Indo-Aryan Languages

This book continues the encyclopedic multi-volume series “Languages of the World”, which is being prepared at the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences. This volume deals with New Indo-Aryan languages which, along with their now extinct relatives, comprise the Indo-Aryan group of the Indo-European language family. These languages are primarily spoken throughout South Asia, including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. The volume also includes information about the languages and dialects that separated from the main Indo-
Aryan area, particularly Romani. Apart from the descriptions of the major Indo-Aryan languages, this volume also contains information on many minor languages and dialects of the region, including unwritten and endangered languages. Systematic grammatical descriptions of some of these are published here for the first time. Each essay follows the typologically oriented template maintained throughout the “Languages of the World” series. This template imposes a uniform sociolinguistic and
synchronic structural characterization upon the individual languages and thereby ensures the comparability of the descriptions of the different languages. This volume also contains an article on the writing systems used for these languages and a set of language maps. The volume is intended both as a fundamental linguistic study and as a reference source. It is addressed to a wide audience of linguists of various specializations, historians, cultural anthropologists, teachers and students, and all those interested in Indo-Aryan languages.

Low-density languages are also known as lesser-known, poorly-described, less-resourced, minority or less-computerized language because they have fewer resources available. Collection and annotation of a voluminous corpus for the purpose of NLP application for these languages prove to be quite challenging. For the development of any NLP application for a low-density language, one needs to have an annotated corpus and a standard scheme for annotation. Because of their non-standard usage in text and other linguistic nuances, they pose significant challenges that are of linguistic and technical in nature. The present paper highlights some of the underlying issues and challenges in developing statistical POS taggers applying SVM and CRF++ for Sambalpuri, a less-resourced Eastern Indo-Aryan language. A corpus of approximately 121 k is collected from the web and converted into Unicode encoding. The whole corpus is annotated under the BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) annotation scheme devised for Odia under the ILCI (Indian Languages Corpora Initiative) Project. Both the taggers are trained and tested with approximately 80 k and 13 k respectively. The SVM tagger provides 83% accuracy while the CRF++ has 71.56% which is less in comparison to the former.

The Romani language is a widespread New Indo-Aryan language which is spoken throughout the world. It contains multiple loanwords and some traces of foreign influences in its grammar but preserves the basic grammatical structure of an Indian, New Indo-Aryan language. Its grammatical forms can be traced back through the Prakrits to Sanskrit, whereby the phonetic laws of change in Old Indo-Aryan through Middle Indo-Aryan to New Indo-Aryan, and specifically to the Romani language, must be taken into account. This paper will discuss the derivation and inflection of Romani adjectives and participles, including phonetic changes from Sanskrit to Romani and foreign influences.

“This science behind the creation of words, which was neglected for so long, should not be allowed to remain undiscovered,” claims Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar. “This is not only the case here – the same thing has been happening with all of the world’s languages. Wherever there are people, words are created based on these psycho-acoustic notes.” “First a vibration arises in the nerves when an object is seen, then a mental sound is created and finally a word is made based on that sound. In this way the original verbal roots of language are created based on psychic sounds, and different words have been created, and are being created, from these verbal roots.” P. R. Sarkar, (1921-1990), was a master of languages and a spiritual guru in the tradition of Shiva and Krishna, who founded the socio-spiritual movement Ananda Marga (“the Path of Bliss”).  –  Richard Gauthier, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California, USA, May 19, 2021.

This Excel file is a WORK IN PROGRESS on Indo-European basic lexicon, aligning PIE reconstructions from IEW, LIV and Mallory-Adams with intermediate reconstructions of IE sub-families found in several other sources (mainly Brill / Leiden etymological dictionaries): see dedicated sheet for details on sources.
Reconstructions with a green background have more complete data than those with a white background.
This DRAFT database is intended as a stepping stone for researchers who want to explore external genetic relationships between Indo-European languages and other language families.

