Questions tagged [indo-aryan]

For questions concerning the Indo-Aryan languages like Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Singhalese, and Romani.

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What happened with the centum words in Bangani?

IE K^ > K has been proposed for Bangani ( http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pehook/bangani.html ) for *g()lak^t > lOktO ‘milk’, etc. Claus Peter Zoller claimed that Bangani was related to Kashmiri,...
2 votes
1 answer
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What happened to Aham and its derivatives in Marathi?

The Sanskrit first person pronoun अहम् (Romanized: Aham) can be found in Maharashtri Prakrit as 𑀅𑀳𑀁 (ahaṃ), 𑀅𑀳𑀅𑀁 (ahaaṃ), 𑀳𑀁 (haṃ). It is even present in some languages derivative of ...
2 votes
1 answer
97 views

Ancestors of modern Indo-Aryan languages

I am trying to understand how the modern Indo-Aryan languages of northern India emerged from the Prakrits of the 1st millennium AD. For example, for example, I learned these relationships: Shauraseni ...
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Request for Texts Giving an Overview of the Evolution of the Indo-Iranian Laguages

Does anyone know of any good accounts of the evolution of the Modern Indo-Iranian languages? I'm especially interested in comparative overviews of either the entire family's historical phonology, or ...
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1 vote
1 answer
575 views

Were Iranian languages originally separated and more related to Slavic?

Iranian languages and Slavic languages have some similarities, such as the merger of aspirated sounds into unaspirated sounds, and the development of the consonant /z/. Historically, the settlements ...
12 votes
2 answers
4k views

Why was India as the homeland of PIE abandoned?

I have recently become very interested in the linguistics in the problem of the Indo-Aryan migration controversy. I understand in the early 19th century India was favored as the Proto-Indo-European ...
0 votes
1 answer
253 views

How do we know that Mitanni Indo-Aryan loan words are derived from Proto-Indo-Aryan and not Vedic Sanskrit?

This question is similer to my previous question. I came across a person who makes the following claims: The names of Previous Kings of Mitannis that are mentioned on inscriptions belongs to period ...
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-2 votes
1 answer
317 views

Where did the Sanskrit language originate from?

Where did the Sanskrit language originate from? Did it originate from Persia or Greece? Where did Sanskrit evolve into a classic language: India or Persia or Greece? Origin of Sanskrit The above ...
2 votes
1 answer
221 views

"h" in Sindhi - ھ vs ہ

In Urdu, ہ is called gol he and ھ is called docašmī he. However in Sindhi, there seems to be only one for both (choṭī he), which is officially ھ. (Please let me know if I'm wrong here) (Ref: Sindhi ...
2 votes
1 answer
91 views

Why grammaticalized perfective aspect marker is reduced to be used only in narrative style?

I am looking at a set of ballistic verbs like nak, phenk 'throw' in a minor Indo Aryan language spoken in Dravidian vicinity, where one verb of the set is reduced to light verb with perfective meaning,...
1 vote
1 answer
397 views

Is the Turkish word for brother(kardeş) of Indo-Iranian origin?

I looked up the word for "brother" in other Turkish languages. In Ubzek it is aka. And in Volga Tatar the corresponding word is abi. The word "kardesh" sounds suspiciously similar ...
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1 answer
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Popular book(s) recommendation for start learning Linguistics keeping an interest in the Indus Valley script in mind

Recently, I have gathered enough interest in the subject Linguistics. As I came to know that Indus Valley scripts are among the last remaining undeciphered scripts of the ancient world, I gained more ...
3 votes
2 answers
376 views

How do Agglutinative Features/Languages develop out of Fusional Features/Languages?

Does anyone know about the development of agglutinative languages out of fusional languages, or, more precisely, agglutinative features out of fusional features? I am thinking in particular about the ...
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6 votes
1 answer
511 views

Why are there so many 'a' sounds in Sanskrit?

I noticed that in Sanskrit (as well as in many Indo-Aryan languages), the vowel /a/ appears much more frequently than any other vowel. Many words have only have /a/ as a vowel. Is there any reason ...
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24 votes
3 answers
22k views

Is Sanskrit really the mother of all languages?

Hindus believe that "Sanskrit is the mother of all Languages". It is a fact that Sanskrit has enriched most Indian Languages including the Dravidian Languages such as Telugu, as Latin enriched some ...
6 votes
1 answer
450 views

Is there any similar verb negation in other Indo-European languages?

In the northern part of Iran, in Mazandaran, we negate like this (this is the only verb being used like this as far as I'm aware of): bɜtʊ̈ndɜ: he/she can bætʊ̈ndɜ: he/she can't is there anything ...
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3 votes
1 answer
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Is there an articulatory explanation to spontaneous nasalisation in New Indo-Aryan?

This question is regarding the phenomenon of spontaneous nasalisation (emergence of nasalisation out of nowhere) in New-Indo-Aryan as it evolved from Middle-Indo-Aryan. This is a well-documented ...
3 votes
1 answer
110 views

Do we have ablaut in the Bengali verb system?

Do we have ablaut in the Bengali verb system?Is it why we have vowel alternation?
3 votes
1 answer
177 views

Do Old Indian words with voiceless aspirated stops have cognates in other branches of Indogermanic?

Inspired by this answer by Arnaud Fournet I have this question: Do Old Indic (Vedic, Sankrit) words beginning with a voiceless aspirated stop (like ph, th, or kh) have cognates in other branches of ...
4 votes
1 answer
934 views

What language was spoken in East Asia before Proto-Turkic?

From Wikipedia we have: The Proto-Turkic language is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Turkic languages that was spoken by the Proto-Turks before their divergence ...
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1 answer
296 views

In what ways did the Insular Indic languages morphologically diverge from Maharashthri Prakrit?

Maharashtri Prakrit is the antecedent southern zone language to all insular Indic languages. What are some characteristics, morphologically speaking, which differentiate these insular languages from ...
4 votes
1 answer
266 views

What is the current understanding of the substrate(s) to the Indo-Aryan languages

The Indo-Aryan languages have acquired some vocabulary and other features that aren't present in the Iranian languages. This is ascribed to substrate influence. What is the current understanding of ...
1 vote
4 answers
2k views

Are ~simba (Bantu) and ~simha (Indic) related?

Does Swahili (and hence cognates of other Bantu languages) simba have any relation to सिंह (~singh or ~simha in Hindi and Sanskrit respectively according to Wiktionary, please correct me if I am wrong)...
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Evolution of perfective aspect from Sanskrit derivational suffix -ka in Modern Indo-Aryan languages

It is well attested that the Sanskrit derivational suffix -ka for adjectives together with the syntesized participle on nominals like krta-ka>done, evolved as the possessive case marker in modern Indo-...
2 votes
1 answer
268 views

"Phonemic" distinctions induced by morphology

As a native speaker of Bengali (Calcutta dialect), I found it quite surprising that this Wikipedia article on Bengali phonology asserts, "for most speakers /s/ and /ʃ/ are phonemically distinct." I ...
4 votes
2 answers
636 views

Is Brugmann's Law controversial?

The Indo-European sound change known as Brugmann's Law states that PIE *o became ā in an open syllable in Indo-Iranian. The Wiki page calls the law "controversial" and says that "Brugmann's Law has ...
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2 votes
2 answers
424 views

Base language of Mitanni Texts

I was going through the sources for early indo-iranian and according to B. Fortson the first documented manifestation of this branch are the proper names in Mitanni Texts. Since the indo-iranian word ...
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3 votes
4 answers
3k views

Are Indian languages distinct or are they just different dialects?

I speak Malayalam, one of the Indian languages and also Hindi but there are always common words which I assume are original Sanskrit words? So are the languages truly distinct or can I say they are ...
4 votes
1 answer
266 views

Loans in Indo-Aryan languages indicating possible migration routes

I am aware of only few Uralic loans into Indo-Aryan languages that show migrations from Eurasia to India, Iran etc. What are typical examples of loan words that are unquestionably a result of a ...
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4 votes
2 answers
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Is syllable-timing in Indo-Aryan languages due to contact with Dravidian languages?

Most Indian languages are classified as syllable-timed. Some Dravidian languages, such as Tamil and Telugu, are mora-timed, which in recent research on speech rhythm has been called super-syllable-...
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