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Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Indo-Iranic peoples by scholars, [1] [2] [3] or as Arya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European speaking peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, to major parts of Eurasia in waves from the first part of the 2nd millennium BC onwards. They eventually branched out into Iranian peoples and Indo-Aryan peoples.
The term Aryan has long been used to denote the Indo-Iranians, because Arya was the self-designation of the ancient speakers of the Indo-Iranian languages, specifically the Iranian and the Indo-Aryan peoples, collectively known as the Indo-Iranians. [4] [5] Despite this, some scholars use the term Indo-Iranian to refer to this group, though the term "Aryan" remains widely used by most scholars, such as Josef Wiesehofer, [6] Will Durant, [7] and Jaakko Häkkinen. [8] [9] Population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, in his 1994 book The History and Geography of Human Genes, also uses the term Aryan to describe the Indo-Iranians. [10]
The Proto-Indo-Iranians are commonly identified with the descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans known as the Sintashta culture [11] and the subsequent Andronovo culture within the broader Andronovo horizon, and their homeland with an area of the Eurasian steppe that borders the Ural River on the west, the Tian Shan on the east (where the Indo-Iranians took over the area occupied by the earlier Afanasevo culture), and Transoxiana and the Hindu Kush on the south. [12]
Based on its use by Indo-Aryans in Mitanni and Vedic India, its prior absence in the Near East and Harappan India, and its 19th–20th century BC attestation at the Andronovo site of Sintashta, Kuzmina (1994) argues that the chariot corroborates the identification of Andronovo as Indo-Iranian. [note 1] Anthony & Vinogradov (1995) dated a chariot burial at Krivoye Lake to about 2000 BC, and a Bactria-Margiana burial that also contains a foal has recently been found, indicating further links with the steppes. [16]
Historical linguists broadly estimate that a continuum of Indo-Iranian languages probably began to diverge by 2000 BC, [17] : 38–39 preceding both the Vedic and Iranian cultures which emerged later. The earliest recorded forms of these languages, Vedic Sanskrit and Gathic Avestan, are remarkably similar, descended from the common Proto-Indo-Iranian language. The origin and earliest relationship between the Nuristani languages and that of the Iranian and Indo-Aryan groups is not completely clear.
Two-wave models of Indo-Iranian expansion have been proposed by Burrow (1973) [19] and Parpola (1999). The Indo-Iranians and their expansion are strongly associated with the Proto-Indo-European invention of the chariot. It is assumed that this expansion spread from the Proto-Indo-European homeland north of the Caspian Sea south to the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Iranian plateau, and the Indian subcontinent.
The Mitanni, a people known in eastern Anatolia from about 1500 BC, were of possibly of mixed origins: An indigenous non Indo-European Hurrian-speaking majority was supposedly dominated by a non-Anatolian, Indo-Aryan elite. [20] : 257 There is linguistic evidence for such a superstrate, in the form of:
In particular, Kikkuli's text includes words such as aika "one" (i.e. a cognate of the Indo-Aryan eka), tera "three" (tri), panza "five" (pancha), satta "seven", (sapta), na "nine" (nava), and vartana "turn around", in the context of a horse race (Indo-Aryan vartana). In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni, the Ashvin deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya are invoked. These loanwords tend to connect the Mitanni superstrate to Indo-Aryan rather than Iranian languages – i.e. the early Iranian word for "one" was aiva.[ citation needed ]
The standard model for the entry of the Indo-European languages into the Indian subcontinent is that this first wave went over the Hindu Kush, either into the headwaters of the Indus and later the Ganges. The earliest stratum of Vedic Sanskrit, preserved only in the Rigveda, is assigned to roughly 1500 BC. [20] : 258 [21] From the Indus, the Indo-Aryan languages spread from c. 1500 BC – c. 500 BC, over the northern and central parts of the subcontinent, sparing the extreme south. The Indo-Aryans in these areas established several powerful kingdoms and principalities in the region, from south eastern Afghanistan to the doorstep of Bengal. The most powerful of these kingdoms were the post-Rigvedic Kuru (in Kurukshetra and the Delhi area) and their allies the Pañcālas further east, as well as Gandhara and later on, about the time of the Buddha, the kingdom of Kosala and the quickly expanding realm of Magadha. The latter lasted until the 4th century BC, when it was conquered by Chandragupta Maurya and formed the center of the Maurya Empire.