Този доклад е продължение (втора част) на лекцията озаглавена “Причерноморието – люлка на европейската цивилизация и Тракия като арийска сърцевина”, изнесена пред Международната научна конференция “Древна Тракия – сакрално и профанно. България, Балканите и Черноморската област”, Пловдив, 2019. Докато в първата част вниманието е фокусирано върху аргументи в полза на тезата за депресията, която днес е леглото на Черно море, като не само подслон за преживяване, но и “люлка” за създаване на генетичен резервоар благоприятстващ развитие на подслонената общност, втората част разглежда доказателствата за твърдението, че тук се развива бъдещата хронологически първа за човечеството цивилизация – тази на Арите (Арийците), които по-късно биват наричани също и Пеласги, Траки, Кимери, Илири и пр. Представени са няколко образци на урбанизирани общности на средна възраст около 7000 години, тоест, предхождащи всички други известни на човечеството. Представени са и оцелели във времето образци на протописменост, разпръснати преимуществено из Арийския континуум на Блаканите, тоест в ареала на Траките. В заключение е публикуван апел към всички – в научните среди, както и в кръговете на местния патриотизъм, за употреба на точна терминология, без ограниченията на политическата коректност и каквито и да е други съображения отвъд обективната реалност, за да се спрат спекулациите с нашето историческо и културно наследство.

This  paper or chapter emerged as a part of the document on Maithili language movement prepared in 1985 - much before the language got recognition. It attempts to fill up a gap in the  literature  on language  planning  and development for the  minor  languages  of India with special reference  to the Maithili speech community in North  Bihar. To appreciate the course that this particular  language  movement has taken since mid-1950s when the movement  was launched  with renewed vigour, about which  completely  divergent accounts  are  given  in  Brass (1974)  and  Singh,  Rajaram  and  Bose (1985), it is important to know the background of the development of this language. It, therefore, aims at pointing out the attainments  and  failures of the speakers of Maithili  who  have  been making efforts to gain their rightful place in education,  administration  and  literary recognition to  restore  their  language rights since the beginning of this century.

A word-by-word explanation of the translation of the so-called creation hymn of Rigveda. The translation is very different from traditional ones.

As I demonstrate, the hymn has been completely misunderstood by previous translators.

The hymn has nothing to do with the origin or creation of the Universe. It is in fact, simply a prayer to God.

Konkani and Marathi are two culturally very close languages of western India. It is believed that they had a common source in a common Prakrit and have developed differently over a period of time. A linguistic analysis however shows that they are separately descended from two different Prakrits from two different parts of India which have converged very close to each other over the last thousand plus years.

This paper presents a preliminary ethnobotanical lexicon of plant names in the Kalam Kohistani language, spoken in the mountainous north of Pakistan. The list includes 203 Kalam Kohistani plant lexemes, with their English and Urdu glosses; 137 of these are tentatively identified with their Latin scientific names. Many of the glosses include brief notes on the occurrence and local uses of the plants. The paper ends with an index of 116 English common plant names with their Kalam Kohistani equivalents, followed by an index of scientific names.

Данните показани в тази лекция са всъщност събрани от един "техник" и се отнасят до научен спор, който възникна преди години между мен и един специалист, д-р Харалд Хаарман, един от водещите в света лингвисти и палеолингвисти. Той оспори моето твърдение в /1/, че траките са автохтонното население на Балканския полуостров и оттогава ми се наложи да разследвам и развия тези допълнителни аргументи, които са всъщност част от публикувания в /2/ цялостен отпор на твърдението на д-р Хаарман, базирано единствено на т.нар. Курганна теория на Мария Гимбутас, чийто привърженик е той.

A fresh and original translation from Sanskrit of the dashrajnya hymn (hymn 7.18 of Rig Veda) describing this defining battle between Aryan king Sudas and his Aryan as well as non-Aryan foes. The decisive battle led to the uprooting of many tribes from the Sapta Sindhu area.

Many existing beliefs are shown to be merely due to misunderstandings. Further, it is shown that the existing translations fall well short of the true meaning.
For example, no Matsya tribe was involved in this battle.

AIT versus OIT: дискуссия на "Генофонд.рф" (составление, корректура, редактирование, предисловие, сноски и приложения Семененко А.А.) / А.А. Семененко, И.А. Тоноян-Беляев, Е.В. Балановская, О.П. Балановский, Я.В. Васильков, В.В. Запорожченко, Л.С. Клейн, А.Г. Козинцев, С.В. Кулланда, В.А. Новоженов. — Воронеж: На правах рукописи, 2015. — 846 с.

