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''Aryan'' (), or ''Arya'' (borrowed from
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
''ārya''),
Oxford English Dictionary Online The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
2024, s.v. ''Aryan'' (adj. & n.); ''Arya'' (n.)''.''
is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the
Indo-Iranians The Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Ā́rya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European speaking peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages to parts of Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia in waves from the f ...
. It stood in contrast to nearby outsiders, whom they designated as non-Aryan (). In
ancient India Anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. The earliest known human remains in South Asia date to 30,000 years ago. Sedentism, Sedentariness began in South Asia around 7000 BCE; ...
, the term was used by the
Indo-Aryan peoples Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse collection of peoples predominantly found in South Asia, who (traditionally) speak Indo-Aryan languages. Historically, Aryans were the Indo-Iranian speaking pastoralists who migrated from Central Asia int ...
of the
Vedic period The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the e ...
, both as an
endonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
and in reference to a region called ''Aryavarta'' (, ), where their culture emerged. Similarly, according to the
Avesta The Avesta (, Book Pahlavi: (), Persian language, Persian: ()) is the text corpus of Zoroastrian literature, religious literature of Zoroastrianism. All its texts are composed in the Avestan language and written in the Avestan alphabet. Mod ...
, the
Iranian peoples Iranian peoples, or Iranic peoples, are the collective ethnolinguistic groups who are identified chiefly by their native usage of any of the Iranian languages, which are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European langu ...
used the term to designate themselves as an ethnic group and to refer to a region called ''
Airyanem Vaejah (; ; ; , 'the Arya Expanse') is considered in Zoroastrianism to be the homeland of the early Iranians and the place where Zarathustra received the religion from Ahura Mazda. The Avesta also names it as the first of the "sixteen perfect lan ...
'' (, ), which was their mythical homeland. The word stem also forms the etymological source of place names like ''
Alania Alania was a medieval kingdom of the Iranian Alans ( Proto-Ossetians) that flourished between the 9th–13th centuries in the Northern Caucasus, roughly in the location of the latter-day Circassia, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and modern North Ossetia ...
'' () and ''
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
'' (). Although the stem may originate from the
Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Eu ...
, 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 The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric ethnolinguistic group of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from t ...
. 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 The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
, 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 Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French writer and diplomat who is best known for helping introduce scientific race theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Aryan master race and N ...
brought forth the idea of the "
Aryan race The Aryan race is a pseudoscientific historical race concepts, historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people who descend from the Proto-Indo-Europeans as a Race (human categorization), racial grouping. The ter ...
", 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 The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid) is an Historical race concepts, obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. The ''Caucasian race'' was historically regarded as a biologi ...
. Through the work of his later followers, such as the British-German philosopher
Houston Stewart Chamberlain Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German-French philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, scientific r ...
, Gobineau's theory proved to be particularly popular among European racial supremacists and ultimately laid the foundation for
Nazi racial theories The German Nazi Party adopted and developed several Racial hierarchy, racial hierarchical categorizations as an important part of its racist ideology (Nazism) in order to justify enslavement, genocide, extermination, racism, ethnic persecut ...
, which also co-opted the concept of
scientific racism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that the Human, human species is divided into biologically distinct taxa called "race (human categorization), races", and that empirical evi ...
. In
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
, and also in
German-occupied Europe German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly military occupation, militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the governmen ...
during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, any citizen who was classified as an Aryan would be honoured as a member of the "
master race The master race ( ) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology, in which the putative Aryan race is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as ''master humans'' ( ). The Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg b ...
" of humanity. Conversely, non-Aryans were legally discriminated against, including
Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
,
Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: People, characters, figures, names * Roma or Romani people, an ethnic group living mostly in Europe and the Americas. * Roma called Roy, ancient Egyptian High Priest of Amun * Roma (footballer, born 1979), born ''Paul ...
, and
Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...
(mostly
Poles Pole or poles may refer to: People *Poles (people), another term for Polish people, from the country of Poland * Pole (surname), including a list of people with the name * Pole (musician) (Stefan Betke, born 1967), German electronic music artist ...
and
Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...
). 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 The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
, culminating in
the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
. The Roma, who are of Indo-Aryan origin, were also targeted, culminating in the
Porajmos The Romani Holocaust was the genocide of European Roma and Sinti people during World War II. Beginning in 1933, Nazi Germany systematically persecuted the European Roma, Sinti and other peoples pejoratively labeled 'Gypsy' through forcible ...
. 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 The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...
, 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 Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...
''airya'' and the country name ''
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
.'' In Germany, Johann Friedrich Kleuker's translation of Anquetil-Duperron's work led to the introduction of the term ''Arier'' in 1776. The
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
word ''ā́rya'' is rendered as 'noble' in William Jones' 1794 translation of the Indian ''
Laws of Manu The ''Manusmṛti'' (), also known as the ''Mānava-Dharmaśāstra'' or the Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitutions among the many ' of Hinduism. Over fifty manuscripts of the ''Manusmriti'' are now known, but the earli ...
.'' 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 The Aryan race is a pseudoscientific historical race concepts, historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people who descend from the Proto-Indo-Europeans as a Race (human categorization), racial grouping. The ter ...
". It is still used in far-right and white supremacist discourse, and sometimes appears in the names of such groups.


