Outer and Inner Indo-Aryan, and northern India as an ancient linguistic area

The article presents a new approach to the old controversy concerning the veracity of a distinction between Outer and Inner Languages in Indo-Aryan. A number of arguments and data are presented which substantiate the reality of this distinction. This new approach combines this issue with a new interpretation of the history of IndoIranian and with the linguistic prehistory of northern India. Data are presented to show that prehistorical northern India was dominated by Munda/Austro-Asiatic languages