Aryan
From Freepedia
Aryan is an English word derived from the Indo-Aryan Vedic Sanskrit and Iranian Avestan terms ari-, arya-, ārya-, and/or the extended form aryāna-. The Old Persian (Iranian) ariya- is a cognate as well. Beyond its use as the ethnic self-designation of the Proto-Indo-Iranians, there is no certainty as to what it may have originally meant. The meaning "noble" has been frequently attached to it. Since the 19th century, the term has often been used to refer to what we now call the 'Proto-Indo-Europeans', and, by extension, to the Indo-European speaking peoples as a whole; beginning with Max Müller's 'Aryan Invasion Theory', which has more recently been analyzed along with genetic evidence. In linguistics, the term Aryan currently refers only to the Indo-Iranian language sub-family; or occasionally, as a matter of short-hand usage, to its Indian sub-branch, more properly-referred to as 'Indo-Aryan'.
The Aryan (Proto-Indo-Iranian) language evolved into the family of Indo-Iranian languages, of which the oldest-known members are Avestan, Vedic, and another Indo-Aryan language, known only from loan-words found in the Mitanni language, the latter which was itself a dialect of Hurrian.
In addition to these usages, 'Aryan' can also be used as an indication for the religious origin of the Hindu's, Jains and Buddhists. To prevent confusion because of its several meanings, the term is often avoided today, and has been replaced by the well-defined Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Indo-Iranian, Iranian or Indo-Aryan terms.
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Etymology and History of the Term
Indo-Iranian arya- descends from PIE *ar-yo-, a yo-adjective to a root *ar "to assemble skilfully", present in Greek harma "chariot", Latin ars "art" etc.
The adjective *aryo- was suggested as ascending to Proto-Indo-European as the self-designation of the speakers of Proto-Indo-European itself, and Éire, the Irish name of Ireland, was considered a cognate. This latter suggestion is now widely regarded as untenable, and while *ar-yo- is certainly a well-formed PIE adjective, there is no evidence that it was used as an ethnic self-designation outside the Indo-Iranian branch. The root *arh3 "to plough" is considered unrelated.
The important Sanskrit lexicon Amarakosha (ca. 450 AD) defines Arya as: "An Arya is one who hails from a noble family, of gentle behavior and demeanor, good-natured and of righteous conduct. (mahakula kulinarya sabhya sajjana sadhavah.)" However it does earlier seem to have been used to identify certain populations in distinction from others, in particular those clans who accepted proto-Vedic and proto-Zoroastrian beliefs. Max Müller theorized that this usage originated as a denotation of farming populations. The word arya may have then developed in later times its more modern usage as a general term of respect, signifying nobility, in Hinduism (the descendant of Vedic religion), Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Jainism. In Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is called the Arya Astangika Marga, the Four Noble Truths are called the Arya-Satya.
By the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, Indo-Aryans are believed to have arrived on the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent (see Indo-Aryan migration). Indeed, the term Iran – in full Iran Shahr – is the modern outcome of an ancient Aryānām Xšaθra- meaning "realm of the Aryans." The Aryan, or Indo-Iranian group of languages is divided into three branches: Indo-Aryan, Nuristani, and Iranian. In Middle Persian, we find the term "Aryāna-" as "Ērān" and in Modern Persian as "Īrān."
Proto-Indo-European
Max Müller and other 19th century ethnologists (see also Indo-European studies) theorised that the term *arya was used as the self-description of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.
The nomadic Iranians of the north western steppes, however, especially those settled in Europe, are extensively covered by the classical writers; they are also attested in a very large number of archaeological excavations in Eastern Europe; these Iranian peoples are known in the West as Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, and finally Ossets; it must be emphasised that all these names refer to the successive migratory waves of the same people, who probably called themselves by a name derived from the word Airya, as the Alans did, and the Ossets still do.
Indo-Iranian
Main article: Indo-Iranians.
The most probable date for Proto-Indo-Iranian unity is roughly around 2500 BC. In this sense of the word Aryan, the Aryans were an ancient culture preceding both the Vedic and Iranian cultures. Candidates for an archaeological identification of this culture are the Andronovo and/or Srubnaya Archaeological Complexes.
