Aryan, name originally given to a people who were said to speak an archaic Indo-European language and who were thought to have settled in prehistoric times in ancient Iran and the northern Indian subcontinent. The theory of an “Aryan race” appeared in the mid-19th century and remained prevalent until the mid-20th century. According to the hypothesis, those probably light-skinned Aryans were the group who invaded and conquered ancient India from the north and whose literature, religion, and modes of social organization subsequently shaped the course of Indian culture, particularly the Vedic religion that informed and was eventually superseded by Hinduism.
However, since the late 20th century, a growing number of scholars have rejected both the Aryan invasion hypothesis and the use of the term Aryan as a racial designation, suggesting that the Sanskrit term arya (“noble” or “distinguished”), the linguistic root of the word, was actually a social rather than an ethnic epithet. Rather, the term is used strictly in a linguistic sense, in recognition of the influence that the language of the ancient northern migrants had on the development of the Indo-European languages of South Asia. In the 19th century “Aryan” was used as a synonym for “Indo-European” and also, more restrictively, to refer to the Indo-Iranian languages. It is now used in linguistics only in the sense of the term Indo-Aryan languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family.
In Europe the notion of white racial superiority emerged in the 1850s, propagated most assiduously by the comte de Gobineau and later by his disciple Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who first used the term “Aryan” to mean the “white race.” Members of that so-called race spoke Indo-European languages, were credited with all the progress that benefited humanity, and were purported to be superior to “Semites,” “yellows,” and “blacks.” Believers in Aryanism came to regard the Nordic and Germanic peoples as the purest members of the “race.” That notion, which had been repudiated by anthropologists by the second quarter of the 20th century, was seized upon by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and was made the basis of the German government policy of exterminating Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and other “non-Aryans.”
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, many white supremacist groups used the word Aryan in their name as an identifier of their racist ideology. Those groups include the Aryan Circle (a large group that had its roots in the Texas prison system), the Aryan Nations (a Christian Identity-based hate group prominent in the late 20th century), and the Aryan Brotherhood (a group originating in San Quentin [California] prison). That association with racism, crime, hate crimes, and Nazism has given the word a powerful new negative sense.
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
Sri Lanka: Indo-Aryan settlementThe account of Sri Lanka’s settlement as presented in the
Mahavamsacontains an element of historical fact—the settlers were Indo-Aryan peoples from northern India. However, controversy exists as to the exact provenance of the early settlers; the legends contain evidence pointing to both…
India: Ethnic groupsAn early Aryan civilization—dominated by peoples with linguistic affinities to peoples in Iran and Europe—came to occupy northwestern and then north-central India over the period from roughly 2000 to 1500
bceand subsequently spread southwestward and eastward at the expense of other indigenous groups. Despite the emergence…
India: The appearance of Indo-Aryan speakers…have traditionally agreed that a people speaking Old Indo-Aryan dialects of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family arrived in the Indian subcontinent during the late 3rd and 2nd millennia
bce. These newcomers purportedly came from the steppes to the north and east of the Caspian Sea, moving first…
India: Early Vedic period…the Indo-European-speaking people known as Aryans (from Sanskrit
arya, “noble”), who presumably entered India from the Iranian regions.…
South Asian arts: Compilation of hymns…bands of semi-nomadic tribesmen, the Aryans, who descended into India from the northwest, probably in the first half of the 2nd millennium
bce. An important aspect of Aryan religious life was the bard-priest who composed hymns in praise of gods, to be sung or chanted at sacrifices. This tradition was…