Questions about Aryan
Short answers, pulled from the story.
What did the word Aryan originally mean in ancient India and Iran?
In ancient India, Aryan (arya) was an ethnocultural self-designation used by Vedic Sanskrit speakers to describe those who spoke the language, worshipped the Vedic gods, and observed Vedic cultural norms. In ancient Iran, the Avestan term airya served the same function, designating those who shared language, ethnic stock, and the religious tradition centred on Ahura Mazda. Modern scholars, including David W. Anthony, note that the Rigveda and Avesta both define this identity as linguistic and ritual, not racial.
Who invented the concept of an Aryan race?
The French diplomat and writer Arthur de Gobineau introduced the idea of an Aryan race in his Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, published between 1853 and 1855. He argued that the white race, and particularly its Aryan branch, was the only truly civilized one, and that the last pure Aryans were the Germanics. His follower, British-German philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain, extended the theory into explicitly antisemitic form in The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century in 1899.
What Aryan laws did the Nazis pass and when?
On the 7th of April 1933, the Nazi government enacted the Aryan Paragraph (Arierparagraph), introducing legal language such as Proof of Aryan Ancestry and Aryanisation. In September 1935, the Nuremberg Laws made proof of Aryan descent a prerequisite for Reich citizenship, requiring applicants to produce an Ahnenpass documenting that all four grandparents were of Aryan descent. In December 1935, the SS established Lebensborn to increase births among racially classified Germans.
Why do scholars now prefer the term Indo-Iranian over Aryan?
The atrocities committed under Aryanist racial ideology during the first half of the 20th century led academics to generally avoid Aryan as a stand-alone ethno-linguistic term. Indo-Iranian is now the preferred alternative in the Western scholarly world, though Indo-Aryan is still used for the Indic branch of that language family. The shift reflects the word's contamination by racial supremacist ideology rather than any change in the underlying linguistic classification.
Where do the place names Iran and Alania come from in relation to the word Aryan?
The name Iran derives from the Old Persian Aryanam, a form of the stem arya. Alania, the name of the medieval kingdom of the Alans, derives from a dialectal variant of the Old Iranian stem Aryana, which is also linked to the mythical Airyanem Vaejah described in the Avesta. The Sasanian Empire was officially named Eran-shar, meaning Kingdom of the Iranians, from the Old Persian Aryanam Xsatram.
How did the name Arya become popular as a baby name in the West?
According to the U.S. Social Security Administration, in 2012 Arya was the fastest-rising girl's name in the United States, jumping from 711th to 413th position in popularity. By 2017 the name had entered the top 200 most commonly used names for baby girls in England and Wales. The rise is attributed to pop culture influence rather than any direct connection to the word's ancient or modern political history.