Indo-Aryan languages are a group of languages that are spoken in South Asia and the Indian subcontinent. They are descended from Old Indo-Aryan, which is an ancestor of Sanskrit. The most widely spoken Indo-Aryan language is Hindi, with over 500 million native speakers. Other major Indo-Aryan languages include Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, and Urdu. These languages are used in literature, education, government, and other aspects of life in India and its neighboring countries.