Indo-Aryan
See also Arya, Indo-Aryans, Indo-Aryan languages, Aryan Invasion Theory.
There is evidence of speakers of Indo-Aryan in Mesopotamia around 1500 BC in the form of loanwords in the Mitanni dialect of Hurrian, the speakers of which, it is speculated, may have once had an Indo-Aryan ruling class.
Iranian
See also Iranian peoples, Achaemenid dynasty
Since ancient times, Persians (Iranians) used the term Aryan to describe their lineage and their language, and this tradition has continued into the present day amongst modern Iranians.
Darius the Great, King of Persia (521–486 BC), in an inscription in Naqshe Rostam (near Shiraz in present-day Iran), proclaims: "I am Darius the great King… A Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage…". He also calls his language as the Aryan Language or commonly known as Old Persian.
The word has become a technical term in the theologies of Zoroastrian, but has always been used by Iranians in the racial sense as well. In 1967, Iran's Pahlavi dynasty added the title Āryāmehr "Light of the Aryans" to those of the monarch, known at the time as the Shahanshah (The King of Kings).
Racist connotations
The Aryan race was a term used in the nineteenth century by European racial theorists who believed strongly in the division of humanity into biologically distinct races with differing characteristics. Such writers took the view that the Proto-Indo-Europeans consituted a specific race that had expanded across Europe, Iran and India. This meaning was, and still is, common in theories of racial superiority which were embraced by Nazi Germany. This usage tends to merge the Avestan/Sanskrit meaning of "noble" or "elevated" with the idea of distinctive ancestral ethnicity marked by language distribution. In this interpretation, the Aryan Race is both the highest representative of mankind and the purest descendent of the Proto-Indo-European population.
According to Alfred Rosenberg's ideology the "Aryan-Nordic" (arisch-nordisch) or "Nordic-Atlantean" (nordisch-atlantisch) race corresponded to this ideal and was thus a master race, at the top of a racial hierarchy, pitted against a "Jewish-Semitic" (jüdisch-semitisch) race, deemed to be a racial threat to Germany's homogeneous Aryan civilization, thus rationalizing Nazi Antisemitism. Nazism portrayed their interpretation of an "Aryan race" as the only race capable of creating culture and civilizations, while other races are merely capable of some preservation, or destruction of, culture. These arguments derived from late nineteenth century racial hierarchies. Some Nazis were also influenced by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine (1888) where she postulates "Aryans" as the fifth of her "Root Races", dating them to about a million years ago, tracing them to Atlantis, an idea also repeated by Rosenberg, and held as doctrine by the Thule Society.
During the same time period that the Nazis had established their philosophy on this and begun drafting certain legislation based upon this interpretation of the "Aryan race," other countries such as Spain (Franco era), and Italy (Mussolini era) began identifying with these same beliefs and had drafted various elements of this same concept into their political legislation. Much of this legislation was based upon eugenics laws from American states, such as the Virginia law upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1927 case, Buck v. Bell, and defended in an opinion by Oliver Wendall Holmes. Mussolini's Aryan laws prohibiting mixed-race marriages between "Aryans" and Jews. As well as many elements of Spanish laws of this time period segregating key parts of Spanish society from the small populace of Jews and other races in Spain by using this now accepted principle to justify doing so.
Because of historical racist use of Aryan, and especially use of Aryan race in connection with the myths and propaganda of Nazism, the word is sometimes avoided as being tainted. Similarly to the swastika symbol, which, having been found in ancient Iranian archeological sites, was chosen by Hitler for its perceived Aryan significance.
As a linguistic technical term, Aryan is in continued use without any ideological implication.
See also
Ariana is also the name of Afghanistan's national airline.
Aryan is also the name of a Peugeot model co-designed and manufactured by Iran.[1]
External link
- The Aryans in a historical context
- ÂRYÂ (ARYAN)Philology of Ethnic Epithet of Iranian Peoples
- Aryans
- Etymological study
