a. and sb. [f. Sanskrit ārya, in the later language ‘noble, of good family,’ but apparently in earlier use a national name ‘comprising the worshippers of the gods of the Brahmans’ (Max Müller); cf. Zend airya ‘venerable,’ also a national name, and Old Persian (Achæmenian) ariya national name (applied to himself by Darius Hystaspes); whence probably Gr. Ἀρεία, Ἀρία, L. Arīa, Aria, and Ariāna, the eastern part of ancient Persia, and Pehlevi and mod.Pers. Irân ‘Persia.’ As a transl. of L. Ariānus ‘of Aria or Ariana,’ Arian has long been in English use: Aryan is of recent introduction in Comparative Philology, and is also by many written Arian, on the ground that āria was the original word, as shown by the Vedic language, ārya being only the later Sanskrit form; the spelling Aryan has the advantage of distinguishing the word from ARIAN in Eccl. Hist.]
[1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 131. The region of the Arianes, all scorched and senged with the parching heate of the Sunne.
1794. Sir W. Jones, trans. Ordin. Menu, x. § 45. All those tribes of men, who sprang from the mouth, the arm, the thigh, and the foot of Brahmá, but who became outcasts by having neglected their duties, are called Dasyus, or plunderers, whether they speak the language of the Mlechch’has or that of Aryas.]
A. adj. Applied by some to the great division or family of languages, which includes Sanskrit, Zend, Persian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Teutonic, and Slavonic, with their modern representatives; also called Indo-European, Indo-Germanic, and sometimes Japhetic; by others restricted to the Asiatic portion of these. absol. The original Aryan or Arian language.
The restricted use rests on the ground that only the ancient Indian and Iranian members of the family are known on historical evidence to have called themselves Aria, Arya or Ariya; the wider application rests partly on the inference that the name probably belonged in pre-historic times to the whole family, while this still constituted an ethnic and linguistic unity; and partly on the ground that even if it did not, it is now the most convenient and least misleading name for the primitive type of speech from which all the languages above-mentioned have sprung, inasmuch as Indo-Germanic is too narrow, and Indo-European too wide, for the facts, while Japhetic introduces speculations of which science has no cognizance. A frequent use of the word, in which all agree, is to distinguish the Aryan from the non-Aryan languages of India, the former being ‘Aryan’ whether the term is used in the restricted or the wider sense.
1847. Pritchard, Rep. Brit. Assoc., 241. The Indo-European, sometimes termed Indo-German, and, by late writers, Arian or Iranian languages.
1858. Whitney, Orient. Stud., II. 5. The Aryan tribes—for that is the name they gave themselves.
1872. Freeman, Gen. Sketch, i. § 2. History in the highest and truest sense is the history of the Aryan natives of Europe.
1878. Cust, Mod. Langs. E. Indies, 49. That all the other Aryan Vernaculars are variants of Hindi, caused by the influence of non-Aryan communities.
1882. Sweet, in Trans. Phil. Soc., 109. Parent Arian had already developed a perfectly definite word-order. Ibid., 111. The original Arian (not ‘Aryan’) forms.
B. sb. A member of the Aryan family; one belonging to, or descended from, the ancient people who spoke the parent Aryan language.
1851. Edin. Rev., 328. Times when neither Greece nor India were peopled by Arians.
1861. Max Müller, Sc. Lang. (1873), I. vi. 273. The state of civilisation attained by the Aryans before they left their common home.
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., vii. 137. The days are ever divine as to the first Aryans.
1878. Cust, Mod. Langs. E. Indies, 13. The Aryans advanced down the basins of the Indus and the Ganges.
1882. Sweet, Trans. Phil. Soc., 114. The primitive Arians.