Collection of published and unpublished articles newly elaborated and composed in a sort of a monograph devoted to the problems of prehistory of Uralic and North-Eurasiatic peoples. The book contains chapters: "Prehistory of the Uralic peoples", "Uralo-Indogermanica", "Onomastics and prehistory", Wörter und Sachen", Mythology and folklore", "History and etymology of the Udmurt language". MOst articles are in Russian, some in German.

Hypotheses: A brief explanation as to why these three Hypotheses are no longer tenable This paper is a supplement to my papers on the Aryan problem published by the ICFAI university press. This paper contains a detailed discussion of the term 'Aryan' as well, and introduces several new terminologies. It takes the Aryan debate to its logical conclusion and shows why other hypotheses are untenable. Newer approaches such as these can revolutionize the study of the past. Researchers who wish to collaborate with me or have questions on any of the papers contact: [email protected].

Each volume in this series contains an in-depth account of the members of some of the world's most important language families. Written by experts in each language, these accessible accounts provide detailed linguistic analysis and description. The contents are carefully structured to cover the natural system of classification: phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis, semantics, dialectology, and sociolinguistics.

The book will provide a brief overview of the influence of the Persian language on the Urdu language and description of the usages of some Persian proverbs in Urdu.
Persian is the predominant modern descendant of Old Persian and is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. With a long history of literature, Persian was the first language in the Muslim world to break through Arabic's monopoly on writing, and the writing of poetry in Persian was established as a court tradition in many eastern courts including Urdu.
Persian has had a considerable (mainly lexical) influence on neighboring languages, particularly the Turkic languages in Central Asia, Caucasus, and Anatolia, neighboring Iranian languages, as well as Armenian, Georgian, and Indo-Aryan languages, especially Urdu. For centuries, Persian has been a prestigious cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia by the various empires based in the regions including Urdu speaking world. Following the Turko-Persian Ghaznavid conquest of South Asia, Persian was firstly introduced in the region by Turkic Central Asians. This lexically hybrid language, emerged in the northern subcontinent, was commonly called Zaban-e Urdu-e Mualla ('language of the exalted (army) camp') and eventually replaced Persian, the court language, and its name was shortened to just "Urdu". It grew from the interaction of Persian and Turkic-speaking Muslim soldiers and the native peoples. Under Persian influence from the state, the Persian and Nastaʿlīq scripts were adopted, with additional figures added to accommodate the Indo-Aryan phonetic system. Unlike Persian, which is an Iranian language, Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language, written in the Persian alphabet, and contains literary conventions and specialized vocabulary largely from Persian. Urdu plays a major role in the Muslim sphere of the western side of the subcontinent.
One of the major effects of the Persian language on the  Urdu language is the influx of the Persian proverbs in Urdu, some of them without any changes. This Book describes some Persian proverbs which are in use in Urdu. The Persian quotations are quoted from the masterpiece of the Persian proverbs, the researches of Ali Akbar Dehkhodā, a 20th-century Persian Paremiologist. And the Urdu quotations are quoted from the paremiologic works of Dr. Gholam Morovvat who has compared Urdu proverbs with the Persian equivalents. To describe the research well, the English resembles of the proverbs are given in details.

The first draft of this Research Study Paper examines a hypothesis that biblical words and phrases, discovery of Egyptian names of people, places and topographic features point towards "West Asian Origins" of the RgVeda, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The hypothesis calls for the metamorphosis of the geographical origins of the RgVeda into West Asian Egypt and Syria; promotes the English transliteration and translation of the Rgveda and appears as a tacit denial of the existence of the River Sarasvati and the indigenous origins of the Vedic Civilization, Samskrta and Samskriti. The proposed metamorphosis is rooted in a dogma that comprehends "a general consensus in the identification of certain names and recognition of a few terms by scholars other than linguists (italics added), could go a long way to penetrate the obscurity of its geographical contexts and historical significance". The underlying motivation for the recidivism of such a paper that is incidental on invasions and migrations, that reeks of colonialism, religion and geopolitics, will be briefly outlined also. We endorse the concept that pre-Old Indic and Old Indic (Vedic Samskrta) evolved in the area comprising the farming settlements from Mehrgarh (8th millennium BCE) and beyond (into Eastern Iran) and extended to the east beyond the river Saraswati to the river Ganges. Not in isolation; the speakers of Iranian and Indo-Aryan evolved amongst the inhabitants of this area in northern India that chiefly consisted of three tribal conglomerates, Druhyus, Anus and Purus along with some others to their south and east, the Yadus, Turvasus,etc. Two river civilizations, Indus and Sarasvati evolved into Iranian and Indic, Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.

