1601, as a term in classical history, from L.
Ariana, from Gk.
Aria name applied to various parts of western Asia, ult. from Skt.
Arya-s "noble, honorable, respectable," the name Sanskrit-speaking invaders of India gave themselves in the ancient texts, originally "belonging to the hospitable," from
arya-s "lord, hospitable lord," originally "protecting the stranger," from
ari-s "stranger." Ancient Persians gave themselves the same name (O.Pers.
Ariya-), hence
Iran (from Iranian
eran, from Avestan gen. pl.
airyanam).
Aryan also was used (1861) by Ger. philologist Max Müller (1823-1900) to refer to "worshippers of the gods of the Brahmans," which he took to be the original sense. In comparative philology,
Aryan was applied (by Pritchard, Whitney, etc.) to "the original Aryan language" (1847;
Arian was used in this sense from 1839, but this spelling caused confusion with
Arian, the term in ecclesiastical history), the presumed ancestor of a group of related, inflected languages mostly found in Europe but also including Sanskrit and Persian. In this sense it gradually was replaced by
Indo-European (q.v.) or
Indo-Germanic, except when used to distinguish I.E. languages of India from non-I.E. ones. It came to be applied, however, to the speakers of this group of languages (1851), on the presumption that a race corresponded to the language, especially in racist writings of French diplomat and man of letters J.A. de Gobineau (1816–82), e.g.
"Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines," 1853–55, and thence it was taken up in Nazi ideology to mean "member of a Caucasian Gentile race of Nordic type." As an ethnic designation, however, it is properly limited to Indo-Iranians, and most justly to the latter.
[air-ee-uh
n, ar-] 