It is now generally agreed by most authorities on the subject that the Aryan linguistic vestiges in the Near East are to be connected specifically with Indo-Aryan, and not with Iranian, and also that they do not represent a third, independent Aryan group, and are not to be ascribed to the hypothetically reconstructed Proto-Aryan. This conclusion is incorporated in the title of M. Mayrhofer's bibliography of the subject, Die Indo-Arier im alten Vorderasien (Wiesbaden, 1966), and it can now be taken as the commonly accepted view. It is based on the fact that where there is divergence between Iranian and Indo-Aryan, and where such elements appear in the Near Eastern record, the latter always agrees with Indo-Aryan. Such items are aika “one” and šuriyaš “sun”, and the colour names parita-nnu and pinkara-nnu which correspond to Sanskrit palita - “grey” and piṅgala - “reddish”. The evidence of vocabulary is supported by that of the four names of gods appearing in the Hittite-Mitanni treaty, where the Vedic gods Mitra and Varuṇa, Indra, and the Nāsatyas can be clearly recognized. This combined evidence is sufficient to establish the conclusions of Mayrhofer and others beyond reasonable doubt, and the arguments of A. Kammenhuber, who later attempted to resuscitate the theory that the Aryans of the Near East were Proto-Aryans, cannot be said to have been successful.

Abstract Abstract Loanword analysis is a unique contribution of historical linguistics to our understanding of prehistoric cultural interfaces. As language reflects the lives of its speakers, the substantiation of loanwords draws on the composite evidence from linguistic as well as auxiliary data from archaeology and genetics through triangulation. The Bronze Age of Central Asia is in principle linguistically mute, but a host of recent independent observations that tie languages, cultures and genetics together in various ways invites a comprehensive reassessment of six highly diagnostic loanwords (‘seven’, ‘name/fame’, ‘sister-in-law’, ‘honey’, ‘metal’ and ‘horse’) that are associated with the Bronze Age. Moreover, they are shared between Indo-European, Uralic, Turkic and sometimes Old Chinese. The successful identification of the interfaces for these loanwords can help settle longstanding debates on languages, migrations and the items themselves. Each item is analysed using the comparative method with reference to the archaeological record to assess the plausibility of a transfer. I argue that the six items can be dated to have entered Central and East Asian languages from immigrant Indo-European languages spoken in the Afanasievo and Andronovo cultures, including a novel source for the ‘horse’ in Old Chinese.

The Indo-Aryan languages, spoken by at least 700 million people in the Republic of India, in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldive Islands, and in countries where immigrants from South Asia have settled, constitute a major ... The Indo-Aryan languages, spoken by at least 700 million people in the Republic of India, in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldive Islands, and in countries where immigrants from South Asia have settled, constitute a major group within the Indo-European family. They have a claim to great antiquity, with the earliest Vedic Sanskrit texts dating to the end of the second millennium B.C. This language family supplies a historical documentation of language change over a longer period than any other subgroup of Indo-European. Further, the interaction between Indo-Aryan and Dravidan, Munda, and Tibeto-Burmese languages as well as Arabic and other Indo-European languages affords a rich field of study for borrowing and adaptation. Major features of Indo-Aryan languages have been descr

Though Khariboli supplied its basic vocabulary and grammar, it borrowed quite a lot of words from Persian and Arabic - ↑ Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (2007). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-79711-9. The primary sources of non-IA loans into MSH are Arabic, Persian, Portuguese, Turkic and English. Conversational registers of Hindi/Urdu (not to mentioned formal registers of Urdu) employ large numbers of Persian and Arabic loanwords, although in Sanskritized registers many of these words are replaced by tatsama forms from Sanskrit. The Persian and Arabic lexical elements in Hindi result from the effects of centuries of Islamic administrative rule over much of north India in the centuries before the establishment of British rule in India. Although it is conventional to differentiate among Persian and Arabic loan elements into Hindi/Urdu, in practice it is often difficult to separate these strands from one another.