ABSTRACT
Indo-Aryan languages, the easternmost group within Indo-European, are spoken by approximately five hundred million persons in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and other parts of the Himalayan region, as well as in Sri Lanka. Gypsy (Romany) dialects of the USSR, the Middle East and North America are also of Indo-Aryan origin. IndoAryan is most closely related to Iranian, with which it forms the Indo-Iranian subgroup, speakers of which shared linguistic and cultural features, including a name they called themselves (Sanskrit a-rya-, Avestan airya-). Among the innovations that characterise Indo-Iranian is the merger of Proto-Indo-European e-˘, o-˘ , a-˘ into a-˘: Skt. asti ‘is’ pati-‘master, husband’, ajati ‘leads’, dadha-ti ‘puts, makes’, dada-ti ‘gives’, ma-tr
˚ - ‘mother’:
Av. asti, paiti-, azaiti, dada-iti (‘puts, makes, gives’), ma-tar-: Gk. estí, pósis, ágei, títhe-si, dído-si, ma-´te-r (Dor.). Two major phonological features distinguish Indo-Aryan from the rest of Indo-European, including Iranian. One of these is an inherited property: IndoAryan retains voiced aspirated stops, as in Skt. gharma-‘warmth’, dadha-ti, bharati ‘carries’. The other is an innovation: Indo-Aryan languages distinguish dental and retroflex stops. Originally, retroflex -d. -, -d.h-arose through sound changes, as in Skt. nı-d.a-‘resting place, nest’, mı-d.ha-‘reward’, with -ı-d. -, -ı-d.h-from -iz.d. -, iz.d. h-(< -izd-, -izdh-). Such developments resulted in contrastive retroflex stops, albeit restricted, and the compass of such consonants was extended through borrowings from Dravidian languages. Most Indo-Aryan languages still have voiced aspirates and retroflex stops, although in certain ones, abutting on non-Indo-Aryan languages, these contrasts have been reduced: Sinhalese (Sinhala) has no aspirated stops, Kashmiri lacks voiced aspirates and Assamese (Asamiya) has no retroflex stops. Old Indo-Aryan is represented in numerous sources (see Chapter 21). The earliest
preserved Middle Indo-Aryan documents are As´oka’s edicts (third century BC), in various dialects. Middle Indo-Aryan languages were also used for other literary, philosophical and religious works. The Buddhist canon and later treatises of Theravada Buddhism are in Pa-li, the Jaina canon in Ardhama-gadhı-; Jainas also used Jaina Ma-ha-ra-s.t.rı-and S´aurasenı-in works. The literary exemplar of Middle Indo-Aryan, however, is Ma-ha-ra-s.t.rı-
are Apabhram
. s´a dialects, used as literary vehicles from before the sixth century. All Middle
Indo-Aryan varieties can be subsumed under the label Prakrit (Skt. pra-kr ˚ ta Pkt. pa-ia-
‘stemming from the original, natural’), referring to vernaculars in contrast to the polished language called sam. skr
˚ ta. Traditionally, most Indian commentators and grammarians of
Prakrits derive these from Sanskrit, but there are formations in Prakrits found in Vedic sources but not in Classical Sanskrit. Thus, as Classical Sanskrit is not derivable from a single attested Vedic dialect, so the Prakrits cannot be derived from Classical Sanskrit. In the present sketch, I use Prakrit in a narrow sense, of Middle Indo-Aryan languages other than As´okan dialects, Pa-li or Apabhram
. s´a. There are abundant literary sources for
New Indo-Aryan languages from the twelfth century on, some materials from earlier times. Several scripts have been and currently are used for Indo-Aryan languages. In ancient
times, two major scripts were used on the subcontinent: Kharos.t.hı-written from right to left, was predominantly used in the north-west, Bra-hmı-, written from left to right, elsewhere. Most scripts used for Indo-Aryan languages stem from Bra-hmı-, including Devana-garı-(see Chapter 21, Section 2), widely employed for Sanskrit and now the official script for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali. The Arabic script, with modifications, is used for some Indo-Aryan languages, including Urdu.
