Re: [tied] "Aryan" [was: Archaeological Aspects...]

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 44972
Date: 2006-06-14

On 2006-06-13 23:15, mkelkar2003 wrote:

> Even that use could be falling out of favor.
>
> http://www.answers.com/topic/aryan
>
> " 1. Indo-Iranian. No longer in technical use.

Of course. The strictly technical term is "Indo-Iranian", precisely
because it carries no undesirable semantic baggage resulting from past
confusion and misuse. You've been here for a while and you must have
noticed that we use the neutral terms like "Indo-European",
"Indo-Iranian" and "Indic". The last one has the variant "Indo-Aryan",
still common in technical use, but otherwise the use of the adjective
"Aryan" is neither recommended nor encouraged here. Note also that the
ONLY correct aplication of "Indo-Aryan" is to the Indo-European
LANGUAGES of India, not to the actual or imagined physiotypes of their
speakers.

Historically, *arya- and its derivative *a:rya- (cf. Skt. a:rya-, Av.
airiia-, the tribal name of the Alans, etc.) were terms of ethnic
self-reference among the early Indo-Iranians AND NOBODY ELSE, as far as
is known. It USED TO be believed that the same term was employed among
the Celts and the Germani, and it was speculated (first by Friedrich
Schlegel about 1830) that it had also been the self-designation of the
PIE speakers. Remember that in Schlegel's time this theory -- mistaken
as it eventually turned out to be -- was politically harmless, since the
term had not yet been hijacked and abused by European racists. The
German Nazis, almost a century later, were neither aware of nor
interested in reliable etymologies: they had their own pseudo-science,
pseudo-linguistics, pseudo-anthropology and absurdly inappropriate
labels for themselves and their enemies.

Back in the 1830s even the German word Ehre 'honour' was thought to be
related to *arya-, but that link was proven to be definitely wrong later
in the 19th century, with the advent of rigorous comparative
methodology. The only serious candidate for an extra-Indo-Iranian
cognate is Celtic *ario- 'free man' (OIr. aire, Gaulish Ario- in
personal names), but even that admits of a completely different
etymology (< *pr.h3-jó-, related to Skt. pu:rvá-).

Piotr