Indo-Iranian

The
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
word ''ā́rya'' (
आर्य ''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 i ...
) was originally an ethnocultural term designating those who spoke
Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is the most ancient known precursor to Sanskrit, a language in the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is atteste ...
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 Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...
(5th–4th century BCE), it took the meaning of 'noble'. In
Old Iranian languages The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian language ...
, the
Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...
term ''airya'' (
Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...
''ariya'') was likewise used as an ethnocultural self-designation by ancient
Iranian peoples Iranian peoples, or Iranic peoples, are the collective ethnolinguistic groups who are identified chiefly by their native usage of any of the Iranian languages, which are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European langu ...
, 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 Proto-Indo-Iranian, also called Proto-Indo-Iranic or Proto-Aryan, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd ...
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 Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of va ...
connotation, which only emerged later in the works of 19th-century Western writers. According to David W. Anthony, "the ''
Rigveda The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
'' and ''
Avesta The Avesta (, Book Pahlavi: (), Persian language, Persian: ()) is the text corpus of Zoroastrian literature, religious literature of Zoroastrianism. All its texts are composed in the Avestan language and written in the Avestan alphabet. Mod ...
'' 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 Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family and was originally spoken during the Old Iranian period ( – 400 BCE) by the Iranians living in the eastern p ...
, which is the same in the root with
Sanskrit language Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
. 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 Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...
(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 In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the soun ...
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 Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...
speakers had a term to refer to themselves as '
Proto-Indo-Europeans The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric ethnolinguistic group of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from t ...
'. * 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 The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Ba ...
: ''árya-'', 'Aryan, faithful to the Vedic religion'; ''aryá-'', 'kind, favourable, true, devoted'; ''arí-'', 'faithful; devoted person, ± kinsman'; ****
Iranian Iranian () may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Iran ** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran ** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia ** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...
: , 'Aryan, Iranian', *****
Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...
: ''airya''- (pl. ''aire''), 'Aryan, Iranian', *****
Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...
: ''ariya-'', 'Aryan, Iranian',' ***
Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...
: , 'freeman; noble'; or perhaps from ('first > prominent, eminent'), ****
Gaulish Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, ...
: ''ario-'', 'freeman, lord; foremost', ****
Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic (, Ogham, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ; ; or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic languages, Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive written texts. It was used from 600 to 900. The ...
: ''aire,'' 'freeman, chief; noble'; *** Germanic , 'noble, distinguished, esteemed', ****
Proto-Norse Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic; Danish and ; ; ; ) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a c ...
: ''arjosteʀ'', 'foremost, most distinguished'. The term may derive from the PIE verbal
root In vascular plants, the roots are the plant organ, organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often bel ...
, meaning 'to put together'. Oswald Szemerényi has also argued that the stem could be a Near-Eastern loanword from the
Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeology, archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit, including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycl ...
''ary'' ('kinsmen'), although
J. P. Mallory James Patrick Mallory (born October 25, 1945) is an American archaeologist and Indo-Europeanist. Mallory is an emeritus professor at Queen's University, Belfast; a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and the former editor of the '' Journal of ...
and
Douglas Q. Adams Douglas Quentin Adams is an American linguist, professor of English at the University of Idaho and an Indo-European comparativist. He studied at the University of Chicago, earning PhD in 1972. Adams is an expert on Tocharian and a contributor ...
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 Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
, the base word has come to emphasize personal relationship, whereas it took a more ethnic meaning among
Indo-Iranians The Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Ā́rya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European speaking peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages to parts of Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia in waves from the f ...
, 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 Proto-Indo-Iranian, also called Proto-Indo-Iranic or Proto-Aryan, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd ...
speakers to designate themselves as an ethnocultural group, encompassing those who spoke the language and followed the religion of the ''Aryas'' (
Indo-Iranians The Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Ā́rya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European speaking peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages to parts of Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia in waves from the f ...
)'','' as distinguished from the nearby outsiders known as the ('non-Arya').: "The name “Aryan” (OInd. ''āˊrya''-, Ir. *''arya''-
ith short ''a''- The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometers, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is im ...
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 The Sintashta culture is a Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture of the Southern Urals, dated to the period 2200–1900 BCE. It is the first phase of the Sintashta–Petrovka complex, –1750 BCE. The culture is named after the Sintashta ...
(2100–1800 BCE), named after the Sintashta archaeological site in
Chelyabinsk Oblast Chelyabinsk Oblast; , is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (an oblast) of Russia in the Ural Mountains region, on the border of Europe and Asia. Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Chel ...
, Russia. Linguistic evidence show that Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-Aryan) speakers dwelled in the
Eurasian steppe The Eurasian Steppe, also called the Great Steppe or The Steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Europea ...
, 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 The Finno-Permic or Finno-Permian languages, sometimes just Finnic languages, are a proposed subdivision of the Uralic languages which comprise the Finnic languages, Balto-Finnic languages, Sámi languages, Mordvinic languages, Mari language, Per ...
, 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 Aryaman () is one of the early Vedic Hindu deities. His name signifies "Life-Partner", "Close Friend", "Sun", "Play-Fellow" or "Companion".Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary He is the third son of Kashyapa and Aditi, the father and mother of ...
'' and in Avestan as ''
Airyaman In the Avesta, () is both an Avestan language common noun and the proper name of a Zoroastrian divinity. The common noun is a theological and social term literally meaning "member of (the) community or tribe." In a secondary development, the com ...
''. 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 Érimón (Modern ), commonly Anglicised as Heremon, son of Míl Espáine (and great-grandson of Breoghan, king of Celtic Galicia), according to medieval Irish legends and historical traditions, was one of the chieftains who took part in the ...
'' and ''Airem'' and the Gaulish personal name ''Ariomanus'' are also
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...
s (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 Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is the most ancient known precursor to Sanskrit, a language in the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is atteste ...
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 Indra (; ) is the Hindu god of weather, considered the king of the Deva (Hinduism), Devas and Svarga in Hinduism. He is associated with the sky, lightning, weather, thunder, storms, rains, river flows, and war.  volumes Indra is the m ...
and
Agni Agni ( ) is the Deva (Hinduism), Hindu god of fire. As the Guardians of the directions#Aṣṭa-Dikpāla ("Guardians of Eight Directions"), guardian deity of the southeast direction, he is typically found in southeast corners of Hindu temples. ...
in particular), took part in the
yajna In Hinduism, ''Yajna'' or ''Yagna'' (, Help:IPA/Sanskrit, ɐd͡ʒɲə ) also known as Hawan, is a ritual done in front of a sacred fire, often with mantras. Yajna has been a Vedas, Vedic tradition, described in a layer of Vedic literature ...
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 Mleccha () is a Sanskrit term referring to those of an incomprehensible speech, foreigners or invaders deemed distinct and separate from the Vedic tribes. In Vedic Brahmanical discourse, the term is used to refer to foreigners (anāryans) who ...
'' or ''Mṛdhravāc.'' However, ''āryā'' is used only once in the
Vedas FIle:Atharva-Veda samhita page 471 illustration.png, upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the ''Atharvaveda''. The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of relig ...
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 The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
'' were of 'non-Aryan' origin, demonstrating that
cultural assimilation Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's Dominant culture, majority group or fully adopts the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group. The melting pot model is based on this ...
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 Michael Witzel (born July 18, 1943) is a German-American philologist, comparative mythologist and Indologist. Witzel is the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University and the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series (volumes 50–100). He ...
, 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 Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...
''ayyaka''- ('grandfather'). The term came to incorporate the idea of a high social status, but was also used as an honorific for the
Brahman In Hinduism, ''Brahman'' (; IAST: ''Brahman'') connotes the highest universal principle, the ultimate reality of the universe.P. T. Raju (2006), ''Idealistic Thought of India'', Routledge, , page 426 and Conclusion chapter part XII In the ...
a 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 Gherardo Gnoli (6 December 1937 in Rome – 7 March 2012 in Cagli) was a historian of Italian religions and Iran expert.Carlo Cereti, “GNOLI, GHERARDO,” Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2015, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/arti ...
, the Old Iranian ''airya'' (
Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...
) and ''ariya'' (
Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...
) 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 Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...
, ''anaryān'' in
Parthian Parthian may refer to: Historical * Parthian people * A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran * Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) * Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language * Parthian shot, an archery sk ...
, and '' anērān'' in
Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...
. The people of the ''
Avesta The Avesta (, Book Pahlavi: (), Persian language, Persian: ()) is the text corpus of Zoroastrian literature, religious literature of Zoroastrianism. All its texts are composed in the Avestan language and written in the Avestan alphabet. Mod ...
'', 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 The Avestan period () is the period in the history of the Arya (Iran), Iranians when the Avesta was produced. It saw important contributions to both the Zoroastrianism, religious sphere, as well as to Persian mythology, Iranian mythology and its ...
mostly predates the
Achaemenid period The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...
of Iranian history. By the late 6th–early 5th century BCE, the
Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the large ...
king
Darius the Great Darius I ( ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of West A ...
and his son
Xerxes I Xerxes I ( – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a List of monarchs of Persia, Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was ...
described themselves as ''ariya'' ('Arya') and ''ariya čiça'' ('of Aryan origin'). In the
Behistun inscription The Behistun Inscription (also Bisotun, Bisitun or Bisutun; , Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the place of god") is a multilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions, Achaemenid royal inscription and large rock relief on a cliff at Mount Behistun i ...
, authored by Darius during his reign (522 – 486 BCE), the
Old Persian language Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan language, Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its nativ ...
is called ''ariya'', and the
Elamite Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Scythic, Median, Amardian, Anshanian and Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was recorded in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite i ...
version of the inscription portrays the
Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the wo ...
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 Parthian may refer to: Historical * Parthian people * A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran * Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) * Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language * Parthian shot, an archery sk ...
''Ary'' (pl. ''Aryān''), the
Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...
''Ēr'' (pl. ''Ēran''), or the
New Persian New Persian (), also known as Modern Persian () is the current stage of the Persian language spoken since the 8th to 9th centuries until now in Greater Iran and surroundings. It is conventionally divided into three stages: Early New Persian (8th ...
''Irāni'' (pl. ''Irāniyān''). The
Scythian The Scythians ( or ) or Scyths (, but note Scytho- () in composition) and sometimes also referred to as the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people who had migrated during the 9th to 8th centuries BC fr ...
branch has '' Alān'' or (from ; modern ''Allon''), '' Rhoxolāni'' ('Bright Alans'), ''Alanorsoi'' ('White Alans'), and possibly the modern Ossetian ''Ir'' (adj. ''
Iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...
''), spelled ''Irä'' or ''Erä'' in the Digorian dialect. The
Rabatak inscription The Rabatak Inscription is a stone inscribed with text written in the Bactrian language and Greek script, found in 1993 at Rabatak, near Surkh Kotal in Afghanistan. The inscription relates to the rule of the Kushan emperor Kanishka, and gives ...
, written in the
Bactrian language Bactrian (, , meaning "Iranian") was an Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (present-day Afghanistan) and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires. Name It was long tho ...
in the 2nd century CE, likewise uses the term ''ariao'' for 'Iranian'. The name ''Arizantoi'', listed by Greek historian
Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
as one of the six tribes composing the Iranian
Medes The Medes were an Iron Age Iranian peoples, Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media (region), Media between western Iran, western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, they occupied the m ...
, is derived from the Old Iranian - ('having Aryan lineage'). Herodotus also mentions that the Medes once called themselves ''Arioi'', and
Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...
locates the land of ''Arianē'' between Persia and India. Other occurrences include the Greek ''áreion'' (
Damascius Damascius (; ; 462 – after 538), known as "the last of the Athenian Neoplatonists", was the last scholarch of the neoplatonic Athenian school. He was one of the neoplatonic philosophers who left Athens after laws confirmed by emperor Jus ...
), ''Arianoi'' (
Diodorus Siculus Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (;  1st century BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental Universal history (genre), universal history ''Bibliotheca historica'', in forty ...
) and ''arian'' (pl. ''arianōn''; Sasanian period), as well as the Armenian expression ''ari'' (
Agathangelos Agathangelos (in , in Greek "bearer of good news", 5th century AD) is the pseudonym of the author of a life of the first apostle of Armenia, Gregory the Illuminator, who died about 332. The history attributed to Agathangelos is the main sou ...
), meaning 'Iranian'. Until the demise of the
Parthian Empire The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power centered in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe ...
(247 BCE–224 CE), the Iranian identity was essentially defined as cultural and religious. Following conflicts between Manichean universalism and
Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the wo ...
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 Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...
, 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 Émile Benveniste (; 27 May 1902 – 3 October 1976) was a French Structuralism, structural linguistics, linguist and semiotics, semiotician. He is best known for his work on Indo-European languages and his critical reformulation of the linguist ...
, 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 A hypocorism ( or ; from Ancient Greek ; sometimes also ''hypocoristic''), or pet name, is a name used to show affection for a person. It may be a diminutive form of a person's name, such as ''Izzy'' for Isabel or ''Bob (given name), Bob'' fo ...
of the precedent names), or '' Ariyāramna'' (whose meaning remains unclear). The English ''
Alan Alan may refer to: People *Alan (surname), an English and Kurdish surname * Alan (given name), an English given name ** List of people with given name Alan ''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.'' * ...
'' 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 Sanskrit literature is a broad term for all literature composed in Sanskrit. This includes texts composed in the earliest attested descendant of the Proto-Indo-Aryan language known as Vedic Sanskrit, texts in Classical Sanskrit as well as some ...
, the term ''
Āryāvarta Āryāvarta (Sanskrit: आर्यावर्त, ,Indo-Aryan culture in northern India. The '' Manusmṛiti'' locates ''Āryāvarta'' in "the tract between the
Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than 100 pea ...
and the
Vindhya The Vindhya Range (also known as Vindhyachal) () is a complex, discontinuous chain of mountain ridges, hill ranges, highlands and plateau escarpments in west-central India. Technically, the Vindhyas do not form a single mountain range in the ...
ranges, from the Eastern (
Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...
) to the Western Sea (
Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...
)". 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 Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...
as , which gave the
Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...
''Ērān-wēž'', said to be the region where the first cattle were created and where Zaraθuštra first revealed the Good Religion. The
Sasanian Empire The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...
, 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 Alania was a medieval kingdom of the Iranian Alans ( Proto-Ossetians) that flourished between the 9th–13th centuries in the Northern Caucasus, roughly in the location of the latter-day Circassia, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and modern North Ossetia ...
'', the name of the medieval kingdom of the
Alans The Alans () were an ancient and medieval Iranian peoples, Iranic Eurasian nomads, nomadic pastoral people who migrated to what is today North Caucasus – while some continued on to Europe and later North Africa. They are generally regarded ...
, 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 I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or i/j-umlaut) is a type of sound change in which a back vowel is fronted or a front vowel is raised if the following syllable contains , or (a voiced palatal approxi ...
in modern
Ossetian language Ossetian ( , , ), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete, is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Russian-Georgian border in the Greater Caucasus region. ...
s, as in the place name ''Iryston'' (
Ossetia Ossetia ( , ; or , or , ) is an Ethnolinguistics, ethnolinguistic region on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, largely inhabited by the Ossetians. The Ossetian language is part of the Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern Iranian b ...
), 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 Vayu (; ), also known as Vata () and Pavana (), is the Hindu deities, Hindu god of the winds as well as the divine messenger of the gods. In the ''Vedic scriptures'', Vayu is an important deity and is closely associated with Indra, the king o ...
.