This research presents a description of the phonology of the Wadiyari language spoken in Pakistan. While Wadiyari is also spoken in India, the current study is only focused on the variety spoken in Pakistan. This study is the first attempt at investigating and describing the sound system of the Wadiyari language, which belongs to the Gujarati group of the central zone of the Indo-Aryan language family. A wordlist of 1,650 lexical items was used to collect data from three native Wadiyari speakers, inhabitants of the interior Sindh, a province in Pakistan.
The data was analyzed according to the six steps of phonological analysis described by Burquest (2006). Most of the analysis was carried out using the Classical Phonology approach (Hockett 1955; Trubetzkoy 1969; Jakobson 1971) but for analyzing the stress system, Metrical Phonology (Goldsmith 1990) was used. The analysis was aided by the use of a number of computer programs for linguistic analysis, including Speech Analyzer, Phonology Assistant, and FieldWorks.
According to the analysis of this study, Wadiyari has thirty-eight distinctive consonants at all seven places of articulation with eight manners of articulation: five implosives /ɓ, ɗ, ᶑ, ƒ, ɠ/, sixteen plosives /p, pʰ, b, bʱ, t, tʰ, d, dʱ, ʈ, ʈʰ, ɖ, ɖʱ, k, kʰ, ɡ, ɡʱ/, four nasals /m, n, ɳ, ŋ/, four fricatives /s, z, ʃ, ɦ/, three affricates /ʧ, ʧʰ, ʤ/, two laterals /l, ɭ/, two flaps /ɾ, ɽ/ and two approximants /w, j/. There are eight distinctive oral monophthongs /i, ɪ, e, a, ə, u, ʊ, o/, five distinctive nasal monophthongs /ẽ, ã, ũ, ʊ̃, õ/, five oral diphthongs /ai, aɪ, əi, oi, oɪ/ and two nasal diphthongs /aĩ, oĩ/ in Wadiyari. The oral vowels are contrastive with nasal vowels, but the contrast between the oral and nasal vowels tends to be neutralized around some segments.
Every word in Wadiyari can be parsed with two maximal syllable templates: (C)(C)V(C)(C) and (C)VV(C). Stress is predictable; primary stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable of the word. However, when the final syllable is heavy, or it is a closed syllable word, or if the final syllable has a diphthong, the primary stress falls on the final syllable of the word.
Wadiyari is a language rich in affixation and obviously has many interesting morphophonemic processes. However, these are not included in the objectives of this study. Further research is highly recommended for investigating the morphophonemic processes in the Wadiyari language.

(in English)
Jean Pacquement Historical linguistics and history of language Eighty years after Jules Block's La formation de la langue marathe

On the occasion of the centenary of the EFEO, this paper deals with La formation de la langue marathe by Jules Bloch, the first historical grammar of the Marathi language, published in 1919, whose approach to the history of the Indo-Aryan languages takes its inspiration from the comparativist school of Antoine Meillet and which has been a landmark in the field of Indo-Aryan linguistics generally, much as the Linguistic Survey of India of the same period authored by George Grierson, and particularly in the field of Marathi philological studies. This contribution presents the origin of Marathi and the main stages of its "formation", includes a history of the Marathi language from 1012 to the present day and finally mentions, by way of conclusion, the influence of La formation de la langue marathe on Indo-Aryan linguistics.

(in French)
Jean Pacquement Linguistique historique et histoire de la langue 80 ans après La formation de la langue marathe de Jules Bloch

À l'occasion du centenaire de l'EFEO, cet article revient sur La formation de la langue marathe de Jules Bloch, première grammaire historique du marathi publiée en 1919, qui se caractérise par une approche de l'histoire de l'indo-aryen inspirée de l'école comparatiste d'Antoine Meillet et qui a marqué, au même titre que le Linguistic Survey of India contemporain de George Grierson, le champ de la linguistique indo-aryenne et en l'occurrence le domaine des études philologiques marathi. La présente contribution présente l'origine du marathi et les principales étapes de sa « formation », inclut une histoire de la langue marathe entre 1012 et aujourd'hui, avant d'évoquer en conclusion l'influence de La formation de la langue marathe sur la linguistique indo-aryenne.

