IndoIranian

Indo-Iranian refers to the largest branch of the Indo-European language family that includes most of the languages spoken in the Indian subcontinent and the Iranian plateau, plus parts of Central Asia and the Caucasus. It descends from Proto-Indo-Iranian, spoken during the late Bronze Age, and split into two primary subgroups, Indo-Aryan and Iranian, with extensive diversification over millennia.

Indo-Aryan languages are spoken across the Indian subcontinent, with examples such as Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu, and Sanskrit in its classical form. Iranian languages include Persian (Farsi), Dari, Tajik, Kurdish, Pashto, and Balochi.

Historically, Proto-Indo-Iranian split from Proto-Indo-European and formed two main branches during the late Bronze Age. Early attestations include Avestan for the Zoroastrian tradition and Old Persian from the Achaemenid empire; later, Sanskrit became the classical form of the Indo-Aryan tradition.

Linguistic features common to many Indo-Iranian languages include a subject–object–verb word order in many descendants, rich inflectional morphology in older stages, a system of consonant and vowel inventories, and the use of suffixes to express grammatical relations and derivation.

Geographically, Indo-Aryan languages are concentrated on the Indian subcontinent, while Iranian languages are concentrated on Iran, Afghanistan, and parts of Central Asia. Writing systems vary: Devanagari for many Indo-Aryan languages; Perso-Arabic scripts for Persian, Dari, and Urdu; Cyrillic for Tajik; others.