wikipedia
English
Etymology
From the Skr. �र�य (�rya), �noble�, via Hind. �र�य / Urd. URchar|آر�� (�rya) �noble�, borrowed into English in the 19th century, at first as a term for the Indo-Iranian languages, and later partly extended to the Indo-European languages and peoples.
Pronunciation
a|US IPA|/��ɹ.i.�n/
rhymes|��ri�n
Homophones
Arian
Noun
en-noun|s
- context|theosophy|Germanic mysticism|nazism A member of an (alleged) master race comprised of non-Jewish Caucasians, especially those of Nordic or Germanic descent.
#* 1925�26, w:Adolf Hitler|Adolf Hitler, w:Mein Kampf|Mein Kampf, translation from German to English by James Murphy, 1939
#*: This short sketch of the changes that take place among those races that are only the depositories of a culture also furnishes a picture of the development and the activity and the disappearance of those who are the true founders of culture on this earth, namely the Aryans themselves.
Category:Nazism
- context|colloquial|neo-Nazi or white supremacist ideology A person of Caucasian ethnicity; a white non-Jew.
#* 2001, w:Robert J. Sternberg|Robert J. Sternberg, w:James C. Kaufman|James C. Kaufman, The Evolution of Intelligence, Page 300
#*: One transmission advantage may have been that espousing Aryan-supremacist and overtly Nazi ideology could have been a roundabout way of announcing, […]
#* 2002, w:David R. Goldfield|David R. Goldfield, Still Fighting the Civil War: The American South and Southern History, page 263
#*: The point is not that southern Republicans are edging toward Aryan-supremacist views but that the rhetoric of their campaigns and some of their political [�]
- context|by extension|primarily US|colloquial|euphemistic A Caucasian racist, often one who is an Aryan in the first sense.
#* 2004, w:John Lawton|John Lawton, Bluffing Mr. Churchill
#*: Cal tried to think of words that would convey Wolfgang Stahl to the ears and hands of a woman who�d never seen him and never, until now, had to imagine him.
#*: [�]
#*: �Why not . . . why not think of your chap as a type? Tell me what type you�d sort of put him into.�
#*: �Sort of?�
#*: �You know . . . roughly.�
#*: �He�s an Aryan.�
#*: �Ah, one of those, eh? Odd when you think about it. I mean. How did they arrive at blue-eyed blonds as a racial type? Hitler�s short and dark and looks like Charlie Chaplin. Goebbels is short and ugly and looks like a rat. And as for Goering � well is that what Billy Bunter grew up to be?�
- context|now|_|rare An Indo-Iranian.
- context|now|_|rare An Indo-European, a Proto-Indo-European.
#* 1905, w:Rossiter Johnson|Rossiter Johnson, LL.D., chief editor, The Great Events by Famous Historians, volume IV
#*: We have seen that when the Goths first entered Roman territory they were driven on by a vast migration of the Asiatic Huns. These wild and hideous tribes then [�] appeared upon the Rhine, and in enormous numbers penetrated Gaul. No people had yet understood them, none had even checked their career. The white races seemed helpless against this "yellow peril", this "Scourge of God", as Attila was called. Goths and Romans and all the varied tribes which were ranging in perturbed whirl through unhappy Gaul laid aside their lesser enmities and met in common cause against this terrible invader. The battle of Châlons, 451, was the most tremendous struggle in which Turanian was ever matched against Aryan, the one huge bid of the stagnant, unprogressive races, for earth�s mastery.
- context|ethnography|now|_|obsolete|in 19th century ethnography A subdivision of the Caucasian race, which comprised the Aryans, the Semites, and the Hamites, or the accompanying linguistic subdivision.
#* 1892, w:Charles Morris|Charles Morris, The Aryan Race: Its Origins and Its Achievements
#*: [The] Caucasian race includes two sub-races, � the Xantho-chroic and Melanochroic of Huxley. The seat of this race is Europe, northern Africa, and southwestern Asia, its linguistic division being into Aryans, Semites, and Hamites.
