Indo-Aryanization

Indo-Aryanization means to change someone's language from a previous language to an Indo-Aryan language.

Indo-Aryanization of Indo-Greeks, Indo-Hepthalites, Indo-Scythians

In North-West India, the stray Indo-Greeks, Hephthalites and Saka Scythians, became absorbed into the greater Indo-Aryan population of India when losing their own government being replaced by a successive empire. Many Indo-Aryan ethnic groups claim ancestry of these ancient peoples. Such Indo-Aryan ethnic groups being supposedly of such ancestry are most notably, the Punjabis, Sindhis, Rajasthanis and Gujaratis.

Indo-Aryanization of Indian Arabs, Indian Africans, Indian Jews and Jewish origin groups

The Mappila Muslim community, who trace their origins to the Arab traders, Nasrani Christian and Cochin Jewish communities who trace their origins to Jewish traders at the turn of the millennium in Kerala, underwent a process of Indo-Aryanization as they were absorbed over time and adopted customs from their surrounding Indian community. The Indian African Siddi community in Karnataka who were brought to India by the British during the 18th century had largely assimilated into the larger Indian community by the 20th century.

Middle Ages

Parsi

The Parsi community, concentrated in Gujarat, are descendants of Zoroastrian refugees who fled from Iran migrating into Gujarat, to fled from the Islamic conquest of Persia, since their religion was undergoing marginalization by Islam. These Zoroastrians began to lose their original language, adopting the local Indo-Aryan languages ex.(Gujarati), and have adopted many elements of the culture in Gujarat. Parsi is the preserved term for Farsi, since the Arabic phonology changed the P to a F. Thus Parsi directly means, Persian.

Muslim Migration Into India

During the Muslim rule of India, the rulers began to adopt the Indo-aryan languages as their native tongue. For this reason many Persian,Turkic and Arab rulers assimilated into Indo-Aryan speakers, thus many Indian Muslims today claim descent of these ancient peoples.

Mughals

Mughals initially spoke Chagatai Turkic, then adopted Urdu as their new native tongue.

Ahoms

Originally one of the Tai tribes, the Ahom people assimilated to Hinduism and other elements of Hindu culture after their migration to Assam and nearby regions. Gradually the Ahom language spoken by the tribe was replaced by Assamese, an Indo-Aryan language. As a result, the Ahom language is extinct as a spoken language and only used for ritualistic purposes.^[1]

Change of formal language from Persian to Urdu

See: History of Urdu Urdu was intended to be a mixed language taking loanwords from many languages spoken in India.

Early Pashtun (Afghan) settlers in India

Afghans came from

Modern South Asia

During the Durand agreement, this concern was apparent from the start. A few Pashtuns are now worried about becoming absorbed into the Pakistani and Tajik(in Afghanistan) culture, as already split by a boundary. Though many Pashtuns in Pakistan now consider themselves Pakistani and support the country, some also have anti-sentiments against the dominance of the Indo-Aryan culture, by sometimes criticizing it as a Punjabi culture, instead of Pakistani, just to still be associated with Pakistan.

Indo-Aryanization of Pashtuns in Pakistan

A Pattern in Pakistan occurs among Pashtuns, who urbanize or intermarry, often end up having their generation and themselves becoming Indo-Aryans, a similar process occurs in Afghanistan where Pashtuns Persianize.

Baloch and Brahuis

The Baloch and Brahui, racially Iranian ethnic groups with Baloch speaking an Iranian language and Brahuis speaking a dravidian language are at some risk to become Indo-Aryanized, especially the fact, the Brahui language is at a high risk of being lost.

See also

• Sanskritization
• Neo-Vedanta

References