Graeco-Latin literature

The word Arianus was used to designate
Ariana In the Greco-Roman world, Ariana was a geographical term referring to a general area of land between Central Asia and the Indus River. Situated far to the east in the Achaemenid Empire, it covered a number of satrapies spanning what is today th ...
, the area comprising Afghanistan, Iran, North-western India and Pakistan. In 1601,
Philemon Holland Philemon Holland (1552 – 9 February 1637) was an English schoolmaster, physician and translator. He is known for the first English translations of several works by Livy, Pliny the Elder, and Plutarch, and also for translating William Camden's ...
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 The Guarded Domains of Iran, alternatively the Sublime State of Iran and commonly called Qajar Iran, Qajar Persia or the Qajar Empire, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Qajar dynasty, which was of Turkic peoples, Turkic origin,Cyrus G ...
, 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 The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests (), also known as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the founder of Islam. He established the first Islamic state in Medina, Arabia that expanded rapidly un ...
(7th century AD). In the 19th century, thinkers like
Mirza Fatali Akhundov Mirza Fatali Akhundov, also known as Mirza Fatali Akhundzade, or Mirza Fath-Ali Akhundzadeh (12 July 1812 – 9 March 1878), was a celebrated Iranian Azerbaijanis, Iranian AzerbaijaniMirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1854–1896) promoted the idea of a grand, ancient Persian civilization. This narrative, which depicted Arab influence as destructive to Iranian culture while emphasizing shared roots with admired European civilizations, was widely disseminated through nationalist publications and became a cornerstone of 20th-century Iranian nationalist discourse. In
Pahlavi Iran The Imperial State of Iran, officially known as the Imperial State of Persia until 1935, and commonly referred to as Pahlavi Iran, was the Iranian state under the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty. The Pahlavi dynasty was created in 1925 and lasted ...
(1925–1979), nationalism was used to popularize the Aryan myth and promote Iranian antiquity, bolstering both national identity and the legitimacy of the ruling dynasty. This "Aryan and Neo-Achaemenid nationalism" emerged prominently in the 1930s and remained influential throughout the Pahlavi period. In 1935,
Reza Shah Reza Shah Pahlavi born Reza Khan (15 March 1878 – 26 July 1944) was shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941 and founder of the roughly 53 years old Pahlavi dynasty. Originally a military officer, he became a politician, serving as minister of war an ...
mandated that the country be known internationally as 'Iran' (a name linked to the term 'Aryan') rather than 'Persia', which was seen as a European label derived from the southern province of Fars. His son, Mohammad Reza, later adopted the title "King of the Kings, Light of the Aryans" ( ''Shahanshah'' ''Aryamehr''), and in the 1970s, he even proposed an 'Aryan brotherhood' among Iran, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan as a means to foster regional peace and celebrate a shared legacy of a distinguished civilization.