#* 1900, w:Frank Moore Colby|Frank Moore Colby, Outlines of General History
#*: The surest principle of classification is based on language, but the results must be tested by a study of the physical characteristics of the various races. According to this method of classification, the races of the world may be divided as follows: Aryan, Semitic, Hamitic, Turanian, Negroid. The name Caucasian is generally applied to the first three divisions, � Aryans, Semites, and Hamites. Aryan. � This includes the ancient Hindus [�] the Persians, Greeks, Italians, Celts, Teutons, and Slavs.
Translations
trans-top|in Nazism: a member of an alleged master race comprised of non-Jewish Caucasians
Arabic: ARchar|آر�|آر��� (�áriyy) m
Dutch: t|nl|Ariër|m
Finnish: arjalainen
German: Arier m
trans-mid
Italian: ariano m
Portuguese: ariano m
trans-bottom
trans-top|used primarily by neo-Nazis: a white
Arabic: ARchar|آر�|آر��� (�áriyy) m
Danish: arier
Dutch: t|nl|Ariër|m
Finnish: arjalainen
French: Arien
German: Arier m
trans-mid
Italian: ariano m
Portuguese: ariano m
Spanish: ario
trans-bottom
trans-top|US, euphemistic: a Caucasian racist
Dutch: t|nl|Ariër|m
trans-mid
trans-bottom
trans-top|rare: an Indo-Iranian
Arabic: ARchar|آر�|آر��� m (�ariyy)
Danish: arier
Dutch: t|nl|Ariër|m, t|nl|Indo-Iraan
Finnish: indoiranilainen
French: Arien
trans-mid
German: Arier m
Swedish: arier
trans-bottom
trans-top|rare: a Proto-Indo-European
Arabic: ARchar|آر�|آر��� (�ariyy) m
Danish: arier
Dutch: t|nl|Ariër|m, t|nl|Indo-Iraan, t|nl|Indo-Germaan, t|nl|Indo-Europeaan|m, t|nl|Proto-Indo-Europeaan|m
Finnish: indoiranilainen
French: Arien
trans-mid
German: Arier m
Italian: ario m
Swedish: arier
trans-bottom
trans-top|obsolete: in 19th century ethnography, a subdivision of the Caucasian race
Danish: arier
Dutch: t|nl|Ariër|m
Finnish: arjalainen|arjalaiset
French: Arien
German: Arier m
trans-mid
Italian: ario m
Swedish: arier
trans-bottom
Usage notes
In popular conception, the Aryan racial type is marked by having blond hair and blue eyes. These are not criteria of any of the technical racial definitions.
Using the technical meanings of the term �Aryan� (Indo-Iranian, Indo-European, Proto-Indo-European, or a subdivision of the Caucasian race) could be misleading and dangerous, as the Nazi and neo-Nazi ideological usages, with their connotations, are the only widely understood meanings of the term in modern English.
Neo-Nazi users generally do not intend the term to be pejorative, however, it can be taken as such outside of the neo-Nazi community, because of the term�s heavy use by and association with the Nazis; the implication is that non-Aryans are inferior. The word is highly-charged, because this thinking is widely considered to have lead to the w:Holocaust|Holocaust.
Due to the fact that the racial senses of the term are, outside of academic contexts and historical or ethnographic discussions, used primarily by racists of Caucasian ethnicity, the term is sometimes used by non-Nazi speakers as a euphemism for �White racist� (see the Talk:Aryan|talk page for an example scenario).
Today, the term �Aryan� is used primarily by neo-Nazis and white supremacists, or in discussing the ideology and racial theories of Nazism, a mid-twentieth-century racist political movement that considered Aryans (in the first sense) to be the master race, neo-Nazism, and other white supremacist movements and organizations. The term is therefore strongly associated with such ideologies, to the point that it is sometimes euphemistically used to refer to or describe them. Because of this, and because the term carries a strong emotional charge, the technical senses are perhaps best avoided outside of academic contexts where they are certain to be understood, and the racial senses connected with Nazism are perhaps best avoided altogether.
Adjective
en-adj|-
- Pertaining, in racial theory|theories, to the (alleged) Aryan master race.
