'Aryan' is an English language word derived from
Sanskrit and
Avestan ''ārya-'' meaning "noble".
[1] It is widely held to have been used as an ethnic self-designation of the
Proto-Indo-Iranians.
Since, in the
19th century, the Indo-Iranians were the most ancient known speakers of Indo-European languages, the word Aryan was adopted to refer not only to the Indo-Iranian people, but also to Indo-European speakers as a whole.
In
Europe, the concept of an
Aryan race became influential in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as
linguists and
ethnologists argued that speakers of these
Indo-European languages constitute a distinctive race, descended from an ancient people, who were referred to as the "primitive Aryans", but are now known as
Proto-Indo-Europeans.
An understanding of the Proto-Indo-Iranians as a
master race, as prominently expressed within
Nazism and related ideologies, lacks any scientific basis, nor do any of the
Vedic Sanskrit and
Old Persian texts speak of 'racial purity'.
[2]
In today's English, "Aryan" is merely synonymous to
Indo-Iranian, the eastern extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages.
[3][4][5][6]
Etymology
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) , a ''yo-''adjective to a root "to assemble skillfully", present in Greek ''harma'' "chariot", Greek ''aristos'', (as in "
aristocracy"), Latin ''ars'' "art", etc.
Proto-Indo-Iranian ''
★ ar-ta-'' was a related concept of "properly joined" expressing a religious concept of cosmic order.
The adjective ''
★ aryo-'' was suggested as ascending to Proto-Indo-European times as the self-designation of the speakers of the
Proto-Indo-European language itself. It was suggested that other words such as ''
Éire'', the Irish name of
Ireland, and ''Ehre'' (German for "honour") were related to it, but these are now widely regarded as untenable,
[7] and while '' is certainly a well-formed PIE adjective, there is no evidence that it was used as an ethnic self-designation outside the Indo-Iranian branch. In the 1850s
Max Müller theorized that the word originated as a denotation of farming populations, since he thought it likely that it was related to the root , meaning "to plough". Other 19th century writers, such as Charles Morris, repeated this idea, linking the expansion of PIE speakers to the spread of agriculturalists. Most linguists now consider to be unrelated.
In ancient and medieval India, the Sanskrit term aryaputra, literally, 'son of nobility' was a title conferred to kings and princes. In the epic Mahabharata, king Dhritarashtra’s wife, Gandhari addresses her husband as aryaputra more often than she uses his name, or any other title of respect.
The
Old Persian form of ''
★ Aryāna-'' appears as ''
Æryānam Väejāh'' "''Aryan'' Root-land" in
Avestan, in
Middle Persian as ''Ērān'', and in
Modern Persian as ''Īrān.'' Similarly, Northern India was referred to by the
tatpurusha ''
Aryavarta'' "''Arya''-abode" in ancient times.
Semantics of Sanskrit ''arya''
Main articles: Arya
According to Paul Thieme (1938), the
Vedic term ''arya-'' in its earliest attestations has a meaning of "stranger", but "stranger" in the sense of "potential guest" as opposed to "barbarian" (
mleccha,
dasa), taking this to indicate that ''arya'' was originally the ethnic self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. ''Arya'' directly contrasts with ''Dasa'' or ''Dasyu'' in the
Rigveda (e.g. RV 1.51.8, '' "Discern thou well Aryas and Dasyus"). This situation is directly comparable to the term
Hellene in Ancient Greece. The
Middle Indic interjection ''arē!'', ''rē!'' "you there!" is derived from the vocative ''arí!'' "stranger!".
The Sanskrit lexicon
Amarakosha (c. AD 450) defines ''
Arya'' as '' "being of a noble family", '' "having gentle or refined behavior and demeanor", '' "being well-born and respectable", and '' "being virtuous, honourable, or righteous".
In Hinduism, the religiously initiated
Brahmin,
Kshatriya and
Vaishyas were ''arya'', a title of honor and respect given to certain people for noble behaviour. This word is used by
Hindus,
Buddhists,
Jains and
Zoroastrians to mean ''noble'' or ''spiritual''.
[8], for example,
Four Noble Truths (
Pali: ''Cattāri ariyasaccāni'',
Sanskrit: ''Catvāri āryasatyāni''), and
Noble Eightfold Path (
Pāli: ''Ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo'';
Sanskrit: ''Ārya 'ṣṭāṅga mārgaḥ'').