Religious use

The word ''ārya'' is often found in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain texts. In the Indian spiritual context, it can be applied to Rishis or to someone who has mastered the four noble truths and entered upon the spiritual path. According to Indian leader
Jawaharlal Nehru Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, and statesman who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a pr ...
, the religions of
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
may be called collectively ''ārya dharma,'' a term that includes the religions that originated in the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...
(e.g.
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...
,
Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
,
Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion whose three main pillars are nonviolence (), asceticism (), and a rejection of all simplistic and one-sided views of truth and reality (). Jainism traces its s ...
and
Sikhism Sikhism is an Indian religion and Indian philosophy, philosophy that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent around the end of the 15th century CE. It is one of the most recently founded major religious groups, major religio ...
). The word ārya is also often used in
Jainism Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religions, Indian religion whose three main pillars are nonviolence (), asceticism (), and a rejection of all simplistic and one-sided views of truth and reality (). Jainism traces its s ...
, in Jain texts such as the Pannavanasutta. In Avaśyakaniryukti, an early Jaina text, a character named ''Ārya Mangu'' is mentioned twice.


Personal names

The name ''Aryan'' (including derivatives such as ''Aaryan,'' ''
Arya ''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 i ...
, Ariyan'' or ''Aria'') is still used as a given name or surname in modern South Asia and Iran. There has also been a rise in names associated with ''Aryan'' in the West, which have been popularized due to pop culture. According to the U.S. Social Security Administration in 2012, ''Arya'' was the fastest-rising girl's name in popularity in the U.S., jumping from 711th to 413th position. The name entered the top 200 most commonly used names for baby girls born in England and Wales in 2017.


Scholarship


19th and early 20th century

The term 'Aryan' was initially introduced into the English language through works of comparative philology, as a modern rendering of the Sanskrit word ''ā́rya''. First translated as 'noble' in William Jones' 1794 translation of the ''
Laws of Manu The ''Manusmṛti'' (), also known as the ''Mānava-Dharmaśāstra'' or the Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitutions among the many ' of Hinduism. Over fifty manuscripts of the ''Manusmriti'' are now known, but the earli ...
'', early-19th-century scholars later noticed that the term was used in the earliest
Vedas FIle:Atharva-Veda samhita page 471 illustration.png, upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the ''Atharvaveda''. The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of relig ...
as an ethnocultural self-designation "comprising the worshipers of the gods of the Brahmans". This interpretation was simultaneously influenced by the presence of the word ''Ἀριάνης'' (Ancient Greek) ~ ''Arianes'' (Latin) in classical texts, which had been rightly compared by Anquetil-Duperron in 1771 to the Iranian ''airya'' (
Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...
) ~ ''ariya'' (
Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...
), a self-identifier used by the speakers of
Iranian languages The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian langu ...
since ancient times. Accordingly, the term 'Aryan' came to refer in scholarship to the
Indo-Iranian languages The Indo-Iranian languages (also known as Indo-Iranic languages or collectively the Aryan languages) constitute the largest branch of the Indo-European language family. They include over 300 languages, spoken by around 1.7 billion speakers ...
, and, by extension, to the native speakers of the
Proto-Indo-Iranian language Proto-Indo-Iranian, also called Proto-Indo-Iranic or Proto-Aryan, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd ...
, the prehistoric Indo-Iranian peoples. During the 19th century, through the works of
Friedrich Schlegel Karl Wilhelm Friedrich (after 1814: von) Schlegel ( ; ; 10 March 1772 – 12 January 1829) was a German literary critic, philosopher, and Indologist. With his older brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, he was one of the main figures of Jena Roma ...
(1772–1829), Christian Lassen (1800–1876), Adolphe Pictet (1799–1875), and
Max Müller Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born British comparative philologist and oriental studies, Orientalist. He was one of the founders of the Western academic disciplines of Indology and religious s ...
(1823–1900), the terms ''Aryans'', ''Arier'', and ''Aryens'' came to be adopted by a number of Western scholars as a synonym of ' (Proto-)Indo-Europeans'. Many of them indeed believed that ''Aryan'' was also the original self-designation used by the prehistoric speakers of the
Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Eu ...
, based on the erroneous assumptions that
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
was the oldest
Indo-European language The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia ( ...
and on the linguistically untenable position that ''
Ériu In Irish mythology, Ériu (; ), daughter of Delbáeth and Ernmas of the Tuatha Dé Danann, was the eponymous matron goddess of Ireland. The English name for Ireland comes from the name Ériu and the Germanic languages, Germanic (Old Norse or ...
'' (Ireland) was related to ''Arya''. This hypothesis has since been abandoned in scholarship due to the lack of evidence for the use of ''arya'' as an ethnocultural self-designation outside the Indo-Iranian world.


