1
Stage 1 of 4
arya
Sanskrit · ancient
"noble; compatriot"
an ethno-cultural self-designation meaning roughly 'noble, of good family'
2
Stage 2 of 4
ariya
Old Persian · ancient
"the Iranian peoples' name for themselves"
the related Iranian self-designation, source of the name 'Iran'
3
Stage 3 of 4
Arier
German · 1819
"the reconstructed Indo-European-speaking peoples"
philologist Friedrich Schlegel linked the word to Indo-European studies
4
Stage 4 of 4
Aryan
English · 1839
"historically, a term for Indo-Iranian peoples or languages"
adopted from German scholarship as a linguistic term, later distorted into a racial category
Drag to pan · scroll to zoom