ABSTRACT
Indo-Iranian languages (another, outdated and quite misleading term is “Aryan”), which form a major branch of the Indo-European language family, are spoken by more than a billion of speakers occupying an immense territory from the Caucasus and southeastern Anatolia in the West to Northeast India and Bengal in the East and the Maldive Islands in the South. This grouping includes the Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Nūristānī (in earlier scholarship also called Kāfir), and Dardic branches. The latter is considered by many scholars as part of the Indo-Aryan branch (e.g., Morgenstierne 1961, 1973, Strand 1973, Southworth 2005: 127, 149). Convincing argumentation for treating the Dardic languages as a separate genetic group, a fourth sub-branch of Indo-Iranian, alongside Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and Nūristānī, can be found in Kogan 2005.
