Aryan is an English word derived from the Sanskrit "Ārya" meaning "noble" or "honorable".http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/aryan. The Avestan cognate is "Airya" and the Old Persian equivalent is "Ariya". 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 wholefact: date=May 2008.

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.

In linguistics, Aryan is most often used in the context of the sub-branch of Indo-Iranian languages referred to as Indo-Aryan languages.

Etymology

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) PIE: *ar-yo-, a yo-adjective to a root PIE: *ar "to assemble skillfully", present in Greek harma "chariot", Greek aristos, (as in "aristocracy"), Latin ars "art", etc. Proto-Indo-Iranian *ar-ta- was a related concept of "properly joined" expressing a religious concept of cosmic order.

The adjective *aryo- was suggested as ascending to Proto-Indo-European times as the self-designation of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language itself. It was suggested that other words such as Éire, the Irish name of Ireland, and Ehre (German for "honour") were related to it, but these are now widely regarded as untenable, and while PIE: *ar-yo- is certainly a well-formed PIE adjective, there is no evidence that it was used as an ethnic self-designation outside the Indo-Iranian branch. In the 1850s Max Müller theorized that the word originated as a denotation of farming populations, since he thought it likely that it was related to the root PIE: *arh₃, meaning "to plow"; thus Aryans would be those who plow. Other 19th century writers, such as Charles Morris, repeated this idea, linking the expansion of PIE speakers to the spread of agriculturalists. Most linguists now consider PIE: *arh₃ to be unrelated.

The Proto-Iranian form *Aryāna- appears as Æryānam Väejāh "expanse of the Aryans" in Avestan, in Middle Persian as Ērān, and in Modern Persian as Īrān. Similarly, Northern India was referred to by the tatpurusha Aryavarta "Arya-abode" in ancient times.

Semantics of Sanskrit arya

main: Arya According to Paul Thieme (1938), the Vedic term arya- in its earliest attestations has a meaning of "stranger", but "stranger" in the sense of "potential guest" as opposed to "barbarian" (mleccha, dasa), taking this to indicate that arya was originally the ethnic self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. Arya directly contrasts with Dasa or Dasyu in the Rigveda (e.g. RV 1.51.8, IAST: ví jānīhy âryān yé ca dásyavaḥ "Discern thou well Aryas and Dasyus"). This situation is directly comparable to the term Hellene in Ancient Greece. The Middle Indic interjection arē!, rē! "you there!" is derived from the vocative arí! "stranger!".