Aryan

''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from Sanskrit ''ārya''), Oxford English Dictionary Online 2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.'' is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood in contrast to nearby outsiders, whom they designated as non-Aryan (). In ancient India, the term was used by the Indo-Aryan peoples of the Vedic period, both as an endonym and in reference to a region called ''Aryavarta'' (, ), where their culture emerged. Similarly, according to the Avesta, the Iranian peoples used the term to designate themselves as an ethnic group and to refer to a region called '' Airyanem Vaejah'' (, ), which was their mythical homeland. The word stem also forms the etymological source of place names like '' Alania'' () and ''Iran'' ().

Although the stem may originate from the Proto-Indo-European language, it seems to have been used exclusively by the Indo-Iranian peoples, as there is no evidence of it having served as an ethnonym for the Proto-Indo-Europeans. In any case, many modern scholars point out that the ethos of the ancient Aryan identity, as it is described in the Avesta and the Rigveda, was religious, cultural, and linguistic, and was not tied to the concept of race.

In the 1850s, the French diplomat and writer Arthur de Gobineau brought forth the idea of the "Aryan race", essentially claiming that the Proto-Indo-Europeans were superior specimens of humans and that their descendants comprised either a distinct racial group or a distinct sub-group of the hypothetical Caucasian race. Through the work of his later followers, such as the British-German philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Gobineau's theory proved to be particularly popular among European racial supremacists and ultimately laid the foundation for Nazi racial theories, which also co-opted the concept of scientific racism.

In Nazi Germany, and also in German-occupied Europe during World War II, any citizen who was classified as an Aryan would be honoured as a member of the " master race" of humanity. Conversely, non-Aryans were legally discriminated against, including Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mostly Poles and Russians). Jews, who were regarded as the arch enemy of the "Aryan race" in a "racial struggle for existence", were especially targeted by the Nazi Party, culminating in the Holocaust. The Roma, who are of Indo-Aryan origin, were also targeted, culminating in the Porajmos. The genocides and other large-scale atrocities that have been committed by Aryanists have led academic figures to generally avoid using "Aryan" as a stand-alone ethno-linguistic term, particularly in the Western world, where "Indo-Iranian" is the preferred alternative, although the term "Indo-Aryan" is still used to denote the Indic branch.

Etymology

English and European languages

The term ''Arya'' was first rendered into a modern European language in 1771 as ''Aryens'' by French Indologist Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, who rightly compared the Greek ''arioi'' with the Avestan ''airya'' and the country name ''Iran.'' In Germany, Johann Friedrich Kleuker's translation of Anquetil-Duperron's work led to the introduction of the term ''Arier'' in 1776.

The Sanskrit word ''ā́rya'' is rendered as 'noble' in William Jones' 1794 translation of the Indian '' Laws of Manu.'' The English ''Aryan'' (originally spelt ''Arian'') appeared a few decades later, first as an adjective in 1839, then as a noun in 1849, probably after the German ''Arier'' (noun), ''arisch'' (adjective). During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the meaning varied between the broader category equivalent to ''Indo-European'', and the narrower one equivalent to ''Indo-Iranian''.

Use of Aryan to designate a "white non-Jewish person, especially one of northern European origin or descent" entered the English language from German, after this meaning was introduced in 1887 and further developed by German anti-Semitic propagandists in the context of a so-called "Aryan race". It is still used in far-right and white supremacist discourse, and sometimes appears in the names of such groups.

Indo-Iranian

The Sanskrit word ''ā́rya'' ( आर्य) was originally an ethnocultural term designating those who spoke Vedic Sanskrit and adhered to Vedic cultural norms (including religious rituals and poetry), in contrast to an outsider, or ''an-ā́rya'' ('non-Arya'). By the time of the Buddha (5th–4th century BCE), it took the meaning of 'noble'. In Old Iranian languages, the Avestan term ''airya'' ( Old Persian ''ariya'') was likewise used as an ethnocultural self-designation by ancient Iranian peoples, in contrast to an '' an-airya'' ('non-Arya'). It designated those who belonged to the 'Aryan' (Iranian) ethnic stock, spoke the language and followed the religion of the 'Aryas'.: "It is used in the ''Avesta'' of members of an ethnic group and contrasts with other named groups (Tūirya, Sairima, Dāha, Sāinu or Sāini) and with the outer world of the ''An-airya'' 'non-Arya'.": "Mid. Pers. ''ēr'' (plur. ''ērān''), just like Old Pers. ''ariya'' and Av. ''airya'', has an evident ethnic value, which is also present in the abstract term ''ērīh'', 'Iranian character, Iranianness'."

These two terms derive from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-Iranian stem - or -, which was probably the name used by the prehistoric Indo-Iranian peoples to designate themselves as an ethnocultural group. The term did not have any racial connotation, which only emerged later in the works of 19th-century Western writers. According to David W. Anthony, "the ''Rigveda'' and '' Avesta'' agreed that the essence of their shared parental Indo-Iranian identity was linguistic and ritual, not racial. If a person sacrificed to the right gods in the right way using the correct forms of the traditional hymns and poems, that person was an Aryan."

The term "Aryan" is a word from the ancient Persian language or the Avestan language, which is the same in the root with Sanskrit language. The word "Aryan" has various meanings, including "pure man", "genuine man", "honorable man", "free man", "emancipated man", "elite man", "high-minded man", "noble man", "worthy man", "truthful man", "brave man", "hospitable man", "believed man", "companion man", "intimated man", or "human man", or "pure people", "genuine people", "honorable people", "free people", "emancipated people", "high-minded people", "noble people", "worthy people", "truthful people", "brave people", "hospitable people", "believed people", "companion people", "intimated people", or "human people". The word "Aryan" is also interpreted to mean "Iranian man" or "Iranian people".

Proto-Indo-European

The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origin of the Indo-Iranian stem ''arya''- remains debated. A number of scholars, starting with Adolphe Pictet (1799–1875), have proposed to derive ''arya''- from the reconstructed PIE term or , variously translated as 'member of one's own group, peer, freeman'; as 'host, guest; kinsman'; or as 'lord, ruler'.; ; ; However, the proposed Anatolian, Celtic and Germanic cognates are not universally accepted. In any case, the Indo-Iranian ethnic connotation is absent from the other Indo-European languages, which rather conceived the possible cognates of - as a social status (a freeman or noble), and there is no evidence that Proto-Indo-European speakers had a term to refer to themselves as 'Proto-Indo-Europeans'.
* Early PIE: ,
** Anatolian: *''ʔor-o-'', 'peer, freeman',
*** Hittite: ''arā-'', 'comrade, peer, companion, friend'; ''arawanni-'', 'free, freeman (not being slave)'; ''natta ara'', 'not proper to the community',
*** Lycian: ''arus-'', 'citizens'; ''arawa''-, 'freedom',
** Late PIE: ,
*** Indo-Iranian: , 'Aryan, Indo-Iranian',
**** Old Indo-Aryan: ''árya-'', 'Aryan, faithful to the Vedic religion'; ''aryá-'', 'kind, favourable, true, devoted'; ''arí-'', 'faithful; devoted person, ± kinsman';
**** Iranian: , 'Aryan, Iranian',
***** Avestan: ''airya''- (pl. ''aire''), 'Aryan, Iranian',
***** Old Persian: ''ariya-'', 'Aryan, Iranian','
*** Celtic: , 'freeman; noble'; or perhaps from ('first > prominent, eminent'),
**** Gaulish: ''ario-'', 'freeman, lord; foremost',
**** Old Irish: ''aire,'' 'freeman, chief; noble';
*** Germanic , 'noble, distinguished, esteemed',
**** Proto-Norse: ''arjosteʀ'', 'foremost, most distinguished'.

