p. 222.
  16. ^ Smith, Frederick M. (March 2009). "The Origin of the Indo-Iranians by Elena E. Kuz'mina". Religious Studies Review. 35 (1): 72. doi:10.1111/j.1748-0922.2009.01329_5.x
  17. ^ Anthony 2007, p. 408.
  18. ^ George Erdosy (1995). "The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity", p. 279
  19. ^ Johannes Krause mit Thomas Trappe: Die Reise unserer Gene. Eine Geschichte über uns und unsere Vorfahren. Propyläen Verlag, Berlin 2019, p. 148 ff.
  20. ^ "All Indo-European Languages May Have Originated From This One Place". IFLScience. 24 May 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  21. ^ Avari, Burjor (2007-06-11). India: The Ancient Past: A History of the Indian Sub-Continent from c. 7000 BC to AD 1200. Routledge. pp. xvii. ISBN 978-1-134-25161-2.
  22. ^ Reich et al. 2009.
  23. ^ Narasimhan et al. 2019.
  24. ^ Yelmen, Burak; Mondal, Mayukh; Marnetto, Davide; Pathak, Ajai K; Montinaro, Francesco; Gallego Romero, Irene; Kivisild, Toomas; Metspalu, Mait; Pagani, Luca (5 April 2019). "Ancestry-Specific Analyses Reveal Differential Demographic Histories and Opposite Selective Pressures in Modern South Asian Populations". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 36 (8): 1628–1642. doi:10.1093/molbev/msz037. ISSN 0737-4038. PMC 6657728. PMID 30952160
  25. ^ Basu et al. 2016.
  26. ^ Witzel 2001, p. 95.
  27. ^ Jamison 2006.
  28. ^ Guha 2007, p. 341.
  29. ^ Fosse 2005, p. 438.
  30. ^ "Veddah Language (Ved)". Ethnologue. SIL International. Retrieved 15 February 2026.

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.
  • Erdosy, George (ed.) (2012), "The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity", Walter de Gruyter
  • Fosse, Lars Martin (2005), "ARYAN PAST AND POST-COLONIAL PRESENT. The polemics and politics of indigenous Aryanism", "The Indo-Aryan Controversy. Evidence and inference in Indian history", Bryant, Edwin & Patton, Laurie L. (eds.), 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. 17 (3): 340–343, Third Series, doi:10.1017/S135618630700733X. S2CID 163092658
  • Kuz'mina, Elena Efimovna (2007), The Origin of the Indo-Iranians, J. P. Mallory (ed.), Brill, ISBN 978-9004160545
  • Mallory, J. P. (1998). "A European Perspective on Indo-Europeans in Asia". The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man. ISBN 0-941694-63-1.
  • Olson, Carl (2016). Religious Ways of Experiencing Life: A Global and Narrative Approach. Routledge.
  • Trubachov, Oleg N., 1999: Indoarica, Nauka, Moscow.