In eastern Afghanistan and some western regions of Pakistan, Indo-Aryan languages were eventually replaced by Eastern Iranian languages. Most Indo-Aryan languages, however, were and still are prominent in the rest of the Indian subcontinent. Today, Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Suriname and the Maldives.
The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave. [17] : 42–43
The first Iranians to reach the Black Sea 'may' have been the Cimmerians in the 8th century BC, although their linguistic affiliation to Iranians is uncertain. They were followed by the Scythians, who are considered a western branch of the Central Asian Sakas. Sarmatian tribes, of whom the best known are the Roxolani (Rhoxolani), Iazyges (Jazyges) and the Alani (Alans), followed the Scythians westwards into Europe in the late centuries BC and the 1st and 2nd centuries AD (The Age of Migrations). The populous Sarmatian tribe of the Massagetae, dwelling near the Caspian Sea, were known to the early rulers of Persia in the Achaemenid Period. At their greatest reported extent, around 1st century AD, the Sarmatian tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south. [note 2] In the east, the Saka occupied several areas in Xinjiang, from Khotan to Tumshuq.
The Medians, Persians and Parthians begin to appear on the Iranian plateau from c. 800 BC, and the Achaemenids replaced the language isolate speaking Elamites rule over the region from 559 BC, although the Iranic peoples were largely subject to the Semitic speaking Assyrian Empire until the 6th century BC. Around the first millennium AD, Iranian groups began to settle on the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau, on the mountainous frontier of northwestern and western Pakistan, displacing the earlier Indo-Aryans from the area.
In Eastern Europe, the Iranians were eventually decisively assimilated (e.g. Slavicisation) and absorbed by the Proto-Slavic population of the region, [22] [23] [24] [25] while in Central Asia, the Turkic languages marginalized the Iranian languages as a result of the Turkic expansion of the early centuries AD. Extant major Iranian languages are Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, and Balochi besides numerous smaller ones. Ossetian, primarily spoken in North Ossetia and South Ossetia, is a direct descendant of Alanic, and by that the only surviving Sarmatian language of the once wide-ranging East Iranian dialect continuum that stretched from Eastern Europe to the eastern parts of Central Asia.
Archaeological cultures associated with Indo-Iranian expansion include:
Parpola (1999) suggests the following identifications:
Date range | Archaeological culture | Identification suggested by Parpola |
---|---|---|
2800–2000 BC | late Catacomb and Poltavka cultures | late PIE to Proto–Indo-Iranian |
2000–1800 BC | Srubna and Abashevo cultures | Proto-Iranian |
2000–1800 BC | Petrovka-Sintashta | Proto–Indo-Aryan |
1900–1700 BC | BMAC | "Proto-Dasa" Indo-Aryans establishing themselves in the existing BMAC settlements, defeated by "Proto-Rigvedic" Indo-Aryans around 1700 |
1900–1400 BC | Cemetery H | Indian Dasa |
1800–1000 BC | Alakul-Fedorovo | Indo-Aryan, including "Proto–Sauma-Aryan" practicing the Soma cult |
1700–1400 BC | early Swat culture | Proto-Rigvedic |
1700–1500 BC | late BMAC | "Proto–Sauma-Dasa", assimilation of Proto-Dasa and Proto–Sauma-Aryan |
1500–1000 BC | Early West Iranian Grey Ware | Mitanni-Aryan (offshoot of "Proto–Sauma-Dasa") |
1400–800 BC | late Swat culture and Punjab, Painted Grey Ware | late Rigvedic |
1400–1100 BC | Yaz II-III, Seistan | Proto-Avestan |
1100–1000 BC | Gurgan Buff Ware, Late West Iranian Buff Ware | Proto-Persian, Proto-Median |
1000–400 BC | Iron Age cultures of Xinjiang | Proto-Saka |
The Indo-European language spoken by the Proto-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 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, as well as the loss of the labiovelars (kw, etc.) to k, and the Eastern Indo-European (Satem) shift from palatized k' to ć, as in Proto–Indo-European *k'ṃto- > Indo-Iran. *ćata- > Sanskrit śata-, Old Iran. sata "100".
