Aryan

Aryan is an English language word derived from Sanskrit and Avestan ārya- meaning "noble". It is widely held to have been used as an ethnic self-designation of the Proto-Indo-Iranians. Since, in the 19th century, the Indo-Iranians were the most ancient known speakers of Indo-European languages, the word Aryan was adopted to refer not only to the Indo-Iranian people, but also to Indo-European speakers as a whole.

In Europe, the concept of an Aryan race became influential in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as linguists and ethnologists argued that speakers of these Indo-European languages constitute a distinctive race, descended from an ancient people, who were referred to as the "primitive Aryans", but are now known as Proto-Indo-Europeans. An understanding of the Proto-Indo-Iranians as a master race, as prominently expressed within Nazism and related ideologies, lacks any scientific basis, nor do any of the Vedic Sanskrit and Old Persian texts speak of 'racial purity'.

In today's English, "Aryan" is merely synonymous to Indo-Iranian, the eastern extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages.