Indo-Iranian languages, group of languages constituting the easternmost major branch of the Indo-European family of languages; only the Tocharian languages are found farther east. Scholarly consensus holds that the Indo-Iranian languages include the Iranian and Indo-Aryan (Indic) language groups.

Indo-Aryan Branch. Indo-Aryan languages represent the easternmost branch of the Indo-European language family. They are spoken by close to one billion people in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, parts of the Himalayas, and in Sri Lanka. There are 219 Indo-Aryan languages, some of which are yet to be definitively classified ( Ethnologue ).

Indo-Aryan languages, also called Indic languages, subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. In the early 21st century, Indo-Aryan languages were spoken by more than 800 million people, primarily in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. General characteristics

(viii) Indo-Iranian is the most conservative branch of Indo-European as far as the accen- accentuation, preserving it, presumably, virtually intact. INDO-IRANIAN 207

a separate branch of the Indo-European language family that includes the Indie (Indo-Aryan), Iranian, and Dard languages. The combination of these three groups of languages into a separate branch is motivated by the presence of an undisputed Indo-Iranian linguistic community that preceded the separation of the individual groups and preserved a number of very important …

The Indo-European language family has four main living branches: Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, and Italic. What are the four branches of the Indo-European language family? Today, linguistics speaks of the Indo-European language family as consisting of 10 distinct branches— Anatolian, Indo-Iranian, Hellenic, Italic, Germanic, Armenian, Tocharian, Celtic, Balto-Slavic and …