Indo-European
Max Müller and other
19th century linguists theorized that the term ''
★ arya'' was used as the self-description of the
Proto-Indo-Europeans, who were often referred to at this time as the "primitive Aryans". By extension, the word came to be used in the West for the
Indo-European speaking peoples as a whole. Besides Müller for example H. Chavée in 1867 uses the term in this sense (''aryaque''), but this never saw frequent use in linguistics, precisely for being reserved for "Indo-Iranian" already. G. I. Ascoli in 1854 used ''arioeuropeo'', viz. a compound "Aryo-European" with the same rationale as "Indo-European", the term now current, which has been in frequent use since the 1830s. Nevertheless, the use of Aryan as a synonym for Indo-European became widespread in non-linguistic and popular usage by the end of the nineteenth century.
Use of "Aryan" for "Indo-European" in academia was obsolete by the 1910s: B. W. Leist in 1888 still titles ''Alt-Arisches Jus Gentium'' ("Old Aryan [meaning Indo-European, not Indo-Iranian] ''
Ius Gentium''"). P. v. Bradke in 1890 titles ''Methode und Ergebnisse der arischen (indogermanischen) Altterthumswissenschaft'', still using "Aryan", but inserting an explanatory bracket. Otto Schrader in 1918 in his ''Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde'' under the entry ''Arier'' matter-of-factly discusses the Indo-Iranians, without any reference to a possible wider meaning of the term.
According to
Michael Witzel in his paper ''Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts'', "the use of the word Arya or Aryan to designate the speakers of all Indo-European (IE) languages or as the designation of a particular ''race'' is an aberration of many writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and should be avoided."
[9]
Indo-Iranian
Main articles: Indo-Iranians
The most probable date for Proto-Indo-Iranian unity is roughly around
2500 BC. In this sense of the word ''Aryan'', the Aryans were an ancient culture preceding both the Vedic and Avestan cultures. Candidates for an archeological identification of this Indo-Iranian culture are the
Andronovo and/or
Srubnaya Archeological Complexes.
India and
Northern Europe have also been suggested as possible
homelands for this culture.
In linguistics, the term ''Aryan'' currently may be used to refer to the
Indo-Iranian language family. To prevent confusion because of its several meanings, the linguistic term is often avoided today. It has been replaced by the unambiguous terms ''Proto-Indo-European'', ''Proto-Indo-Iranian'', ''Indo-Iranian'', ''Iranian'' and ''Indo-Aryan''.
The
Proto-Indo-Iranian language evolved into the family of
Indo-Iranian languages, of which the oldest-known members are
Vedic Sanskrit,
Avestan and another Indo-Iranian language, known only from loan-words found in the
Mitanni language.
Indo-Aryan
Main articles: Indo-Aryans,
Indo-Aryan languages
Indus Valley Seals. The first one appears to show a
Swastika.
There is evidence of speakers of Indo-Aryan in
Mesopotamia around
1500 BC in the form of loanwords in the
Mitanni dialect of Hurrian, the speakers of which, it is speculated, may have once had an Indo-Aryan ruling class. At around the same time, the Indo-Aryans associated with the
Vedic civilization, which dates back to the same period. They are sometimes called Vedic Aryans because it is believed that they brought
Vedas to the
Indian Subcontinent after the Aryans migrated into that region. In
ancient India, the term
Aryavarta, meaning "''abode of the Aryans''", was used to refer to the northern Indian subcontinent.
Contemporary speakers of Indo-Aryan languages are spread over most of the northern Indian Subcontinent. Indo-Aryan speakers exist outside the Indian Subcontinent including
Romani, the language of the
Roma people, often known as "Gypsies". In addition to Romani,
Parya is spoken in
Tajikistan,
Jataki in
Ukraine, and
Domari throughout the Middle East.
Iranian
Main articles: Iranian peoples,
Iranian languages
Since ancient times,
Persians have used the term ''Aryan'' as a racial designation in an ethnic sense to describe their
lineage and their
language, and this
tradition has continued into the present day amongst modern
Iranians (
Encyclopedia Iranica, p. 681, ''Arya''). In fact, the name Iran is a cognate of Aryan and means ''"Land of the Aryans."''
