Hinduism: Details about 'Indo Iranians'
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OriginThe near-universally cited candidate for the homeland of the Proto-Indian-Iranian culture is the Andronovo Archaeological Complex. A commonly given date for the last period of Proto-Indo-Iranian linguistic unity is approximately 2000 BCE, perhaps a little later, preceding both the Vedic and Iranian cultures. The earliest recorded forms of these languages, Vedic Sanskrit and Gathic Avestan, are remarkably similar. The origin and earliest relationship between the Nuristani languages and that of the Iranian and Indic groups is unrecoverably obscure. ExpansionThe Indo-Iranians expanded widely into Central Asia from the Ural River in the west to the Tian Shan in the east, taking over the area occupied by the earlier Afanasevo culture, and defined by Transoxiana and the Hindu Kush (mountains) in the south. This region would later become for the most part exclusively Iranian. Their history becomes sensational with their invention of the horse-drawn chariot. First wave
The linguistic evidence is that the Indo-Iranians were the first to exploit the chariot, leading what is sometimes called the first wave of Indo-Iranian expansion. This expansion went into the Caucasus the Iranian plateau, Afganistan, and, most significantly, India. They also intruded into Mesopotamia and Syria, and introduced the horse and chariot culture to this part of the world. They left linguistic remains in a Hittite discourse on horse-training written by one "Kikkuli the Mitanni". Other evidence is found in references to the names of Mitanni rulers and the gods they swore by in treaties; these remains are found in the archives of the Mitanni's neighbors. The time period for this is about 1440-1330 BCE. The standard model for the entry of the Indo-European languages into India is that this first wave went over the Hindu Kush, either into the headwaters of the Indus or the Ganges (and probably, both). The earliest stratum of Vedic Sanskrit, preserved only in the Rigveda, is assigned to roughly 1700-1400 BCE. Second waveThe Second Wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave. The Iranians would take over all of Central Asia, Iran, and for a considerable period, dominate the European steppe (the modern Ukraine) and intrude north into Russia and west into central and western Europe well into historic times and as late as the Common Era.The first Iranians to reach the Black Sea may have been the Cimmerians in the 8th century BCE, although their linguistic affiliation is uncertain. They were followed by the Scythians, who are considered a western branch of the Central Asian Sakas. The Rigvedic Kambojas may correspond to the Nuristani branch of Indo-Iranian. The Medes, Parthians and Persians begin to appear on the Persian plateau from ca. 800 BCE, and the Achaemenids replaced Elamite rule from 559 BCE. In Central Asia, the Turkic languages and culture have replaced Iranian, but a substantial minority remains in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The Iranian languages are now confined to Iran, Kurdistan, Afganistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and the Caucasus. Associated archaeological culturesThese archaeological cultures are assigned to the Indo-Iranians:
Language
The Indo-European language spoken by the Indo-Iranians in the late 3rd millennium BC was a Satem language still not removed very far from the Proto-Indo-European language, and in turn only removed by a few centuries from the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda. The main phonological change separating Proto-Indo-Iranian from Proto-Indo-European is the collapse of the ablauting vowels *e, *o, *a into a single vowel, Proto-Indo-Iranian *a (but see Brugmann's law). Grassmann's law and Bartholomae's law were also complete in Proto-Indo-Iranian. Among the sound changes from Proto-Indo-Iranian to Indo-Aryan is the loss of the voiced sibilant *z, among those to Iranian is the de-aspiration of the PIE voiced aspirates. See also
Sources
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