Aryan

Also known as Aryans

Aryan (), or Arya (borrowed from Sanskrit ārya), is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood in contrast to nearby outsiders, whom they designated as non-Aryan (). In ancient India, the term was used by the Indo-Aryan peoples of the Vedic period, both as an endonym and in reference to a region called Aryavarta (), where their culture emerged. Similarly, according to the Avesta, the Iranian peoples used the term to designate themselves as an ethnic group and to refer to a region called Airyanem Vaejah (), which was their mythical homeland. The w

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"Aryan" is a term that originally referred to the self-designation of Indo-Iranian peoples in ancient times, used to describe both themselves as an ethnic group and the regions where their cultures developed. The term matters historically because it helps scholars understand how ancient Indo-Aryan and Iranian peoples identified themselves and distinguished themselves from neighboring groups, though it has since been misused in modern times for harmful purposes.

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Commons category: Indo-Aryan peoples

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Article

35 sections

Contents

Etymology
English and European languages
Indo-Iranian
Proto-Indo-European
Historical usage
Prehistoric Proto-Indo-Iranians
Ancient times
Ancient India
Ancient Iran
Indo-Iranian place names
Graeco-Latin literature
Modern times
Iranian nationalism
Religious use
Personal names
Scholarship
19th and early 20th century
Contemporary scholarship
Aryanism and racism
Invention of the 'Aryan race'
Early Romantic views
North European hypothesis
Theories of racial supremacy
Transition to racial biology
Aryan race and antisemitism
Nazi racial theories
Aryanism in India
Racial interpretations of the ''Rigveda''
British Raj
"Aryan invasion theory"
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading

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