The term may derive from the PIE verbal root , meaning 'to put together'. Oswald Szemerényi has also argued that the stem could be a Near-Eastern loanword from the Ugaritic ''ary'' ('kinsmen'), although J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams find this proposition "hardly compelling". According to them, the original PIE meaning had a clear emphasis on the in-group status of the "freemen" as distinguished from that of outsiders, particularly those captured and incorporated into the group as slaves. In Anatolia, the base word has come to emphasize personal relationship, whereas it took a more ethnic meaning among Indo-Iranians, presumably because most of the unfree () who lived among them were captives from other ethnic groups.

Historical usage

Prehistoric Proto-Indo-Iranians

The term was used by Proto-Indo-Iranian speakers to designate themselves as an ethnocultural group, encompassing those who spoke the language and followed the religion of the ''Aryas'' (Indo-Iranians)'','' as distinguished from the nearby outsiders known as the ('non-Arya').: "The name “Aryan” (OInd. ''āˊrya''-, Ir. *''arya''- ith short ''a''- in Old Pers. ''ariya''-, Av. ''airiia''-, etc.) is the self designation of the peoples of Ancient India and Ancient Iran who spoke Aryan languages, in contrast to the “non-Aryan” peoples of those “Aryan” countries .. Indo-Iranians (''Aryas'') are generally associated with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE), named after the Sintashta archaeological site in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. Linguistic evidence show that Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-Aryan) speakers dwelled in the Eurasian steppe, south of early Uralic tribes; the stem - was notably borrowed into the Pre-Sámi language as *''orja''-, at the origin of ''oarji'' ('southwest') and ''årjel'' ('Southerner'). The loanword took the meaning 'slave' in other Finno-Permic languages, suggesting conflictual relations between Indo-Iranian and Uralic peoples in prehistoric times.

The stem is also found in the Indo-Iranian god , translated as 'Arya-spirited,' 'Aryanness,' or 'Aryanhood;' he was known in Vedic Sanskrit as '' Aryaman'' and in Avestan as '' Airyaman''. The deity was in charge of welfare and the community, and connected with the institution of marriage. Through marital ceremonies, one of the functions of ''Aryaman'' was to assimilate women from other tribes to the host community. If the Irish heroes '' Érimón'' and ''Airem'' and the Gaulish personal name ''Ariomanus'' are also cognates (i.e. linguistic siblings sharing a common origin), a deity of Proto-Indo-European origin named may also be posited.

Ancient times

Ancient India

Vedic Sanskrit speakers viewed the term ''ā́rya'' as a religious–linguistic category, referring to those who spoke the Sanskrit language and adhered to Vedic cultural norms, especially those who worshipped the Vedic gods (Indra and Agni in particular), took part in the yajna and festivals, and practiced the art of poetry.

The 'non-Aryas' designated primarily those who were not able to speak the ''āryā'' language correctly, the '' Mleccha'' or ''Mṛdhravāc.'' However, ''āryā'' is used only once in the Vedas to designate the language of the texts, the Vedic area being defined in the '' Kauṣītaki Āraṇyaka'' as that where the ''āryā vāc'' ('Ārya speech') is spoken. Some 35 names of Vedic tribes, chiefs and poets mentioned in the ''Rigveda'' were of 'non-Aryan' origin, demonstrating that cultural assimilation to the ''ā́rya'' community was possible, and/or that some 'Aryan' families chose to give 'non-Aryan' names to their newborns. In the words of Indologist Michael Witzel, the term ''ārya'' "does not mean a particular ''people'' or even a particular 'racial' group but all those who had joined the tribes speaking Vedic Sanskrit and adhering to their cultural norms (such as ritual, poetry, etc.)".

In later Indian texts and Buddhist sources, ''ā́rya'' took the meaning of 'noble', such as in the terms ''Āryadésa''- ('noble land') for India, ''Ārya-bhāṣā''- ('noble language') for Sanskrit, or ''āryaka''- ('honoured man'), which gave the Pali ''ayyaka''- ('grandfather'). The term came to incorporate the idea of a high social status, but was also used as an honorific for the Brahmana or the Buddhist monks. Parallelly, the Mleccha acquired additional meanings that referred to people of lower castes or aliens.