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.
The regions where Indo-Iranian languages are spoken extend from Europe (Romani) and the Caucasus (Ossetian, Tat and Talysh), down to Mesopotamia (Kurdish languages, Zaza–Gorani and Kurmanji Dialect continuum [26] ) and Iran (Persian), eastward to Xinjiang (Sarikoli) and Assam (Assamese), and south to Sri Lanka (Sinhala) and the Maldives (Maldivian), with branches stretching as far out as Oceania and the Caribbean for Fiji Hindi and Caribbean Hindustani respectively. Furthermore, there are large diaspora communities of Indo-Iranian speakers in northwestern Europe (the United Kingdom), North America (United States, Canada), Australia, South Africa, and the Persian Gulf Region (United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia).
Despite the introduction of later Vedic and Zoroastrian scriptures, Indo-Iranians shared a common inheritance of concepts including the universal force *Hṛta- (Sanskrit rta , Avestan asha ), the sacred plant and drink *sawHma- (Sanskrit Soma , Avestan Haoma ) and gods of social order such as *mitra- (Sanskrit Mitra , Avestan and Old Persian Mithra , Miθra) and *bʰaga- (Sanskrit Bhaga , Avestan and Old Persian Baga). Proto-Indo-Iranian religion is an archaic offshoot of Indo-European religion. From the various and dispersed Indo-Iranian cultures, a set of common ideas may be reconstructed from which a common, unattested proto-Indo-Iranian source may be deduced. [27]
The pre-Islamic religion of the Nuristani people and extant religion of the Kalash people is significantly influenced by the original religion of the Indo-Iranians, infused with accretions developed locally. [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] Michael Witzel theorises that these religions might share some elements with Shinto, one of the national religions of Japan, which according to him may contain some Indo-Iranian influence owing to contact presumably in the steppes of Central Asia at around 2000 BC. In Shinto, traces of these can be seen in the myth of the storm god Susanoo slaying a serpent Yamata-no-Orochi and in the myth of the dawn goddess Ame-no-Uzume. [33] [34] [35]
Most Indo-Iranians today follow Abrahamic and Dharmic religions.
Some beliefs developed in different ways as cultures separated and evolved. For example, the word 'daeva,' which appears in the Avesta, also bears a linguistic relationship to the Sanskrit word 'deva,' referring to one of the principal classes of gods, as well as other related words throughout the Indo-European traditions. Indeed, Indra, the greatest of the devas from Vedic literature, is often listed in Zoroastrian texts as one of the greatest of the evil forces, sometimes second only to Angra Mainyu himself. [36] In the traditional Zoroastrian confession of faith as recorded in the Avesta, the rejection of the daevas is one of the most significant qualifiers for a follower of the tradition, alongside worshipping Ahura Mazda and following the teachings of Zarathustra. Similarly, the parallels between the malevolent Vedic Asuras and benevolent Zoroastrian Ahuras are particularly obvious and striking.Varuna, the most powerful of the Asuras, does not directly correspond to Ahura Mazda but shares several traits in common with him, particularly in terms of his role as king among the lesser gods and arbiter of law and morality among mortals. Even as Ahura Mazda rules by and upholds asha, the cosmic moral order, in the Avesta, so too do Varuna and the Asuras uphold the analogous concept of rta in the Vedas. [36]
The Rig-Vedic Sarasvati is linguistically and functionally cognate with Avestan *Haraxvaitī Ārəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā.[ citation needed ] Both are described as world rivers. Vedic Saraswati is described as "Best of Mothers, Best of Rivers, Best of Goddesses". [37] Similarly, in early portions of the Avesta, Iranian *Harahvati is the world-river that flows down from the mythical central Mount Hara. She is blocked by an obstacle (Avestan for obstacle: vərəθra) placed there by Angra Mainyu. [27]
The following is a list of cognate terms that may be gleaned from comparative linguistic analysis of the Rigveda and Avesta. Both collections are from the period after the proposed date of separation (c. 2nd millennium BC) of the Proto-Indo-Iranians into their respective Indic and Iranian branches. [27] [38] [39]
