Aryan

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[[File:Centum Satem map.png|thumb|165px|A long way from [[Germany]].]]{{race}}
'''Aryan''' ([[Sanskrit]]: आर्य, romanized as ''ā́rya'') is an informal and obsolete grouping of people who speak Indo-Iranian languages. The term comes from the [[Hinduism|Hindu Vedas]], in which it describes the ''noble one'' and may in fact be a derivative of the name used by the [[Indo-European languages|Proto-Indo-Europeans]] for themselves. The Indo-Europeans are speculated to have been a group of nomads who supposedly settled in or were native to [[India]] and [[Iran]] sometime in 1500 [[BCE]]. It is unsure where they originally came from, but it was most likely the Eurasian steppes, near the {{wpl|Caspian Sea}} (later occupied within historical times by the {{wpl|Scythians}}).

The term is alleged to survive to modern times in the autonyms of some Indo-European descendants, most notably in the name of the Indo-Iranian-speaking [[Middle East|Middle Eastern]] country known as [[Iran]] ({{wpl|New Persian}}: اِیرَان, romanized as ''Īrān''; {{wpl|Middle Persian}}: 𐭠𐭩𐭥𐭠𐭭, romanized as ''Ērān''; {{wpl|Old Persian}}: 𐎠𐎼𐎡𐎹, romanized as ''Ariyaʰ''; {{wpl|Avestan}}: 𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬌𐬀, romanized as ''a<sup>i</sup>riia'').  It may also underlie the name of [[Ireland]] (Irish: ''Éire'', gen. ''Éireann''), but there are other, competing etymologies.{{efn|The more commonly accepted explanation derives the name from Proto-Indo-European *''*piHwer-'', meaning "fat" or "fertile"; this would make the name cognate with Greek ''Pieria''.  Initial *''p-'' is regularly lost in Celtic languages: PIE *''ph₂tḗr'', "father"; Irish ''athair''; *''pisk-'', "fish"; Irish ''iasc''.<ref name="m&a">{{Cite book |last=Mallory |first=J. P. |title=The Oxford introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European world |last2=Adams |first2=Douglas Q. |date=2007 |publisher=Oxford Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-19-929668-2}}</ref>{{rp|261}}}}

The Indo-Europeans brought with them their indigenous religions and [[religious]] beliefs, which then fused with the native Dravidian beliefs. Much has been made of the connections between {{wpl|Indra}} and [[Norse mythology#Thor|Thor]], for example. They also brought their own [[language]]. The original understanding of the relationship between India, Iran, and [[Europe]] actually came about once haughty Europeans realized that their languages were all related to [[Sanskrit]].<ref group=note>Sanskrit looks startlingly similar to [[Fun:Greek|Greek]] and [[Latin]] in many grammatical structures (the noun declensions are very Latinate, if a bit more complex, and the verbal system is very close to {{wpl|Homeric Greek}}) and was once rumoured to be mutually intercomprehensible with, of all things, [[Lithuania]]n, one of the most complex and primitive Indo-European languages surviving into modern times.</ref> You would think this would have tamed their [[racist]] [[colonialism]], but apparently not.

