noun

Aryan

EH-uh-ree-uhn

noun

In linguistics, a now largely retired term for the Indo-Iranian branch of languages, or more loosely the wider Indo-European language family.

"Older textbooks used "Aryan" to describe the language family that includes Sanskrit and Persian."

A discredited 19th- and 20th-century racial category once used to claim a "Nordic" or "Caucasian" master race; the term is strongly associated with Nazi ideology.

"Nazi propaganda falsely presented "Aryan" as a race superior to all others."

How to Use Aryan

Learner’s notes

In plain EnglishA word with two very different lives: a legitimate old linguistics term for Indo-Iranian/Indo-European languages, and a term twisted into Nazi race pseudoscience.

Common mistake

Modern linguists avoid "Aryan" in favor of "Indo-Iranian" or "Indo-European" precisely because of its toxic racial baggage.

When to use it

Highly sensitive; in everyday use it is now almost always linked to racist ideology rather than linguistics.

Word Forms

more Aryan comparative, Aryans plural, most Aryan superlative

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Older textbooks used "_____" to describe the language family that includes Sanskrit and Persian.

Etymology

From Sanskrit ā́rya ("noble"). Borrowed into English in the 1800s as a linguistic term, then hijacked in the 19th–20th centuries by race theorists — most infamously the Nazis — to invent a supposed racial hierarchy that has no basis in the word's actual history.

Rhymes for Aryan

yan Ryan Mayan Bryan Libyan Kenyan banyan Bunyan Vyvyan Kalyan Narayan Saroyan

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