Vedic Sanskrit | Avestan | Common meaning |
---|---|---|
āp | āp | "water," āpas "the Waters" [39] |
Apam Napat, Apām Napāt | Apām Napāt | the "water's offspring" [39] |
aryaman | airyaman | "Arya-hood" (lit: ** "member of Arya community") [39] |
Asura Mahata/Medha (असुर महत/मेधा) | Ahura Mazda | "The Supreme Lord, Lord of Wisdom" [40] [41] |
rta | asha/arta | "active truth", extending to "order" and "righteousness" [39] [38] |
atharvan | āθrauuan, aθaurun Atar | "priest" [38] |
ahi | azhi, (aži) | "dragon, snake", "serpent" [39] |
daiva, deva | daeva, (daēuua) | a class of divinities |
manu | manu | "man" [39] |
mitra | mithra, miθra | "oath, covenant" [39] [38] |
asura | ahura | another class of spirits [39] [38] |
sarvatat | Hauruuatāt | "intactness", "perfection" [42] [43] |
Sarasvatī (Ārdrāvī śūrā anāhitā, आर्द्रावी शूरा अनाहिता) | Haraxvati/Haraxvaitī (Ārəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā) | a controversial (generally considered mythological) river, a river goddess [44] [45] |
sauma, soma | haoma | a plant, deified [39] [38] |
svar | hvar, xvar | the Sun, also cognate to Greek helios , Latin sol, Engl. Sun [42] |
Tapati | tapaiti | Possible fire/solar goddess; see Tabiti (a possibly Hellenised Scythian theonym). Cognate with Latin tepeo and several other terms. [42] |
Vrtra-/Vr̥tragʰná/Vritraban | verethra, vərəθra (cf. Verethragna, Vərəθraγna) | "obstacle" [39] [38] |
Yama | Yima | son of the solar deity Vivasvant/Vīuuahuuant [39] |
yajña | yasna , object: yazata | "worship, sacrifice, oblation" [39] [38] |
Gandharva | Gandarewa | "heavenly beings" [39] |
Nasatya | Nanghaithya | "twin Vedic gods associated with the dawn, medicine, and sciences" [39] |
Amarattya | Ameretat | "immortality" [39] |
Póṣa | Apaosha | "demon of drought" [39] |
Ashman | Asman | "sky, highest heaven" [42] |
Angira Manyu | Angra Mainyu | "destructive/evil spirit, spirit, temper, ardour, passion, anger, teacher of divine knowledge" [39] |
Manyu | Maniyu | "anger, wrath" [39] |
Sarva | Sarva | "Rudra, Vedic god of wind, Shiva" [42] |
Madhu | Madu | "honey" [39] |
Bhuta | Buiti | "ghost" [39] |
Mantra | Manthra | "sacred spell" [39] |
Aramati | Armaiti | "piety" |
Amrita | Amesha | "nectar of immortality" [39] |
Amrita Spanda (अमृत स्पन्द) | Amesha Spenta | "holy nectar of immortality" |
Sumati | Humata | "good thought" [42] [39] |
Sukta | Hukhta | "good word" [39] |
Narasamsa | Nairyosangha | "praised man" [39] |
Vayu | Vaiiu | "wind" [39] |
Vajra | Vazra | "bolt" [39] |
Ushas | Ushah | "dawn" [39] |
Ahuti | azuiti | "offering" [39] |
púraṁdhi | purendi [39] | |
bhaga | baga | "lord, patron, wealth, prosperity, sharer/distributor of good fortune" [39] |
Usij | Usij | "priest" [39] |
trita | thrita | "the third" [39] |
Mas | Mah | "moon, month" [39] |
Vivasvant | Vivanhvant | "lighting up, matutinal" [39] |
Druh | Druj | "Evil spirit" [39] |
Ahi Dasaka | Azhi Dahaka | "biting serpent" [46] |
R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198) is the sub-clade most commonly associated with Indo-European populations. Most discussions purportedly of R1a origins are actually about the origins of the dominant R1a1a (R-M17 or R-M198) sub-clade. R1a1a is found in two major variations: Z93 and Z282. [47] R-Z93 appears to encompass most of the R1a1a found in Asia, being related to Indo-Iranians. [48] On the other hand, R-Z282 is the main European branch of R1a1a predominantly related to Balts and Slavs in Eastern Europe. [48] Data so far collected indicates high frequency of R-Z93 in the northern Indian Subcontinent, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan: Bengali Brahmins carry up to 72% R1a1a, [49] Mohana tribe up to 71%, [50] Nepal Hindus up to 69.20%, [51] and Tajiks up to 68%. [52] In the western part of Iran, Iranians show low R1a1a levels, while males of eastern parts of Iran carry up to 35% R1a1a. [52] The historical and prehistoric possible reasons for this are the subject of on-going discussion and attention amongst population geneticists and genetic genealogists, and are considered to be of potential interest to linguists and archaeologists also.