Ancient Iran

In the words of scholar Gherardo Gnoli, the Old Iranian ''airya'' (Avestan) and ''ariya'' ( Old Persian) were collective terms denoting the "peoples who were aware of belonging to the one ethnic stock, speaking a common language, and having a religious tradition that centred on the cult of Ahura Mazdā", in contrast to the 'non-Aryas', who are called ''anairya'' in Avestan, ''anaryān'' in Parthian, and '' anērān'' in Middle Persian.

The people of the '' Avesta'', exclusively used the term airya (, ) to refer to themselves. It can be found in a number geographical terms like the ' expanse of the airyas' (), the ' dwelling place of the airyas' (), or the 'white forest of the airyas' (). The term can also be found in poetic expressions such as the ' glory of the airyas' (), the ' most swift-arrowed of the airyas' (), or the ' hero of the airyas' (). Although the Avesta does not contain any dateable events, modern scholarship assumes that the Avestan period mostly predates the Achaemenid period of Iranian history.

By the late 6th–early 5th century BCE, the Achaemenid king Darius the Great and his son Xerxes I described themselves as ''ariya'' ('Arya') and ''ariya čiça'' ('of Aryan origin'). In the Behistun inscription, authored by Darius during his reign (522 – 486 BCE), the Old Persian language is called ''ariya'', and the Elamite version of the inscription portrays the Zoroastrian deity Ahura Mazdā as the "god of the Aryas" (''ura-masda naap harriia-naum'').

The self-identifier was inherited in ethnic names such as the Parthian ''Ary'' (pl. ''Aryān''), the Middle Persian ''Ēr'' (pl. ''Ēran''), or the New Persian ''Irāni'' (pl. ''Irāniyān''). The Scythian branch has '' Alān'' or (from ; modern ''Allon''), '' Rhoxolāni'' ('Bright Alans'), ''Alanorsoi'' ('White Alans'), and possibly the modern Ossetian ''Ir'' (adj. ''Iron''), spelled ''Irä'' or ''Erä'' in the Digorian dialect. The Rabatak inscription, written in the Bactrian language in the 2nd century CE, likewise uses the term ''ariao'' for 'Iranian'.

The name ''Arizantoi'', listed by Greek historian Herodotus as one of the six tribes composing the Iranian Medes, is derived from the Old Iranian - ('having Aryan lineage'). Herodotus also mentions that the Medes once called themselves ''Arioi'', and Strabo locates the land of ''Arianē'' between Persia and India. Other occurrences include the Greek ''áreion'' ( Damascius), ''Arianoi'' ( Diodorus Siculus) and ''arian'' (pl. ''arianōn''; Sasanian period), as well as the Armenian expression ''ari'' ( Agathangelos), meaning 'Iranian'.

Until the demise of the Parthian Empire (247 BCE–224 CE), the Iranian identity was essentially defined as cultural and religious. Following conflicts between Manichean universalism and Zoroastrian nationalism during the 3rd century CE, however, traditionalistic and nationalistic movements eventually took the upper hand during the Sasanian period, and the Iranian identity (''ērīh'') came to assume a definite political value. Among Iranians (''ērān''), one ethnic group in particular, the Persians, were placed at the centre of the ''Ērān-šahr'' ('Kingdom of the Iranians') ruled by the ''šāhān-šāh ērān ud anērān'' ('King of Kings of the Iranians and non-Iranians').