Contemporary scholarship

In contemporary scholarship, the terms 'Aryan' and 'Proto-Aryan' are still sometimes used to designate the prehistoric Indo-Iranian peoples and their
proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unatte ...
. However, the use of 'Aryan' to mean 'Proto-Indo-European' is now regarded as an "aberration to be avoided". The ' Indo-Iranian' subfamily of languages – which encompasses the Indo-Aryan,
Iranian Iranian () may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Iran ** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran ** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia ** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...
, and Nuristani branches – may also be referred to as the 'Aryan languages'. However, the atrocities committed in the name of Aryanist racial ideologies during the first part of the 20th century have led academics to generally avoid the term 'Aryan', which has been replaced in most cases by 'Indo-Iranian', although its Indic branch is still called 'Indo-Aryan'. The name 'Iranian', which stems from the
Old Persian Old Persian is one of two directly attested Old Iranian languages (the other being Avestan) and is the ancestor of Middle Persian (the language of the Sasanian Empire). Like other Old Iranian languages, it was known to its native speakers as (I ...
, also continues to be used to refer to specific
ethnolinguistic group An ethnolinguistic group (or ethno-linguistic group) is a group that is unified by both a common ethnicity and language. Most ethnic groups share a first language. However, "ethnolinguistic" is often used to emphasise that language is a major bas ...
s. * Indo-Aryan refers to the populations speaking an
Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Ba ...
or identifying as Indo-Aryan; they form the predominant group in Northern Indian subcontinent. The largest Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic groups are
Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
,
Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
, Punjabi,
Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...
, Gujarati,
Rajasthani Rajasthani may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Rajasthan, a state of India * Rajasthani languages, a group of Indic languages spoken there * Rajasthani people, the native inhabitants of the state * Rajasthani architecture, Indian ar ...
,
Bhojpuri Bhojpuri may refer to: * Bhojpuri language, an Indo-Aryan language of India and Nepal * Bhojpuri grammar, grammatical rules of the language * Bhojpuri nouns, nouns of the language * Bhojpuri people, people who speak the language * Bhojpuri region ...
, Maithili, Odia, and Sindhi. More than 900 million people are native speakers of an Indo-Aryan language. *
Iranian Iranian () may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Iran ** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran ** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia ** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...
(or Iranic) is used to designate the speakers of
Iranian languages The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian langu ...
or the peoples who identify as "Iranians", especially in
Greater Iran Greater Iran or Greater Persia ( ), also called the Iranosphere or the Persosphere, is an expression that denotes a wide socio-cultural region comprising parts of West Asia, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia (specifica ...
. Modern Iranian ethnolinguistic groups include
Persians Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...
,
Pashtuns Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghan (ethnon ...
,
Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...
,
Tajiks Tajiks (; ; also spelled ''Tadzhiks'' or ''Tadjiks'') is the name of various Persian-speaking Eastern Iranian groups of people native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Even though the term ''Tajik'' ...
, Balochs,
Lurs The Lurs, Lors or Luris () are an Iranian people living in western and southern Iran. The four Luri branches are the Bakhtiari, Mamasani, Kohgiluyeh and Lur proper, who are principally linked by the Luri language. Lorestan province is name ...
,
Pamiris The Pamiris are an Eastern Iranian ethnic group, native to Central Asia, living primarily in Tajikistan (Gorno-Badakhshan), Afghanistan ( Badakhshan), Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan & Chitral) and China (Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County). They spe ...
,
Zazas The Zazas (), also known as Kird, Kirmanc, or Dimili, are an Iranian people who speak Zazaki, a language of the Indo-European language family. They mostly live in the Eastern Anatolia and Southeastern Anatolia regions of Turkey. Zazas gen ...
, and
Ossetians The Ossetians ( or ; ),Merriam-Webster (2021), s.v"Ossete" also known as Ossetes ( ), Ossets ( ), and Alans ( ), are an Iranian peoples, Iranian ethnic group who are indigenous to Ossetia, a region situated across the northern and southern side ...
. An estimated 150 to 200 million people are native speakers of an Iranian language. Some authors writing for popular consumption have kept on using the word 'Aryan' for all Indo-Europeans in the tradition of
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...
, such as the science fiction author
Poul Anderson Poul William Anderson ( ; November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until his death in 2001. Anderson also wrote historical novels. He won the Hugo Award seven times an ...
, and scientists writing for the popular media, such as
Colin Renfrew Andrew Colin Renfrew, Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, (25 July 1937 – 24 November 2024) was a British archaeologist, paleolinguist and Conservative peer noted for his work on radiocarbon dating, the prehistory of languages, archaeogenetics, ...
. According to F. B. J. Kuiper, echoes of "the 19th century prejudice about 'northern' Aryans who were confronted on Indian soil with black barbarians ..can still be heard in some modern studies."


Aryanism and racism


Invention of the 'Aryan race'


Early Romantic views

During the
Romantic era Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
, early nationalist thinkers like
Johann Gottfried Herder Johann Gottfried von Herder ( ; ; 25 August 174418 December 1803) was a Prussian philosopher, theologian, pastor, poet, and literary critic. Herder is associated with the Age of Enlightenment, ''Sturm und Drang'', and Weimar Classicism. He wa ...
(1744–1803) and
Johann Gottlieb Fichte Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Ka ...
(1762–1814) envisioned a nation (''
Volk The German noun ''Volk'' () translates to :wikt:people, people, both uncountable in the sense of ''people'' as in a crowd, and countable (plural ''Völker'') in the sense of ''People, a people'' as in an ethnic group or nation (compare the E ...
'') as an organic cultural community united by history, folklore, myths, poetry, and especially a common language. They saw linguistic ties as natural evidence of tribal connections, linking a Volk's ancestry to the origins of its language. In this context, European scholars interpreted the linguistic Indo-European connection as evidence of shared cultural and ethnic heritage, linking modern Europeans to ancient Persians. In 1808, German philosopher
Friedrich Schlegel Karl Wilhelm Friedrich (after 1814: von) Schlegel ( ; ; 10 March 1772 – 12 January 1829) was a German literary critic, philosopher, and Indologist. With his older brother, August Wilhelm Schlegel, he was one of the main figures of Jena Roma ...
played a key role by arguing that German ancestors were ancient Persian Aryans, designating a primordial "Indo-European people" (''Urvolk'') who migrated to Europe from their 'original homeland' (''
Urheimat In historical linguistics, the homeland or ( , from German 'original' and 'home') of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historicall ...
'') in Asia.


North European hypothesis

In the second part of the 19th century, the idea that Indo-European languages had originated from Asia gradually lost support among academics. After the end of the 1860s, alternative models of
Indo-European migrations The Indo-European migrations are hypothesized migrations of Proto-Indo-Europeans, peoples who spoke Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and the derived Indo-European languages, which took place from around 4000 to 1000 BCE, ...
began to emerge, some of them locating the ancestral homeland in Northern Europe. In 1868, Theodor Bensen proposed that the Aryans originated in Europe, and that some migrated to Asia to establish ancient Eastern civilisations, which later degenerated through racial mixing on the fringes. This 'northern thesis' quickly gained support among German anthropologists and linguists such as Lazarus Geiger, Theodor Poesche, Ludwig Wilser,
Karl Penka Karl Penka (26 October 1847, Mohelnice – 10 February 1912, Vienna) was an Austrian philologist and anthropologist. Known for his now-outdated theories locating the Proto-Indo-European homeland in Northern Europe, Penka has been described as "a t ...
, and
Gustaf Kossinna Gustaf Kossinna (28 September 1858 – 20 December 1931) was a German philologist and archaeologist who was Professor of German Archaeology at the University of Berlin. Along with Carl Schuchhardt he was the most influential German prehisto ...
, and fuelled the trend to use the word ''Aryan'' as a synonym for ''Nordic'' or ''Germanic''. Karl Penka, credited as "a transitional figure between Aryanism and Nordicism", argued in 1868 that the Aryans originated in southern
Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...
. In 1878,
German American German Americans (, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the pop ...
anthropologist Theodor Poesche proposed to located the original Aryans in Lithuania. In the early-20th century, German scholar Gustaf Kossinna (1858-1931), attempting to connect a prehistoric
material culture Material culture is culture manifested by the Artifact (archaeology), physical objects and architecture of a society. The term is primarily used in archaeology and anthropology, but is also of interest to sociology, geography and history. The fie ...
with the reconstructed
Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Eu ...
, contended on archaeological grounds that the 'Indo-Germanic' (''Indogermanische'') migrations originated from a homeland located in northern Europe. Until the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, scholarship on the Indo-European ''
Urheimat In historical linguistics, the homeland or ( , from German 'original' and 'home') of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historicall ...
'' broadly fell into two camps: Kossinna's followers and those, initially led by Otto Schrader (1855–1919), who supported a steppe homeland in Eurasia, which became the most widespread hypothesis among scholars.