The main purpose of this volume is to provide a complement to "Towards a grammatical description of Palula" (Liljegren 2008) and "Palula vocabulary" (Liljegren & Haider 2011). A collection of texts representing various genres (historical narratives, ethnographic accounts, personal experiences, proverbs, etc.) have been transcribed and annotated, including morphological analysis, a free translation into English and an orthographic representation (Perso-Arabic based) of the transcribed text. The work is the result of linguistic research in and with the Palula community (Pakistan). Henrik Liljegren is a field linguist at Stockholm University, Sweden, and Naseem Haider, himself a native speaker of Palula, is a local researcher with the Forum for Language Initiatives in Islamabad.

Abstract: India is rich in terms of languages and communities, cultures and civilizations. And you'll find linguistic diversity and cultural pluralism significantly in different areas and regions across India. The community of "Sher Shah Abadi" (Shershahbadi) is one of the many communities found in India. It is a community founded by Sher Shah Suri who ruled India from 1540 to 1545. This community speaks one of the dialects of the Bengali language known as "Shershahbadi dialect". Though the Shershahbadi community is mainly located in three states of India namely West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand in addition to a sizeable population of this community in Odisha and Delhi, but my research is focused on the state of Bihar because members of this community in this region speak one of the dialects of Bengali language, but they do not learn the language or they do not have the opportunity to learn it because it is not included in the curricula of schools in Bihar. Therefore we note that the Bengali language of this community got or getting corrupted in terms of language and style. I consider this topic to be important because little has been written explicitly on the subject or nothing has been written about some aspects of the subject. So, I expect this topic to be new and an addition to the series of studies in the field language and culture in India.
Key words: Bengali Language, Shershahbadi, Sher Shah Suri, Katiher, Purnea, Kishanganj.

Hindi transitive verbs, contrary to Bengali verbs, require the ergative structure in the perfective aspect, an atypical feature for an Indo-European language, and considered to display only surface ergativity, since most syntactic and discursive properties are attached to the agent. However its affinities with other locational predications in the dative, as well as the historical parallel rise of both pre-ergative and modal future patterns in Western Indo-Aryan, The paper develops Montaut’s earlier suggestions (1996 2006), with an attempt to reconcile Benveniste’s well-known theory of the “possessive perfect” (1952) with Kurylowicz’s views on the parallel evolution of future and past in Romance and Persian languages (1960), and a study of ergative and dative new markers in various Indo-Aryan languages.

This is a scientific-popular paper on this sensational problem, in the true sense of the word, and will cause a lot of dissents. Particularly it will provoke disagreement among those who are contrary to the true history, not only of the Russian people but of all the Slovens. There will be also certain disapproval from some theologians as well, who in their view rely mainly on the Old Testament. With them, of course, it will be very difficult to discuss, and we do not intend to. I think that neither theologians, nor the researchers of DNA genealogy cannot fully comprehend the God's providence. One thing is clear: our lord is closer to the truth, but no one has the exclusive right to appropriate it for themselves." -Anatoly Klyosov Abstract: This paper analyses the question of the origin of "Slovens" or "Slavic" primordial land of origin, i.e. the "Indo-European" ancestral homeland. The answer of their ancient homeland and origin of the "Indo-Europeans" is given by the DNA genealogy. By using DNA genealogy the movement of people can be traced without the help of shovels and brushes of the archaeologists, or skull measurements, and without fraying imaginative cacophony of meanings of the living and extinct languages, but simply by following the markers in our DNA. These markers cannot be "assimilated" nor "overwhelmed" by another language, culture or people, as it was the case for thousands of years in history, linguistics, anthropology. One of the main points of view is that the haplotypes and haplogroups do not assimilate and they enable us to define the period in which their ancestors lived. The notion of "ancestral haplogroup" or "gender haplogroup" is defined by markers, or by the mutation in the male sex chromosome.

