Indo-Aryan, Indo-Iranian, Indo-European etc.

Arts & Culture Culture, Arts, Literature & Linguistics
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What do these actually mean, in terms of language and race? How/Why are they categorised like that?

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http://courses.washington.edu/asian203/notes01.htm
LANGUAGES OF SOUTH ASIA

I. Indo-Aryan (Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European)

A. Old Indo-Aryan (Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit)

B. Middle Indo-Aryan (Pali, Prakrit, Gandhari, Apabhramsha)

C. New Indo-Aryan (c. year 1000 ce+) Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Assamese, Oriya, Sindhi, Nepali, Sinhala, Kashmiri, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Magahi, Rajasthani, Konkani

II. Dravidian

Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and approximately two dozen other languages, mostly tribal. Also Brahui, spoken in Baluchistan in southern Pakistan.

III. Munda (Austroasiatic)

Approximately two dozen tribal languages, incl. Santali and Mundari, in central and eastern India.

IV. Tibeto-Burman (branch of Sino-Tibetan)

Tibetan, Newari, and 100+ languages in Himalayas and NE frontier

V. Iranian (Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European)

Persian (= Farsi), Dari, Tajik, Pashto, Baluchi

VI. Colonial and other “foreign” languages

A. Indo-European (English, French, Portuguese, Dutch)

B. Semitic (Arabic)

Also see:
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=Pakistan