Theories of racial supremacy


Transition to racial biology

While Schlegel and early 19th-century proponents of Aryan migrations had defined ''Aryans'' in cultural rather than biological terms, aligning with early national thinkers like Herder, later scholars, beginning with Julius Klaproth (1783–1835) and
Frédéric Eichhoff Frédéric Gustave Eichhoff (17 August 1799, in Le Havre – 10 May 1875, in Paris) was a French linguist and philologist. He studied at Paris, receiving his doctorate in 1826 with a thesis on Hesiod. In 1837–38, he worked as a substitute for ...
(1799–1875), began reinterpreting the ancient Aryans in racial and biological terms. Racially-oriented interpretations of the Vedic ''Aryas'' as 'fair-skinned foreign invaders' coming from the North gradually led to the adoption of the term ''Aryan'' as a racial category connected to a supremacist ideology known as
Aryanism Aryanism is an ideology of Germans, German racial Supremacism, supremacy which views the supposed Aryan race as a Master race, distinct and superior Race (human categorization), racial group which is entitled to rule the rest of humanity. Initia ...
, which conceived the
Aryan race The Aryan race is a pseudoscientific historical race concepts, historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people who descend from the Proto-Indo-Europeans as a Race (human categorization), racial grouping. The ter ...
as the ' superior race' responsible for most of the achievements of ancient civilizations.
Arthur de Gobineau Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French writer and diplomat who is best known for helping introduce scientific race theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Aryan master race and N ...
, the author of the influential '' Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races'' (1853), viewed the white or Aryan race as the only
civilized A civilization (also spelled civilisation in British English) is any complex society characterized by the development of the state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond signed or spoken language ...
one, and conceived cultural decline and
miscegenation Miscegenation ( ) is marriage or admixture between people who are members of different races or ethnicities. It has occurred many times throughout history, in many places. It has occasionally been controversial or illegal. Adjectives describin ...
as intimately intertwined. Detaching the Aryans from modern Asia, Gobineau wrote that northern Europeans had migrated across the world and founded the major civilizations, before being diluted through racial mixing with indigenous populations described as racially inferior, leading to the progressive decay of the ancient Aryan civilizations. The last pure Aryans, he believed, were the Germanics. While Gobineau classified both Aryans and Semites as part of the 'white race', which he distinguished from a 'yellow' and a 'black' one, the term ''Aryan'' increasingly began to be used as a synonym for 'non-Jewish' among authors of this period.


Aryan race and antisemitism

Christian Lassen (1800–1876), a student of Schlegel, had glorified the Aryans as "the most gifted" and "perfect in talent", contrasting them with Semites and laying the groundwork for a racial dichotomy between the two groups. In the tradition of Lassen's 'Aryan–Semitic' dichotomy, French orientalist
Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; ; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, writing on Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote wo ...
(1823–1892) portrayed 'Semites' as 'non-Aryans', and the Aryans as the master race destined to shape human destiny. Similarly, Swiss linguist Adolphe Pictet (1799–1875) identified the Aryans as the chosen race and direct ancestors of Europeans. Influenced by Lassen and Renan, he argued that there was a fundamental conflict between Semites and the superior Aryans. The first recorded instance of the German ''Arier'' to mean 'non-Jewish' appears to have been in 1887, when a Viennese fitness society decided to admit only "Germans of Aryan descent" (''Deutsche arischer Abkunft'') as members. In ''
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century ''The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century'' (''Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts,'' 1899) is a racialist book by the British-German philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In the book, Chamberlain advances various racialist and espe ...
'' (1899), which
Stefan Arvidsson Stefan Arvidsson (born 1968) is a Swedish historian who is Professor of the History of religions at Stockholm University and Professor in the Study of Religions at Linnaeus University. Biography Stefan Arvidsson was born in Tranås, Sweden in 19 ...
notes is identified as "one of the most important proto-Nazi texts", British-German writer Houston Chamberlain theorized an existential struggle to the death between a superior German-Aryan race and a destructive Jewish-Semitic race, influenced by Renan's antagonistic divide between Aryans and Semites. Chamberlain's work was highly influential, leading German Emperor
Wilhelm II Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 until Abdication of Wilhelm II, his abdication in 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire as well as th ...
to mandate that his book be required reading for school teachers in training. The best-seller ''
The Passing of the Great Race ''The Passing of the Great Race: Or, The Racial Basis of European History'' is a 1916 racist and pseudoscientific book by American lawyer, anthropologist, and proponent of eugenics Madison Grant (1865–1937). Grant expounds a theory of Nordi ...
'', published by American writer
Madison Grant Madison Grant (November 19, 1865 – May 30, 1937) was an American lawyer, zoologist, anthropologist, and writer known for his work as a conservation movement, conservationist, eugenics, eugenicist, and advocate of scientific racism. Grant i ...
in 1916, warned of a danger of miscegenation with the immigrant 'inferior races' – including speakers of Indo-European languages (such as Slavs, Italians, and Yiddish-speaking Jews) – allegedly faced by the 'racially superior' Germanic ''Aryans'' (that is: Americans of English,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
, and Scandinavian descent). Race mysticists like
Paul de Lagarde Paul Anton de Lagarde (2 November 1827 – 22 December 1891) was a German biblical scholar and orientalist, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest orientalists of the 19th century. Lagarde's anti-Semitism, anti-Slavism, and aversion to tradit ...
(1827–1891) and
Julius Langbehn Julius Langbehn (26 March 1851 – 30 April 1907) was a German national Romantic art historian and philosopher. He was born in Hadersleben, Schleswig (now Haderslev in Denmark), and died in Rosenheim. Biography Langbehn was born in Hadersleben ...
(1851–1907) regarded Aryans as nature-bound, unspoilt Germanics (''Urgermanen''), detached from modern materialism and liberalism. Led by
Guido von List Guido Karl Anton List (5 October 1848 – 17 May 1919), better known as Guido von List, was an Austrian occultist, journalist, playwright, and novelist. He expounded a modern Pagan new religious movement known as Wotanism, which he claimed w ...
(1848–1919) and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (1874–1954), Ariosophists founded an ideological system combining ''Völkisch'' nationalism with
esoterism Esotericism may refer to: *Eastern esotericism, a broad range of religious beliefs and practices originating from the Eastern world, characterized by esoteric, secretive, or occult elements *Western esotericism Western esotericism, also known ...
. Prophesying a coming era of German (Aryan) world rule, they argued that a conspiracy against Germans – said to have been instigated by the non-Aryan races, by the Jews, or by the
early Church Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the historical era of the Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Christianity spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and bey ...
– had "sought to ruin this ideal Germanic world by emancipating the non-German inferiors in the name of a spurious egalitarianism".


