Indo-Aryan peoples

Indo-Aryan peoples

Geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan languages.
Total population
approximately 1.21 billion
Regions with significant populations
India	over 856 million
Pakistan	over 164 million
Bangladesh	over 171 million
Nepal	over 26 million
Sri Lanka	over 14 million
Burma	over 1 million
Maldives	over 300,000
Languages
Indo-Aryan languages
Religion
Indian religions (Mostly Hindu; with Buddhist, Sikh and Jain minorities) and Islam, some non-religious atheist/agnostic and Christians

Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse Indo-European ethnolinguistic group of speakers of Indo-Aryan languages. There are over one billion native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages, most of them native to South Asia, where they form the majority.

Some of the theories proposed in the 20th century for the dispersal of Indo-Aryan languages are described by linguist Colin Masica in the chapter, "The Historical Context and Development of Indo-Aryan" in his book, The Indo-Aryan Languages.

A recent Indo-Aryan migration theory proposed in the trade paperback, The Horse, The Wheel and Language, by David Anthony, a professor of anthropology at Hartwick College, claims that the introduction of the Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent was a result of a migration of people from the Sintashta culture through the Bactria-Margiana Culture and into the northern Indian subcontinent (modern day India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan). These migrations started approximately 1,800 BCE, after the invention of the war chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner Asia. It was part of the diffusion of Indo-European languages from the proto-Indo-European homeland at the Pontic steppe, a large area of grasslands in far Eastern Europe, which started in the 5th to 4th millennia BCE, and the Indo-European migrations out of the Eurasian steppes, which started approximately 2,000 BCE.