#* 1925�26, w:Adolf Hitler|Adolf Hitler, w:Mein Kampf|Mein Kampf, translation from German to English by James Murphy, 1939
#*: Look at the ravages from which our people are suffering daily as a result of being contaminated with Jewish blood. Bear in mind the fact that this poisonous contamination can be eliminated from the national body only after centuries, or perhaps never. Think further of how the process of racial decomposition is debasing and in some cases even destroying the fundamental Aryan qualities of our German people, so that our cultural creativeness as a nation is gradually becoming impotent and we are running the danger, at least in our great cities, of falling to the level where Southern Italy is to-day.
- context|colloquial|neo-Nazi or white supremacist ideology Pertaining to the Caucasian ethnicity.
#* 2003, w:Kathleen M. Blee|Kathleen M. Blee, Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement, page 172
#*: Neo-Nazis use Nordic religions to fashion a more noble Aryan past and a modern Pan-Aryan community. Symbols from and references to ancient spirituality pepper neo-Nazi literature.
- context|US|colloquial|euphemistic Pertaining to Caucasian racists or their organisations, theories, etc.
#* 2006, w:Margaret Kleffner Nydell|Margaret Kleffner Nydell, Understanding Arabs: A Guide for Modern Times, Intercultural Press, 1931930252, page 106
#* Imagine our outrage if the foreign press depicted Aryan groups as representing mainstream Christianity.
- Of or pertaining to Indo-Iranian peoples, cultures, and languages.
#*1872-79: John Beames, A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of India: to wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya and Bangall
#*:[W]ith all due deference to the opinions of scholars, it may be urged that much of this elaborate development arose in an age when the speech of the people had wandered very far away from the classical type. Even if it were not so, even if there ever were a time when the Aryan peasant used poly-syllabic desideratives, and was familiar with multiform aorists, it is clear that he began to satisfy himself with a simpler system at a very distant epoch, for the range of forms in Pali and the other Prakrits is far narrower than in classical Sanskrit.
- context|now|_|rare Of or pertaining to Indo-European peoples, cultures and languages.
#*1905, w:Rossiter Johnson|Rossiter Johnson, LL.D., chief editor, The Great Events by Famous Historians, volume IV
#*: Who were these Teutons? Rome knew them only vaguely as wild tribes dwelling in the gloom of the great forest wilderness. In reality they were but the vanguard of vast races of human beings who through ages had been slowly populating all Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Beyond the Teutons were other Aryans, the Slavs. Beyond these were vague non-Aryan races like the Huns. [�]
Translations
trans-top|pertaining to the (alleged) Aryan master race
Dutch: t|nl|Arisch
Finnish: arjalainen
German: arisch
trans-mid
Italian: ariano
Portuguese: ariano
trans-bottom
trans-top|used primarily by neo-Nazis: pertaining to the Caucasian race
Danish: arisk
Dutch: t|nl|Arisch
Finnish: arjalainen
French: arien
German: arisch
trans-mid
Italian: ariano
Portuguese: ariano
Swedish: arisk
trans-bottom
trans-top|US, euphemistic: pertaining to Caucasian racists
Dutch: t|nl|Arisch
trans-mid
trans-bottom
trans-top|of or pertaining to Indo-European or Aryan people, culture and languages
Arabic: ARchar|آر�|آر��� m (�ariyy)
Dutch: t|nl|Arisch, t|nl|Indo-Iraans, t|nl|Proto-Indo-Europees, t|nl|Indo-Europees, t|nl|Indo-Germaans
Finnish: indoeurooppalainen, indogermaaninen, (arjalainen)
French: arien
German: arisch
trans-mid
Italian: ariano
Swedish: arisk
trans-bottom
checktrans-top
ttbc|French: aryen, indo-européen, indo-germanique
ttbc|Persian: FAchar|آر�ا�� (aryayi)
ttbc|Spanish: ario
ttbc|Swedish: arisk, indoeuropeisk
ttbc|Telugu: (Aarya)
trans-bottom
External links
w:Indo-European|Indo-European
w:Indo-European languages|Indo-European languages
w:Aryan Invasion Theory|Aryan Invasion Theory
w:Aryan|Aryan
w:Aryan Nations|Aryan Nations
Category:English borrowed words
fa:Aryan
fr:Aryan
io:Aryan
pl:Aryan
ru:Aryan
sr:Aryan
zh:Aryan
|
