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Indo-Iranian

From Afghan Watan Encyclopedia

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Together Indo-Aryan and Iranian constitute Indo-Iranian, a major branch of the Indo-European family. Within Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan is now clearly the weightier partner, both demographically and in terms of number of languages, despite the great territorial extension of Iranian. It also possesses records which are not only older in time but for the most part more archaic linguistically. (Even if the new arguments for an early date for portions of the original Avesta are accepted, the text as it now stands dates only from the Sasanian period [third to seventh centuries AD], and it appears to have been affected much more by the process of transmission before that date than was the text of, e.g., the Rig Veda during its transmission [the core of which in any case is probably older]. [1]

References

  1. The Indo Aryan Languages - Cambridge Languages Survey - by Colin P. Masica