Paragraph 14 of Darius inscription at Bisotun is devoted to the measures taken by Darius in order to restore the legitimate kingship usurped by Gaumāta and to re-establish the social order thrown into confusion by the revolt leaded by the magus. The central core of the paragraph is (A) Darius' re-establishment of the kingship; (B) the realisation of some royal action (specified in all three languages by the general verb 'to make, to do') regarding the ā ̆ yadanā/ AN zí-ia-an AN na-ap-pan-na/É.˹MEŠ˺ šá DINGIR.MEŠ destroyed by Gaumāta. Analysing the syntactic structure of the three versions, studying the structure of the word ā ̆ yadanā – considered as problematic already by the early editors of the Bisotun inscription – the author discusses LECOQ's (1995) interpretation, stating some details which allow a better interpretation of § 14 as a whole.
Résumé: Le §14 de l'inscription de Darius à Bisotun est consacré aux mesures prises par Darius pour restaurer la royauté usurpée par Gaumāta et pour rétablir l'ordre social qui avait été mis à mal par la révolte du mage. L'objet central du paragraphe est (A) le rétablissement par Darius de la royauté soustraite, comme elle l'était auparavant ; (B) la réalisation d'une action royale (indiquée dans les trois langues par le verbe général 'faire') concernant les ā ̆ yadanā/ AN zí-ia-an AN na-ap-pan-na/É.˹MEŠ˺ šá DINGIR.MEŠ que Gaumāta avait détruits. En analysant la syntaxe des trois versions, en étudiant la structure du mot ā ̆ yadanā qui a été considéré problématique déjà à l'époque de la première publication des textes de Bisotun, l'auteur discute l'interprétation du passage donnée par LECOQ (1995), en précisant des détails qui permettent une meilleure interprétation du § 14 dans son ensemble.

This paper presents some novel and hard-to-access data from Kalkoti, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in northern Pakistan. The particular focus is on showing how this Shina variety in a relatively short time span has drifted apart from its closest known genealogical relatives and undergone significant linguistic convergence with a Kohistani variety in whose vicinity Kalkoti is presently spoken. Among other features, we explore what seems like an ongoing process of tonogenesis as well as structural “copying” in the realm of tense and aspect.

Data from four little-studied varieties of Indo-Aryan (Southern Palula, Northern Palula, Sawi and Kalkoti) spoken in the Hindu Kush is analyzed and discussed from a historical-comparative perspective. Evidence is presented showing that Kalkoti, until recently only tentatively classified, is part of this particular cluster of closely-related Shina varieties. An attempt is made at reconstructing some phonological and grammatical features of a common source speech, here named Proto-Dangari, and the order in which the present-day varieties may have split off. An important conclusion drawn is that Southern and Northern Palula probably are more distantly related than present-day similarities seem to indicate, the high degree of synchronic similarity instead being due to relatively recent convergence taking place in southern Chitral. It is hypothesized that the present speech communities are the result of two different westward routes of migration, one geographically linking Southern Palula (Ashreti) and Sawi with Chilas, the other linking Northern Palula (Biori) and Kalkoti with Tangir, both located in the same general area of the main Indus Valley.

Among  the  modern  Indo-Aryan  languages,  Dhivehi,  the  language  of  the  Maldive Islands,  is  peculiar  in  many  respects.  Although  it  has  been  generally  accepted  that Maldivian is most closely related to Sinhalese, both the mutual relationship of these two  languages  and  their  position  within  the  Indo-Aryan  phylum  are  still  far  from being clear.  Given  that  there  are  no  reliable  records  whatsoever  that  could  tell  us about  the  migration(s)  leading  to  the  inhabitation  of  the  Maldive  Islands,  and  given that  written  tradition  within  the  Maldives  begins  as  late  as  the  12th  century  A.D. only, many centuries after the period when the first settlement must have place,
historical  linguistics  is  the  only  field  of  investigation  that  we  can  expect  to gain evidence from. In the present article, we shall try to demonstrate to what extent the historical development of Maldivian word forms can be traced back to their Old Indo-Aryan bases by assuming regular sound changes arranged in a relative chronology, and what obstacles we meet with while trying to establish this.

The language of the documents found in the Southeast of present day Xinjiang, mainly in the Niya  oasis,  is  usually  reckoned  among  the  Middle  Indo-Aryan  languages.  Some  scholars, however,  believe  it  to  be  a  possible  ancestor  of certain  Dardic  dialects.  In  the  present  article an attempt is made to resolve this controversy, and to establish the exact position of the Niya Prakrit in the Indo-Iranian group. The author concludes that the language in question can by no means be classified as Dardic, though in the past its speakers may have been neighbors of the Dards.