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Aryan or Arya (; Indo-Iranian *arya) is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*an-arya). In Ancient India, the term ā́rya was used by the Indo-Aryan speakers of the Vedic period as an endonym (self-designation) and in reference to a region known as Āryāvarta ('abode of the Aryas'), where the Indo-Aryan culture emerged. In the Avesta scriptures, ancient Iranian peoples similarly used the term airya to designate themselves as an ethnic group, and in reference to their mythical homeland, Airyanǝm Vaēǰō ('expanse of the Aryas' or 'stretch of the Aryas'). The stem also forms the etymological source of place names such as Alania (*Aryāna-) and Iran (*Aryānām). Although the stem *arya may be of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origin, its use as an ethnocultural self-designation is only attested among Indo-Iranian peoples and there is no evidence of its use as an ethnonym among 'Proto-Indo-Europeans'. In any case, scholars point out that, even in ancient times, the idea of being an Aryan was religious, cultural, and linguistic, not racial. In the 1850s, the term 'Aryan' was adopted as a racial category by the aristocratic French writer Arthur de Gobineau, who, through the later works of his followers such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain, influenced the Nazi racial ideology. Under Nazi rule (1933–1945), the term officially applied to most inhabitants of Germany excluding Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mostly Slovaks, Czechs, Poles or Russians). Those classified as 'non-Aryans,' especially Jews, were discriminated against before suffering the systematic mass killing known as the Holocaust and the Porajmos. The atrocities committed in the name of Aryanist supremacist ideologies have led academics to generally avoid using 'Aryan' as a stand-alone ethnolinguistic term, which has been replaced in most cases by 'Indo-Iranian', although the Indic branch is still known as 'Indo-Aryan'. Etymology 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 airya and the country name Iran. A German translation of Anquetil-Duperron's work led to the introduction of the term Arier in 1776. The Sanskrit word ā́rya is rendered as 'noble' in William Jones' 1794 translation of the Indian Laws of Manu, and the English Aryan (originally spelt Arian) appeared a few decades later, first as an adjective in 1839, then as a noun in 1851. Indo-Iranian The Sanskrit word ā́rya (आर्य) was originally an ethnocultural term designating those who spoke Vedic Sanskrit 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 (5th–4th century BCE), it took the meaning of 'noble'. In Old Iranian languages, the Avestan term airya (Old Persian ariya) was likewise used as an ethnocultural self-designation by ancient Iranian peoples, 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'. These two terms derive from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-Iranian stem *arya- or *āryo-, 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 connotation, which only emerged later in the works of 19th-century Western writers. According to David W. Anthony, "the Rigveda and Avesta 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." Proto-Indo-European Since Adolphe Pictet (1799–1875), a number of scholars have proposed to derive the Indo-Iranian stem arya- from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European (PIE) term *h₂erós or *h₂eryós, 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 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 *arya- as a social status (a freeman or noble), and there is no evidence that Proto-Indo-European speakers had a term to refer to themselves as 'Proto-Indo-Europeans'. Early PIE: *h₂erós, Anatolian: *ʔor-o-, 'peer, freeman', Hittite: arā-, 'comrade, peer, companion, friend'; arāwa-, 'free from'; arawan(n)i-, 'free, freeman (not being slave)'; natta ara, 'not proper to the community', Lycian: arus-, 'citizens'; arawa-, 'freedom', Late PIE: *h₂eryós, Indo-Iranian: *arya-, 'Aryan, Indo-Iranian', Old Indo-Aryan: árya-, 'Aryan, faithful to the Vedic religion'; aryá-, 'kind, favourable, true, devoted'; arí-, 'faithful; devoted person, ± kinsman'; Iranian: *arya-, 'Aryan, Iranian', Avestan: airya- (pl. aire), 'Aryan, Iranian', Old Persian: ariya-, 'Aryan, Iranian', Celtic: *aryo-, 'freeman; noble'; or perhaps from *prio- ('first > prominent, eminent'), Gaulish: ario-, 'freeman, lord; foremost', Old Irish: aire, 'freeman, chief; noble'; Germanic *arjaz, 'noble, distinguished, esteemed', Old Norse: arjosteʀ, 'foremost, most distinguished'. The term *h₂er(y)ós may derive from the PIE verbal root *h₂er-, meaning 'to put together'. Oswald Szemerényi has also argued that the stem could be a Near-Eastern loanword from the Ugaritic ary ('kinsmen'), although J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams 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, the base word has come to emphasize personal relationship, whereas it took a more ethnic meaning among Indo-Iranians, presumably because most of the unfree (*anarya) who lived among them were captives from other ethnic groups. Historical usage Proto-Indo-Iranians The term *arya was used by Proto-Indo-Iranian speakers to designate themselves as an ethnocultural group, encompassing those who spoke the language and followed the religion of the Aryas (Indo-Iranians), as distinguished from the nearby outsiders known as the *Anarya ('non-Arya'). Indo-Iranians (Aryas) are generally associated with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE), named after the Sintashta archaeological site in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. Linguistic evidence show that Proto-Indo-Iranian (Proto-Aryan) speakers dwelled in the Eurasian steppe, south of early Uralic tribes; the stem *arya- was notably borrowed into the Pre-Sámi language as *orja-, at the origin of oarji ('southwest') and årjel (.... Discover the Mark Arya popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Mark Arya books.