Ethical and ethnic meanings may also intertwine, for instance in the use of ''anēr'' ('non-Iranian') as a synonymous of 'evil' in ''anērīh ī hrōmāyīkān'' ("the evil conduct of the Romans, i.e. Byzantines"), or in the association of ''ēr'' ('Iranian') with good birth (''hutōhmaktom ēr martōm'', 'the best-born Arya man') and the use of ''ērīh'' ('Iranianness') to mean 'nobility' against "labor and burdens from poverty" in the 10th-century '' Dēnkard''. The Indian opposition between ''ārya''- ('noble') and ''dāsá''- ('stranger, slave, enemy') is however absent from the Iranian tradition. According to linguist Émile Benveniste, the root may have been used exclusively as a collective name by Iranian peoples: "If the word referred at first to Iranian society, the name by which this enemy people called themselves collectively took on a hostile connotation and became for the Aryas of India the term for an inferior and barbarous people."

Old Persian names derived the stem - include ''Aryabignes'' (, 'Gift of the Aryans'), ''Ariarathes'' (, 'having Aryan joy'), ''Ariobarzanēs'' (-, 'exalting the Aryans'), ''Ariaios'' (, probably used as a hypocorism of the precedent names), or '' Ariyāramna'' (whose meaning remains unclear). The English ''Alan'' and the French '' Alain'' (from Latin ''Alanus'') may have been introduced by Alan settlers to Western Europe during the first millennium CE.

Indo-Iranian place names

In ancient Sanskrit literature, the term '' Āryāvarta'' (आर्यावर्त, the 'abode of the Aryas') was the name given to the cradle of the Indo-Aryan culture in northern India. The '' Manusmṛiti'' locates ''Āryāvarta'' in "the tract between the Himalaya and the Vindhya ranges, from the Eastern (Bay of Bengal) to the Western Sea (Arabian Sea)".

The stem ''airya-'' also appears in '' Airyanəm Waēǰō'' (the 'stretch of the Aryas' or the 'Aryan plain'), which is described in the ''Avesta'' as the mythical homeland of the early Iranians, said to have been created as "the first and best of places and habitations" by the god Ahura Mazdā. It was referred to in Manichean Sogdian as ''ʾryʾn wyžn'' (''Aryān Wēžan''), and in Old Persian as , which gave the Middle Persian ''Ērān-wēž'', said to be the region where the first cattle were created and where Zaraθuštra first revealed the Good Religion. The Sasanian Empire, officially named ''Ērān-šahr'' ('Kingdom of the Iranians'; from Old Persian ), could also be referred to by the abbreviated form ''Ērān'', as distinguished from the Roman West known as ''Anērān.'' The western variant ''Īrān'', abbreviated from ''Īrān-šahr'', is at the origin of the English country name ''Iran''.

'' Alania'', the name of the medieval kingdom of the Alans, derives from a dialectal variant of the Old Iranian stem , which is also linked to the mythical '' Airyanem Waēǰō''. Besides the ''ala''- development, - may have turned into the stem ''ir-y-'' via an i-mutation in modern Ossetian languages, as in the place name ''Iryston'' ( Ossetia), here attached to the Iranian suffix .

Other place names mentioned in the ''Avesta'' include ''airyō šayana'', a movable term corresponding to the 'territory of the Aryas', ''airyanąm dahyunąm'', the 'lands of the Aryas', ''Airyō-xšuθa'', a mountain in eastern Iran associated with Ǝrəxša, and ''vīspe aire razuraya,'' the forest where Kavi Haosravō slew the god Vāyu.

Graeco-Latin literature

The word Arianus was used to designate Ariana, the area comprising Afghanistan, Iran, North-western India and Pakistan. In 1601, Philemon Holland used 'Arianes' in his translation of the Latin Arianus to designate the inhabitants of Ariana. This was the first use of the form ''Arian'' verbatim in the English language.

Modern times

Iranian nationalism

In the late Qajar era, modern ideas about the Aryan identity were introduced to Iran and significantly influenced its nationalistic movement. Iranian intellectuals, reflecting on their pre-Islamic, Indo-European past, embraced a version of the Aryan myth that contrasted their heritage with the Arab (or Semitic) influence introduced after the Arab conquest (7th century AD). In the 19th century, thinkers like Mirza Fatali Akhundov

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