Origin The Proto-Indo-Iranians are commonly identified with the descendants of the
Indo-Europeans known as the
Sintashta culture and the subsequent
Andronovo culture within the broader Andronovo horizon, and their homeland with an area of the
Eurasian steppe that borders the
Ural River on the west, the
Tian Shan on the east (where the Indo-Iranians took over the area occupied by the earlier
Afanasevo culture), and
Transoxiana and the
Hindu Kush on the south. Based on its use by Indo-Aryans in
Mitanni and Vedic India, its prior absence in the Near East and Harappan India, and its 19th–20th century BC attestation at the Andronovo site of
Sintashta, Kuzmina (1994) argues that the chariot corroborates the identification of Andronovo as Indo-Iranian. dated a
chariot burial at
Krivoye Lake to about 2000 BC, and a
Bactria-Margiana burial that also contains a foal has recently been found, indicating further links with the steppes. Historical linguists broadly estimate that a continuum of Indo-Iranian languages probably began to diverge by 2000 BC, preceding both the
Vedic and
Iranian cultures which emerged later. The earliest recorded forms of these languages,
Vedic Sanskrit and
Gathic Avestan, are remarkably similar, descended from the common
Proto-Indo-Iranian language. The origin and earliest relationship between the
Nuristani languages and that of the Iranian and
Indo-Aryan groups is not completely clear.
Expansion . Magenta indicates the assumed
Urheimat (
Samara culture,
Sredny Stog culture), red the area which may have been settled by Indo-European-speaking peoples up to , and orange the area to 1000 BC. s (after
EIEC). The Andronovo,
BMAC and Yaz cultures have often been associated with Indo-Iranian migrations. The
GGC, Cemetery H, Copper Hoard and
PGW cultures are candidates for cultures associated with Indo-Aryan movements.
First wave – Indo-Aryans Two-wave models of Indo-Iranian expansion have been proposed by Burrow (1973) and . The Indo-Iranians and their expansion are strongly associated with the
Proto-Indo-European invention of the
chariot. It is assumed that this expansion spread from the
Proto-Indo-European homeland north of the
Caspian Sea south to the
Caucasus,
Central Asia, the
Iranian plateau, and the
Indian subcontinent.
The Mitanni of Anatolia The Mitanni, a people known in eastern
Anatolia from about 1500 BC, were of possibly of mixed origins: An indigenous non Indo-European
Hurrian-speaking majority was supposedly dominated by a non-Anatolian,
Indo-Aryan elite. There is linguistic evidence for such a
superstrate, in the form of: • a
horse training manual written by a Mitanni man named
Kikkuli, which was translated into the
Hittite language • the names of Mitanni rulers and; • the names of gods invoked by these rulers in treaties. In particular, Kikkuli's text includes words such as
aika "one" (i.e. a cognate of the Indo-Aryan
eka),
tera "three" (
tri),
panza "five" (
pancha),
satta "seven", (
sapta),
na "nine" (
nava), and
vartana "turn around", in the context of a horse race (Indo-Aryan
vartana). In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni, the
Ashvin deities
Mitra,
Varuna,
Indra, and
Nasatya are invoked. These
loanwords tend to connect the Mitanni superstrate to
Indo-Aryan rather than
Iranian languages – i.e. the early Iranian word for "one" was
aiva.
Indian subcontinent – Vedic culture The standard model for the entry of the Indo-European languages into the Indian subcontinent is that this first wave went over the Hindu Kush, either into the headwaters of the
Indus and later the
Ganges. The earliest stratum of
Vedic Sanskrit, preserved only in the
Rigveda, is assigned to roughly 1500 BC. From the Indus, the
Indo-Aryan languages spread from , over the northern and central parts of the subcontinent, sparing the extreme south. The
Indo-Aryans in these areas established several powerful kingdoms and principalities in the region, from south eastern
Afghanistan to the doorstep of
Bengal. The most powerful of these kingdoms were the post-Rigvedic
Kuru (in Kurukshetra and the Delhi area) and their allies the
Pañcālas further east, as well as
Gandhara and later on, about the time of
the Buddha, the kingdom of
Kosala and the quickly expanding realm of
Magadha. The latter lasted until the 4th century BC, when it was conquered by
Chandragupta Maurya and formed the center of the
Maurya Empire. In eastern
Afghanistan and some western regions of
Pakistan,
Indo-Aryan languages were eventually replaced by
Eastern Iranian languages. Most Indo-Aryan languages, however, were and still are prominent in the rest of the
Indian subcontinent. Today, Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in
India,
Pakistan,
Bangladesh,
Nepal,
Sri Lanka, Fiji,
Suriname and the
Maldives.
Second wave – Iranians The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave. while in Central Asia, the
Turkic languages marginalized the
Iranian languages as a result of the
Turkic expansion of the early centuries AD. Extant major Iranian languages are
Persian,
Pashto,
Kurdish, and
Balochi besides numerous smaller ones.
Ossetian, primarily spoken in
North Ossetia and
South Ossetia, is a direct descendant of
Alanic, and by that the only surviving Sarmatian language of the once wide-ranging East Iranian dialect continuum that stretched from Eastern Europe to the eastern parts of Central Asia. ==Archaeology==