Out of 10 human male remains assigned to the Andronovo horizon from the Krasnoyarsk region, 9 possessed the R1a Y-chromosome haplogroup and one C-M130 haplogroup (xC3). mtDNA haplogroups of nine individuals assigned to the same Andronovo horizon and region were as follows: U4 (2 individuals), U2e, U5a1, Z, T1, T4, H, and K2b.
A 2004 study also established that during the Bronze Age/Iron Age period, the majority of the population of Kazakhstan (part of the Andronovo culture during the Bronze Age), was of west Eurasian maternal lineages (with mtDNA haplogroups such as U, H, HV, T, I and W), and that prior to the 13th–7th century BC, all Kazakh samples belonged to European lineages. [53]
A 2022 study found that modern individuals from Southern Central Asia, especially Tajiks and Yaghnobis, display strong genetic continuity towards Iron Age Indo-Iranians, and were only marginally affected by outside geneflow, while modern Turkic peoples derive significant amounts of ancestry from a 'Baikal hunter-gatherer' source (mean average ~50%), with the remainder being ancestry maximized in Tajik people. Historical Indo-Iranians showed high genetic affinity towards European hunter-gatherers and Iranian Neolithic farmers. [54]
In the Vedic tradition, sóma is a ritual drink of importance among the early Vedic Indo-Aryans. The Rigveda mentions it, particularly in the Soma Mandala. Gita mentions the drink in chapter 9. It is equivalent to the Iranian haoma.
Mitra is the name of an Indo-Iranian divinity that predates the Rigvedic Mitrá and Avestan Mithra.
Avestan is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages, Old Avestan and Younger Avestan. They are known only from their conjoined use as the scriptural language of Zoroastrianism; the Avesta serves as their namesake. Both are early Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family. Its immediate ancestor was the Proto-Iranian language, a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, with both having developed from the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language; as such, Old Avestan is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language.
The historical Vedic religion, also known as Vedicism and Vedism, constituted the religious ideas and practices prevalent amongst the Indo-Aryan peoples of the northwest Indian subcontinent during the Vedic period. These ideas and practices are found in the Vedic texts, and some Vedic rituals are still practiced today. The Vedic religion is one of the major traditions which shaped Hinduism, though present-day Hinduism is significantly different from the historical Vedic religion.
Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid-2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It is orally preserved, predating the advent of writing by several centuries.
The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished c. 2000–1150 BC, spanning from the southern Urals to the upper Yenisei River in central Siberia. Some researchers have preferred to term it an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon. The slightly older Sintashta culture, formerly included within the Andronovo culture, is now considered separately to Early Andronovo cultures. Andronovo culture's first stage could have begun at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, with cattle grazing, as natural fodder was by no means difficult to find in the pastures close to dwellings.
Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse collection of Indo-European peoples speaking Indo-Aryan languages in the Indian subcontinent. Historically, Aryans were the Indo-Iranian speaking pastoralists who migrated from Central Asia into South Asia and introduced the Proto-Indo-Aryan language. The Indo-Aryan peoples were known to be closely related and belonging to the same Indo-Iranian group that have resided north of the Indus River; an evident connection in cultural, linguistic, and historical ties. Today, the Indo-Aryan language speakers are found south of the Indus, across the modern-day regions of Bangladesh, Nepal, eastern-Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and northern-India.
Potapovka culture was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the middle Volga in 2100—1800 BC.
The Indo-Aryan migrations were the migrations into the Indian subcontinent of Indo-Aryan peoples, an ethnolinguistic group that spoke Indo-Aryan languages. These are the predominant languages of today's Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, North India, Eastern Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
Asko Parpola is a Finnish Indologist, current professor emeritus of South Asian studies at the University of Helsinki. He specializes in Sindhology, specifically the study of the Indus script.
The Iranian languages, alternately called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau.
Proto-Indo-Iranian, also called Proto-Indo-Iranic or Proto-Aryan, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium BC, and are often connected with the Sintashta culture of the Eurasian Steppe and the early Andronovo archaeological horizon.
The Yaz culture was an early Iron Age culture of Margiana, Bactria and Sogdia. It emerges at the top of late Bronze Age sites (BMAC), sometimes as mud-brick platforms and sizeable houses associated with irrigation systems. Ceramics were mostly hand-made, but there was increasing use of wheel-thrown ware. There have been found bronze or iron arrowheads, also iron sickles or carpet knives among other artifacts.
Some loanwords in the variant of the Hurrian language spoken in the Mitanni kingdom, during the 2nd millennium BCE, are identifiable as originating in an Indo-Aryan language; these are considered to constitute an Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni. The words in question are theonyms, proper names and technical terminology related to horses (hippological).
Vedic Sanskrit has a number of linguistic features which are alien to most other Indo-European languages. Prominent examples include: phonologically, the introduction of retroflexes, which alternate with dentals, and morphologically, the formation of gerunds. Some philologists attribute such features, as well as the presence of non-Indo-European vocabulary, to a local substratum of languages encountered by Indo-Aryan peoples in Central Asia (Bactria-Marghiana) and within the Indian subcontinent during Indo-Aryan migrations, including the Dravidian languages.
Indigenous Aryanism, also known as the Indigenous Aryans theory (IAT) and the Out of India theory (OIT), is the conviction that the Aryans are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations. It is a "religio-nationalistic" view on Indian history, and propagated as an alternative to the established migration model, which considers the Pontic–Caspian steppe to be the area of origin of the Indo-European languages.
The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities.
Aryan or Arya is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan'. In Ancient India, the term ā́rya was used by the Indo-Aryan speakers of the Vedic period as an endonym (self-designation) and in reference to a region known as Āryāvarta, where the Indo-Aryan culture emerged. In the Avesta scriptures, ancient Iranian peoples similarly used the term airya to designate themselves as an ethnic group, and in reference to their mythical homeland, Airyanǝm Vaēǰō. The stem also forms the etymological source of place names such as Alania and Iran.
The Indo-European migrations are hypothesized migrations of Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) speakers, and subsequent migrations of people speaking derived Indo-European languages, which took place approx. 4000 to 1000 BCE, potentially explaining how these languages came to be spoken across a large area of Eurasia, spanning from the Indian subcontinent and Iranian plateau to Atlantic Europe, in a process of cultural diffusion.
(..) Indeed, it is now accepted that the Sarmatians merged in with pre-Slavic populations.
(..) In their Ukrainian and Polish homeland the Slavs were intermixed and at times overlain by Germanic speakers (the Goths) and by Iranian speakers (Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans) in a shifting array of tribal and national configurations.
(..) Ancient accounts link the Amazons with the Scythians and the Sarmatians, who successively dominated the south of Russia for a millennium extending back to the seventh century B.C. The descendants of these peoples were absorbed by the Slavs who came to be known as Russians.
(..) For example, the ancient Scythians, Sarmatians (amongst others), and many other attested but now extinct peoples were assimilated in the course of history by Proto-Slavs.
The Kalash (which means 'black' because of the black garments they wear) are an animist tribe who live in a region sometimes called Kafiristan.