[10] [11] [12]
Darius the Great
, King of
Persia (
521–
486 BC), in an inscription in
Naqsh-e Rustam (near
Shiraz in present-day
Iran), proclaims: ''"I am
Darius the great King… A
Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage..."''. He also calls his language the "Aryan language," commonly known today as
Old Persian. According to the Encyclopedia Iranica, "the same ethnic concept was held in the later centuries" and was associated with "nobility and lordship." (p. 681)
The word has become a
technical term in the
theologies of
Zoroastrianism, but has always been used by
Iranians in the ethnic sense as well. In 1967, Iran's
Pahlavi dynasty (overthrown in the 1979 Iranian revolution) added the title
Āryāmehr ''"Light of the Aryans"'' to those of the
monarch, known at the time as the
Shahanshah (''King of Kings'').
The term "Airya-shayana" (''abode of the Aryans'') has also been used in the Avesta referring to all the lands where the Aryans dwell.
"Iranian Glory" (''Airyana Khvarenah'') occurs in the Avesta 23 times.
The term also remains a frequent element in modern Persian personal names, including ''Arya'' and 'Aryan' (boy's and girl's name), ''Aryana'' (a common surname), ''Iran-Dokht'' (''Aryan daughter'', a girl's name),''Aryanpour'' (or ''Aryanpur'', a surname), ''Aryamane'', ''Ary'' among many others. The terms "Aryan" and "Iranian" are sometimes used interchangeably, as in the Iranian bank chain, Aryan Bank.
Racial connotations
Main articles: Aryan race
Because of
ethnolinguistic arguments about connections between peoples and cultural values, "Aryan" peoples were often considered to be distinct from
Semitic peoples. By the end of the nineteenth century this usage was so common that "Aryan" was often used as a
synonym for "
gentile", and this popular usage persisted even after academic authors had ceased to use the term in any other meaning than "Indo-Iranian". Among
White supremacists the term still sometimes functions as a synonym for "non-Jewish
white person."
The 'Aryan race' was a term used in the early 20th century by European racial theorists who believed strongly in the division of humanity into biologically distinct races with differing characteristics. Such writers believed that the Proto-Indo-Europeans constituted a specific race that had expanded across Europe, Iran and India. This meaning was, and still is, common in theories of racial superiority which were embraced by
Nazi Germany. This usage tends to merge the Sanskrit meaning of "noble" or "elevated" with the idea of distinctive behavioral and ancestral ethnicity marked by language distribution. In this interpretation, the Aryan Race is ''both'' the highest representative of mankind and the purest descendent of the Proto-Indo-European population.
From the late 19th century, a number of writers had argued that the Proto-Indo-Europeans had originated in Europe. Their opinion was received critically at first, but was widely accepted by the end of the nineteenth century. By 1905
Hermann Hirt in his ''Die Indogermanen'' (incidentally consistently using ''Indogermanen'', not ''Arier'' to refer to the Indo-Europeans) claimed that the scales had tilted in favour of the hypothesis, in particular claiming the plains of northern Germany as the ''
Urheimat'' (p. 197) and connecting the "blond type" (p. 192) with the core population of the early, "pure" Indo-Europeans. This argument developed in tandem with
Nordicism, the theory that the "Nordic race" of fair-haired north Europeans were innately superior to other peoples. The identification of the Proto-Indo-Europeans with the north German
Corded Ware culture bolstered this position. This was first proposed by
Gustaf Kossinna in 1902, and gained in currency over the following two decades, until
V. Gordon Childe who in his 1926 ''The Aryans: a study of Indo-European origins'' concluded that "the Nordics' superiority in physique fitted them to be the vehicles of a superior language" (a belief which he later regretted having expressed).
The idea became a matter of national pride in learned circles of Germany, and was taken up by the Nazis. According to
Alfred Rosenberg's ideology the "Aryan-Nordic" (''arisch-nordisch'') or "Nordic-Atlantean" (''nordisch-atlantisch'') race was thus a
master race, at the top of a racial hierarchy, pitted against a "
Jewish-
Semitic" (''jüdisch-semitisch'') race, deemed to be a racial threat to Germany's homogeneous Aryan civilization, thus rationalizing Nazi
anti-Semitism. Nazism portrayed their interpretation of an "Aryan race" as the only race capable of, or with an interest in, creating and maintaining culture and civilizations, while other races are merely capable of conversion, or destruction of culture. These arguments derived from late nineteenth century racial hierarchies. Some Nazis were also influenced by
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's ''
The Secret Doctrine'' (
1888) where she postulates "Aryans" as the fifth of her "
Root Races", dating them to about a million years ago, tracing them to
Atlantis, an idea also repeated by Rosenberg, and held as doctrine by the
Thule Society. Such theories were used to justify the introduction of the so-called
"Aryan laws" by the Nazis, depriving "non-Aryans" of citizenship and employment rights, and prohibiting marriage between Aryans and non-Aryans. Though
Mussolini's
fascism was not originally characterised by explicit anti-Semitism, he too eventually introduced laws pressed upon him by Hitler, prohibiting mixed-race marriages between "Aryans" and Jews.
