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Indo-iranian Languages




  region India , Pakistan , Bangladesh , Nepal , Sri Lanka , the Maldives , Iran , Afghanistan , Tajikistan
  familycolor Indo-European
  child1 Indo-Aryan
  child2 Iranian
  child3 Nuristani
  child4 Dardic


The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the , the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians , are usually associated with the late 3rd millennium BC Sintashta-Petrovka culture of Central Asia . Their expansion is believed to have been connected with the invention of the Chariot .

The contemporary Indo-Iranian languages form the largest sub-branch of Indo-European, with more than one billion speakers in total, stretching from Europe ( Romani ) and the Caucasus ( Ossetian ) to East India ( Bengali and Assamese ). SIL in a 2005 estimate counts a total of 308 varieties, the largest in terms of native speakers being Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu, ca. 540 million), Bengali (ca. 200 million), Punjabi (ca. 80 million),
Marathi and Persian (ca. 70 million each), Gujarati (ca. 45 million), Pashto (40 million), Oriya (ca. 30 million), Kurdish and Sindhi (ca. 20 million each).


SUBDIVISIONS


Iranian Group :

Indo-Aryan Group :

Dardic Languages (sometimes also classified as Indic):

Nuristani Languages :


REFERENCES



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