Nazi racial theories

Von Liebenfels' and Chamberlain's ideas of
social Darwinism Charles Darwin, after whom social Darwinism is named Social Darwinism is a body of pseudoscientific theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economi ...
, Aryan supremacy, racial struggle for existence and racial purity had a significant influence on
Nazi racial ideology The German Nazi Party adopted and developed several racial hierarchical categorizations as an important part of its racist ideology (Nazism) in order to justify enslavement, extermination, ethnic persecution and other atrocities against ...
. In ''
Mein Kampf (; ) is a 1925 Autobiography, autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The book outlines many of Political views of Adolf Hitler, Hitler's political beliefs, his political ideology and future plans for Nazi Germany, Ge ...
'' (1925),
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
equated the ''Aryans'' with the German people ('
Volk The German noun ''Volk'' () translates to :wikt:people, people, both uncountable in the sense of ''people'' as in a crowd, and countable (plural ''Völker'') in the sense of ''People, a people'' as in an ethnic group or nation (compare the E ...
'), and with being part of the non-Jewish '
master race The master race ( ) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology, in which the putative Aryan race is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as ''master humans'' ( ). The Nazi theorist Alfred Rosenberg b ...
'. He portrayed the ancient Aryan migrations as one where the Nordic Aryan race, seen as the pinnacle of human evolution, conquered foreign lands, established great civilisations, and ultimately declined due to a failure to maintain racial purity. Hitler believed that any action that could strengthen the Aryan race was justified, even if it meant committing atrocities against those seen as inferior (''
Untermensch ''Untermensch'' (; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a German language word literally meaning 'underman', 'sub-man', or ' subhuman', which was extensively used by Germany's Nazi Party to refer to their opponents and non- Aryan people they deemed ...
en''). Human rights and humanitarian values were thus dismissed as detrimental to the survival and advancement of the Aryans. Conversely, Jews, as an inferior race, especially in their moral characteristics, needed to be eliminated, one way or another, from German society.
Alfred Rosenberg Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head o ...
, Hitler's chief ideologue, expanded on the idea of an ancient Nordic migration in ''
The Myth of the Twentieth Century ''The Myth of the Twentieth Century'' () is an influential, pseudo-scientific, pseudo-historical book by Alfred Rosenberg, a Nazi theorist who was one of the principal ideologues of the National-Socialist Party and editor of the National-socia ...
'' (1930), portraying old Persians as "Aryans with northern blood" who eventually degenerated due to intermixing with so-called 'lower races'. He used Persian history as a cautionary example of miscegenation (''Bastardierung''). This view was shared by many Nazi ideologues, who believed that the decline of the Aryan race was caused by infiltration (''Überfremdung'') from 'Semitic races'. In 1935, Nazis founded the ''
Ahnenerbe The (, "Ancestral Heritage") was a pseudoscientific organization founded by the ''Schutzstaffel'' in Nazi Germany in 1935. Established by ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler in July 1, 1935 as an SS appendage devoted to promoting racial the ...
'' to research 'Aryan prehistory' through classicist and anthropological works. Its president, Walther Wüst, believed that the Germans were directly descended from the Aryan 'Nordic race', which spread into Asia until racial mixing led to 'degeneration' (''Entartung'') and 'denordification' (''Entnordnung''). In the late 19th century, student fraternities in Austria and Germany already used 'Aryan clauses' to exclude Jews. However, the
Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
was the first to incorporate the term ''Aryan'' into national law. On 7 April 1933, Berlin enacted the '
Aryan Paragraph An Aryan paragraph () was a clause in the statutes of an organisation, corporation, or real estate deed that reserved membership or right of residence solely for members of the "Aryan race" and excluded from such rights any non-Aryans, particula ...
' (''Arierparagraph'') as part of the
Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (, shortened to ''Berufsbeamtengesetz''), also known as Civil Service Law, Civil Service Restoration Act, and Law to Re-establish the Civil Service, was enacted by the Nazi Party, Na ...
. Terms such as 'Proof of Aryan Ancestry' (''Ariernachweis'') and 'Aryanisation' (''Arisierung'') soon became common legal language, all primarily aimed at targeting Jews. In September 1935, the Nazis enacted the
Nuremberg Laws The Nuremberg Laws (, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. The two laws were the Law ...
, requiring all Aryan Reich citizens to prove their Aryan ancestry. One way to do this was to obtain an ''
Ahnenpass The ''Ahnenpaß'' (literally, "ancestor pass") documented the Aryan lineage of people "of German blood" in Nazi Germany. It was one of the forms of the Aryan certificate (''Ariernachweis'') and issued by the "Reich Association of Marriage Re ...
'' ('ancestor pass') by providing baptismal certificates that verified all four grandparents were of Aryan descent. In December of the same year, the Nazis founded ''
Lebensborn ''Lebensborn e.V.'' (literally: "Fount of Life") was a secret, SS-initiated, state-registered association in Nazi Germany with the stated goal of increasing the number of children born who met the Nazi standards of "racially pure" and "heal ...
'' ('Fount of Life') to counteract the falling Aryan birth rates in Germany, and to promote
Nazi eugenics The social policies of eugenics in Nazi Germany were composed of various ideas about genetics. The Nazi racial theories, racial ideology of Nazism placed the biological improvement of the German people by selective breeding of "Nordic race, No ...
.Many American
white supremacist White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine ...
neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
groups and prison gangs refer to themselves as 'Aryans', including the
Aryan Brotherhood The Aryan Brotherhood (AB or The Brand) is a neo-Nazi prison gang and an organized crime syndicate that is based in the United States and has an estimated 15,000–20,000 members both inside and outside prisons. The Southern Poverty Law Center ...
, the
Aryan Nations Aryan Nations is a North American antisemitic, neo-Nazi and white supremacist hate group that was originally based in Kootenai County, Idaho, about miles (4.4 km) north of the city of Hayden Lake. Richard Girnt Butler founded Aryan N ...
, the
Aryan Republican Army The Aryan Republican Army (ARA), also dubbed "The Midwest Bank bandits" by the FBI and law-enforcement, was a white nationalist terrorist gang which robbed 22 banks in the Midwest from 1994 to 1996. The bank robberies were spearheaded by Donna L ...
, the
White Aryan Resistance White Aryan Resistance (WAR) is a white supremacist and neo-Nazi organization in the United States which was founded and formerly led by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Tom Metzger. It was based in Warsaw, Indiana, and it was also incorpora ...
, or the
Aryan Circle The Aryan Circle is a white supremacist, Neo-Nazi prison gang spread throughout many U.S. correctional facilities. The Aryan Circle was founded by Mark "Cowboy" Gaspard in 1985 in the Texas Department of Corrections as a splinter group of th ...
. Modern nationalist political groups and neo-Pagan movements in Russia claim a direct linkage between themselves as Slavs and the ancient 'Aryans', and in some Indian nationalist circles, the term 'Aryan' can also be used in reference to an alleged Aryan 'race'.


Aryanism in India


Racial interpretations of the ''Rigveda''

In 1888
Max Müller Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born British comparative philologist and oriental studies, Orientalist. He was one of the founders of the Western academic disciplines of Indology and religious s ...
, who had himself inaugurated the racial interpretations of the ''
Rigveda The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
'', denounced talk of an "Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair" as a nonsense comparable to a linguist speaking of "a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar". But an increasing number of Western writers, especially anthropologists and non-specialists influenced by
Darwinist ''Darwinism'' is a Term (argumentation), term used to describe a scientific theory, theory of Biology, biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of org ...
theories, came to see the ''Aryas'' of the ''Rigveda'' as a 'physical-genetic species' contrasting with the other human races – rather than as an ethnolinguistic category. During the late-19th and early-20th centuries, noted anthropologists Theodor Poesche and
Thomas Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist who specialized in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stor ...
quoted from the ''Rigveda'' to suggest that the Aryans were blond and tall, with blue eyes and
dolichocephalic Dolichocephaly (derived from the Ancient Greek δολιχός 'long' and κεφαλή 'head') is a term used to describe a head that is longer than average relative to its width. In humans, scaphocephaly is a form of dolichocephaly. Dolichoceph ...
skulls. Western anthropologists have continued to refine this idea since the 20th century, while some have dissented. Hans Heinrich Hock has questioned that the Aryans were blond or light skinned, since, in his view, "most of the edicpassages may not refer to dark or light skinned people, but dark and light worlds". However, according to Elena Kuzmina, there is ample evidence from the
Avesta The Avesta (, Book Pahlavi: (), Persian language, Persian: ()) is the text corpus of Zoroastrian literature, religious literature of Zoroastrianism. All its texts are composed in the Avestan language and written in the Avestan alphabet. Mod ...
and the
Rig Veda The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
that the Aryans did have light eyes, light skin, and light hair.