Nazi use of the term "Aryan" was wildly inconsistent with the claimed meaning.
Roma, of Indian descent and language, were classified non-Aryan, while the
Japanese were made
honorary Aryans during
World War II. In effect, "non-Aryan" ended up very nearly meaning, "insufficiently nationalistic".
Because of historical
racist use of ''Aryan'', and especially use of ''Aryan race'' in connection with the
propaganda of
Nazism, the word is sometimes avoided in the West as being tainted, in the same manner as the
swastika symbol. In the English language, the word "Aryan" is no longer in technical use to refer to an ethnic group or race, and the popular use of the term to mean "white person" fell out of favour during the 1930s when the obvious obsession of the Nazis with the word became a matter of ridicule in Britain and North America. In the USA, the established and less contentious term "
Caucasian" became dominant in official usage. Currently, India and Iran are the only countries to use the word ''Aryan'' in a demographic denomination. This usage, however, carries no racist connotations. Aryan is also a common male name in
India,
Afghanistan, and
Iran.
The word Aryan is still used to refer to race within
white power and
white nationalist circles.
See also
★
Aryan race
★
Aryanization
★
Aryavarta
★
Airyanem Vaejah
★
Indigenous Aryans
★
Japhetic
★
Proto-Indo-Europeans
★
Indo-Iranian languages
★
Indo-Iranians
★
Indo-Aryans
★
Iranian peoples
Notes
1. for the Sanskrit term, Monier-Williams has: "a respectable or honourable or faithful man, an inhabitant of Âryâvarta; one who is faithful to the religion of his country; name of the race which immigrated from Central Asia into Âryâvarta (opposed to ''an-arya, dasyu, daasa''); in later times name of the first three castes (opposed to ''shudra''); a man highly esteemed; a master; Âryan, favourable to the Âryan people; behaving like an Âryan, worthy of one, honourable, respectable, noble; of a good family; excellent; wise; suitable"
2. Statement by Paul Thieme, quoted in ''Harald Strohm'', ''Die Gnosis und der Nationalsozialismus'', p. 74
3. http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/6507/chronicle120.html
4. http://www.bookrags.com/Indo-European_languages
5. http://wapedia.mobi/en/Indo-Iranian_languages http://kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu/Dictionary/aryan.htm
6. http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/february/IranianBranch.html
7. Encyclopaedia Iranica - ''Aryans''
8. [1]
9. Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies
10. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000
11. http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/february/indoIranianBranch.html
12. http://imp.lss.wisc.edu/~aoliai/languagepage/iranianlanguages.htm
References
★
Paul Thieme, ''Der Fremdling im Rigveda. Eine Studie über die Bedeutung der Worte ari, arya, aryaman und aarya'', Leipzig (1938).
★ Vyacheslav V. Ivanov and Thomas Gamkrelidze, The Early History of Indo-European Languages, Scientific American, vol. 262, N3, 110116, March, 1990
★ A. Kammenhuber, "Aryans in the Near East," Haidelberg, 1968
Further reading
★ Vyacheslav V. Ivanov and Thomas Gamkrelidze, The Early History of Indo-European Languages, Scientific American, vol. 262, N3, 110116, March, 1990
★ A. Kammenhuber, "Aryans in the Near East," Haidelberg, 1968
★ Arvidsson, Stefan (2006), ''Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science,'' translated by Sonia Wichmann, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
★ Poliakov, Leon (1974). ''The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalistic Ideas In Europe.'' Translation of ''Le mythe aryen'', 1971.
External links
★
The great Indo-European and ancient Near East scholar Vyacheslav Ivanov. (Vyacheslav Ivanov)
★
Sindhudesh.com
★
Occurrence of "Arya" in Hindu scriptures
★
Etymological study
★
Aryanism in Tajikistan
★
Genetic evidence suggests European migrants may have influenced the origins of India's caste system
★
Aryan as a race or language, By David Frawley, American Institute of vedic Studies.
★
India through the Ages
★
Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts, By Michael Witzel, Harvard University.
★
The Aryan-Dravidian Controversy Article by David Frawley
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