Indic

A name for the Hindoo branch of the great Aryan family of languages, comprising Sanskrit , Prakrit , Pali , Mahratta , Hindi , Bengali , . The country N. of the Indus was called Arya-âvarta, “abode of the Aryas.” ⁂ A S.W. branch of the great Aryan family, who in pre-historic times were settled to the N. and N.W. of Kâbul, became in the end the Brahmanic Aryans of India, and the Zoroastrian Aryans of Iran (Persia). There is no doubt that the Indian Aryans travelled mainly to the S.W., cro ing first, and settling in the Land of the Seven Rivers—the Indus, Punjâb (or Five Rivers), and the Sarasvâti—and that they proceeded thence gradually along the Jumna and Ganges, till they reached the Bay of Bengal. Ultimately, under the name of Hindûs (whence Hindûstan), they occupied all the district around and in connection with this great river system, displacing and driving to the south an earlier race, who still inhabit the S.E. and S. of the Deccan (Dakshina, so called as on the right hand—dexter—of the invading Hindû race), and who are allied to the Moghols of Central Asia. The dialect of the earlier, as of the existing populations to the S. and E., is of Turanian or Nishada origin. The principal Aryan dialects at present are Bengali , Hindi , and Mahratta , all of them lineal descendants of the Devanagari or Sanskrit, which is no longer a spoken language. Hindu stan i , though mainly Aryan in its vocabulary, and wholly so in its structure, is rather the language of general communication than a distinct dialect. See “Comparative Grammar of the Aryan Languages of India,” by Beames.     W. S. W. V.   See Dravidian .