British Raj

In India, the British colonial government had followed de Gobineau's arguments along another line, and had fostered the idea of a superior 'Aryan race' that co-opted the
Indian caste system The caste system in India is the paradigmatic ethnographic instance of social classification based on castes. It has its origins in ancient India, and was transformed by various ruling elites in medieval, early-modern, and modern India, espe ...
in favor of imperial interests. In its fully developed form, the British-mediated interpretation foresaw a segregation of Aryan and non-Aryan along the lines of caste, with the upper castes being "Aryan" and the lower ones being 'non-Aryan'. The European developments not only allowed the British to identify themselves as high-caste, but also allowed the Brahmins to view themselves as on-par with the British. Further, it provoked the reinterpretation of Indian history in racialist and, in opposition,
Indian Nationalist Indian nationalism is an instance of civic nationalism. It is inclusive of all of the people of India, despite their diverse ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds. Indian nationalism can trace roots to pre-colonial India, but was f ...
terms.


"Aryan invasion theory"

Translating the sacred Indian texts of the
Rig Veda The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canoni ...
in the 1840s, German linguist Friedrich Max Muller found what he believed was evidence of an ancient invasion of India by Hindu Brahmins, a group which he called "the Arya." In his later works, Muller was careful to note that he thought that Aryan was a linguistic rather than a racial category. Nevertheless, scholars used Muller's invasion theory to propose their own visions of racial conquest through
South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...
and the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...
. In 1885, the New Zealand polymath
Edward Tregear Edward Robert Tregear , Ordre des Palmes académiques (1 May 1846 – 28 October 1931) was a New Zealand public servant and scholar. He was an architect of New Zealand's advanced social reforms and progressive labour legislation during the 1890 ...
argued that an "Aryan tidal-wave" had washed over India and continued to push south, through the islands of the East Indian archipelago, reaching the distant shores of New Zealand. Scholars such as
John Batchelor John Calvin Batchelor (born April 29, 1948) is an American author and the host of ''Eye on the World'' on the CBS Audio Network. His flagship station is WOR in New York City. The show is a hard-news-analysis radio program on current events, wo ...
, Armand de Quatrefages, and Daniel Brinton extended this invasion theory to the Philippines, Hawaii, and Japan, identifying indigenous peoples who they believed were the descendants of early Aryan conquerors. With the discovery of the
Indus Valley civilisation The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the Northwestern South Asia, northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 Common Era, BCE to 1300 BCE, and in i ...
, mid-20th century archeologist
Mortimer Wheeler Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, CH Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire, CIE Military Cross, MC Territorial Decoration, TD (10 September 1890 – 22 July 1976) was a British archaeolo ...
argued that the large urban civilisation had been destroyed by the Aryans. This position was later discredited, with climate aridification becoming the likely cause of the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The term "invasion", while it was once commonly used in regard to Indo-Aryan migration, is now usually used only by opponents of the Indo-Aryan migration theory. The term "invasion" does not any longer reflect the scholarly understanding of the Indo-Aryan migrations, and is now generally regarded as polemical, distracting and unscholarly. In recent decades, the idea of an Aryan migration into India has been disputed mainly by Indian scholars, who claim various alternate
Indigenous Aryans Indigenous Aryanism, also known as the Indigenous Aryans theory (IAT) and the Out of India theory (OIT), is the conviction that the Aryans are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homel ...
scenarios contrary to established Kurgan model. However, these alternate scenarios are rooted in traditional and religious views on Indian history and identity and are universally rejected in mainstream scholarship. According to Michael Witzel, the "indigenous Aryans" position is not scholarship in the usual sense, but an "apologetic, ultimately religious undertaking". A number of other alternative theories have been proposed including
Anatolian hypothesis The Anatolian hypothesis, also known as the Anatolian theory or the sedentary farmer theory, first developed by British archaeologist Colin Renfrew in 1987, proposes that the dispersal of Proto-Indo-Europeans originated in Neolithic Anatolia. I ...
,
Armenian hypothesis The Armenian hypothesis, also known as the Near Eastern model, is a theory of the Proto-Indo-European homeland, initially proposed by linguists Tamaz V. Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav Ivanov in the early 1980s, which suggests that the Proto-Indo- ...
, the Paleolithic continuity theory but these are not widely accepted and have received little or no interest in mainstream scholarship.


See also

* Aryavarta, ancient name for the northern Indian subcontinent populated by
Indo-Aryans Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse collection of peoples predominantly found in South Asia, who (traditionally) speak Indo-Aryan languages. Historically, Aryans were the Indo-Iranian speaking pastoralists who migrated from Central Asia int ...
. It means "Abode of the Aryans." *
Airyanem Vaejah (; ; ; , 'the Arya Expanse') is considered in Zoroastrianism to be the homeland of the early Iranians and the place where Zarathustra received the religion from Ahura Mazda. The Avesta also names it as the first of the "sixteen perfect lan ...
, mythological homeland of the early Iranians, it means expanse of the Aryans *
Alans The Alans () were an ancient and medieval Iranian peoples, Iranic Eurasian nomads, nomadic pastoral people who migrated to what is today North Caucasus – while some continued on to Europe and later North Africa. They are generally regarded ...
, an Iranian people and ancestors of Ossetians, their name comes from the word Aryan *
Aria In music, an aria (, ; : , ; ''arias'' in common usage; diminutive form: arietta, ; : ariette; in English simply air (music), air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrument (music), instrumental or orchestral accompan ...
, province of the
Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the large ...
,
Seleucid The Seleucid Empire ( ) was a Greek state in West Asia during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 312 BC by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator, following the division of the Macedonian Empire founded by Alexander the Great, a ...
, and
Parthian Empire The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power centered in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe ...
s *
Ariana In the Greco-Roman world, Ariana was a geographical term referring to a general area of land between Central Asia and the Indus River. Situated far to the east in the Achaemenid Empire, it covered a number of satrapies spanning what is today th ...
, Greco-Roman geographical term, synonym of ''Iran'' *
Arya Samaj Arya Samaj () is a monotheistic Indian Hindu reform movement that promotes values and practices based on the belief in the infallible authority of the Vedas. Dayananda Saraswati founded the samaj in the 1870s. Arya Samaj was the first Hindu ...
, considered a
monotheistic Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity.F. L. Cross, Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. A ...
Indian
Hindu reform movement Contemporary groups, collectively termed Hindu reform movements, reform Hinduism, neo-Hinduism, or Hindu revivalism, strive to introduce regeneration and reform to Hinduism, both in a religious or spiritual and in a societal sense. The movement ...
, their name means "Noble, i.e Aryan, Society" *
Graeco-Aryan Graeco-Aryan, or Graeco-Armeno-Aryan, is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family that would be the ancestor of Hellenic, Armenian, and the Indo-Iranian languages, which spans Southern Europe, Armenian highlands and Southern Asi ...
*
Indo-Aryan peoples Indo-Aryan peoples are a diverse collection of peoples predominantly found in South Asia, who (traditionally) speak Indo-Aryan languages. Historically, Aryans were the Indo-Iranian speaking pastoralists who migrated from Central Asia int ...
, speakers of Indo-Aryan languages, they historically referred to themselves as Aryans *
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
, literally means "Land of Aryans" **
Eranshahr The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...
, official name of
Sasanian Empire The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...
, literally means "Land/Empire of Iranians" *
Iranian peoples Iranian peoples, or Iranic peoples, are the collective ethnolinguistic groups who are identified chiefly by their native usage of any of the Iranian languages, which are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European langu ...
, speakers of Iranian languages, they historically referred to themselves as Aryans *
Yamnaya culture The Yamnaya ( ) or Yamna culture ( ), also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture, is a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic–C ...


Notes

Web


References


Bibliography

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Further reading

* * * * * * * * * {{Authority control Etymologies Esoteric anthropogenesis Ancient peoples Indo-Iranian peoples History of Iran Ancient India Avesta Vedas Ethno-cultural designations Indo-European linguistics