==No, they weren't Nordic==
Contrary to the [[Nazi]] meme, there is literally '''''no''''' reason to believe that the Indo-Europeans were blond or blue-eyed.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hock |first=Hans Henrich |title=Did Indo-European linguistics prepare the ground for Nazism? Lessons from the past for the present and the future |date=2003-12-31 |work=Language in Time and Space |pages=167–188 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9783110897722.167 |access-date=2024-09-26 |publisher=DE GRUYTER MOUTON |isbn=978-3-11-017648-3}}</ref> Nor is there any reason to believe that the Indo-Europeans ever came to Europe before early historic times, at least not until Neolithic immigration from the [[Russian]] steppes to Europe and the adoption across the continent of Proto-Indo-European dialects<ref group=note>Celtic over a wide area from Anatolia to [[Britain]] and [[Spain]]; Italic in [[Italy]]; Hellenic in [[Greece]], western {{wpl|Anatolia}}, and the southern [[Balkans]]; Germanic in [[Scandinavia]]; Slavic in what is now Western [[Russia]]; and many other languages of unknown relation (though {{wpl|Phrygian}} is thought to be ancestral to [[Armenian]] and {{wpl|Illyrian}} to [[Albanian]]).</ref> by the fair-skinned European natives.<ref group=note>The original languages of Stone Age Europe survived in historical times only in small pockets -- {{wpl|Etruscan}} in Italy until [[Roman Empire|Roman]] times, {{wpl|Basque language|Basque}} in [[Spain]] and [[France]] into modern times, {{wpl|Finno-Ugric languages}} in Northern Europe and a large pocket in [[Hungary]] and [[Romania]] (where they represent a historic migration). {{wpl|Neal Stephenson|Neal Stephenson's}} fictional Qwghlm language from <i>Cryptonomicon</i> is probably intended to be one of these as well.</ref>

The only people who have a claim to the "Aryan" ethnicity are natives in the west, central and parts of the south [[Asian|Asia]] groups who live in areas like northern, western, and parts of Eastern India (the entire country isn't Aryan there is a lot of non-Aryan people (especially in the south, northeast, in the {{wpl|Greater Himalayas|''Himādri'' (i.e., Greater Himalayas)}} (in [[Sanskrit]]: हिमाद्रि)), notably {{wpl|Adivasi|Adivasis}}), [[Iran]] ("Land of the Aryans"), [[Pakistan]], [[Tajikistan]], and [[Afghanistan]].

Modern European natives are a rather mixed-up lot, with many having ancestry traceable back thousands of years by way of their genes, though with bits and pieces of various other groups from around Europe, western Asia, and northern [[Africa]] (not to mention some Neanderthal ancestry); their genetics are much less Aryan than their languages.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1881/02/who-are-the-aryans/521367/</ref>

In conclusion, [[Hitler]] was a dipshit, [[Jesus]] was a [[Jew]], and unless you are part of an Indo-Aryan ethnic group (such as northern, eastern, western Indian; Iranian, or [[Roma]]),<ref group=note>You can taste the [[irony]] as Hitler ordered the killing of the Romas in the [[Holocaust]].</ref> you are not an Aryan. There is no genetic evidence that a distinct Aryan race even existed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://world.time.com/2011/12/15/the-aryan-race-time-to-forget-about-it/ |title=The Aryan Race: Time to Forget About It? |author=Ishaan Tharoor |date=December 15, 2011}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Indigenous Aryans theory]]
*[[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]]
*[[Indo-European languages]]
*[[Marija Gimbutas]]
*[[Savitri Devi]]
*[[Nationalist pseudohistory]]
*[[Hindutva]]
*[[Fascism]]
*[[Nazism]]
*[[White supremacy]]
*[[Sanskrit]]
*[[Latin]]
*''[[The Chalice and the Blade]]''

==External links==
*[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1174/who-were-the-aryans Who were the Aryans?], The Straight Dope
==Further reading==
*{{Cite book |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mpub.19419 |title=Aryan and Non-Aryan in India |date=1979 |publisher=U OF M CENTER FOR SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES |isbn=978-0-89148-014-3 |editor-last=Deshpande |editor-first=Madhav |location=Ann Arbor, MI |editor-last2=Hook |editor-first2=Peter |editor-last3=Hook |editor-first3=Peter Edwin}}
==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note|2}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Anthropology]]
[[Category:History]]
[[Category:Racism]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups]]
[[Category:Nazism]]
[[Category:Nazis]]
[[Category:Neo-Nazis]]
[[Category:Hindu nationalism]]
[[Category:India]]
[[Category:Iran]]

Categories: Anthropology, History, Racism, Ethnic groups, Nazism, Nazis, Neo-Nazis, Hindu nationalism, India, Iran