Indo-Aryan languages

Indo-Aryan
Indic
Geographic
distribution		South Asia, Europe
Native speakers
est. 1.5 billion (2024)
Linguistic classificationIndo-European
Proto-languageProto-Indo-Aryan
Subdivisions
Language codes
ISO 639-2 / 5inc
Linguasphere59= (phylozone)
Glottologindo1321
Present-day geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan language groups. Romani, Domari, Kholosi, Luwati, and Lomavren are outside the scope of the map.
  Pashai (Dardic)
  Khowar (Dardic)
  Shina (Dardic)
  Kohistani (Dardic)
  Kashmiri (Dardic)
  Punjabi (Northwestern)
  Sindhi (Northwestern)
  Rajasthani (Western)
  Gujarati (Western)
  Khandeshi (Western)
  Bhili (Western)
  Western Pahari (Northern)
  Central Pahari (Northern)
  Eastern Pahari (Northern)
  Western Hindi (Central)
  Eastern Hindi (Central)
  Bengali-Assamese (Eastern)
  Bihari (Eastern)
  Odia (Eastern)
  Halbic (Eastern)
  Marathi-Konkani (Southern)
  Sinhala-Dhivehi (Southern)
(not shown: Kunar (Dardic), Chinali-Lahuli (Unclassified))

The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Bangladesh, Northern India, Eastern Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal. Moreover, apart from the Indian subcontinent, large immigrant and expatriate Indo-Aryan–speaking communities live in Northwestern Europe, Western Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Southeast Africa, Polynesia and Australia, along with several million speakers of Romani languages primarily concentrated in Southeastern Europe. There are over 200 known Indo-Aryan languages.

Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as early Vedic Sanskrit, through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits). The largest such languages in terms of first-speakers are Hindi–Urdu (c. 330 million), Bengali (242 million), Punjabi (about 150 million), Marathi (112 million), and Gujarati (60 million). A 2005 estimate placed the total number of native speakers of the Indo-Aryan languages at nearly 900 million people. Other estimates are higher, suggesting a figure of 1.5 billion speakers of Indo-Aryan languages.

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