Both Old Persian and Avestan (despite some orthographic ambiguity) seem to
point to *arya- with a short, unvrddhied *a, but Abaev (reportedly)
etymologizes Ossetic (Iron) <allon> 'a self-designation of the Ossetians (in
folklore)' as < *a:rya:na- (vs., eg., <ælan> 'foreigner' < *arya:na-). That
raises the question: are there any reliable reflexes of *a:ry(:an)a- (with
long *a:) attested in the Iranian languages?
Sergei