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The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily, Indo-Iranian. These languages are mainly spoken by the Iranian Peoples. Avestan is the oldest recorded Iranian language. Today, there are an estimated 150-200 million native speakers of Iranian languages.[1] The 2005 SIL enumerates 87 varieties of Iranian languages, per number of native speakers, the largest are Persian (ca. 60 million), Kurdish (ca. 25 million), Pashto (ca. 25 million) and Balochi (ca. 7 million); to compare these numbers against those for other languages, see list of languages by number of native speakers. The 'Iranian' languages branch is so named because its principal member languages, including Persian, have been spoken in the area of the Iranian plateau since ancient times, however, as a linguistic classification, 'Iranian' implies no relation with the modern country of Iran. To avoid this confusion, the term Iranic is also used for these branch. Iranian languages are spoken by many ethnic groups including Persians, Tajiks, Kurds (Kurmanji, Sorani ) Pashtus, Balochis, Talishis, Mazandaris, Sangesaris, Tati, Zazas, and Goranis. The Indo-Iranian languages are thought to have originated in Central Asia. The Andronovo culture is the suggested candidate for the common Indo-Iranian culture ca. 2000 BC.
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