Regarding Aryans

Originally posted by Kerimoglu Dear Members, especially of those supporting and having knowledge of Aryans, I wonder whether tribes like Scythians/Sakae/Sarmatians, + Saxons (as part of Germans) and even some other steppe people of Asia are considered to be Aryan or at least of Aryan origin?

Yes, if we take Hephtalites as Turkic i.e. Hunnic we can't call them "Aryan."

Very nice, Sarmat.

Even though septuagenarians may have different ideas about what is 'archaic' .

 

this is a good post, as this topic brings about much confusion and debate.  Im curious as to the original homeland of aryans as i get into this debate with many of my friends.

Some say its Persia, hence the reason we call it Iran, now i know this is not entirely true(am i correct), others point to a region near the Caucasus/Black Sea region as the original land from where they set out. 

Also, is it true that some Bulgarians/Hungarians are also of Iranic stock?

 All the definitions in Sarmat's post are actually later borrowings of the term 'Aryan' by people or circles who did not exist at the time when the term originally came in to use. In order to understand how and by whom the term 'Aryan/Arya' was used, we need to look further back in time than the Nazis or the discipline of linguistics. As indicated by its usage in linguistics, the term is very strongly associated with Indo-Iranians who consist of Indic, Dardic, Iranic and Nuristani speakers. This means that in order to understand the term, we have to understand how it is used by Indo-Iranians.
 
 'Aryan' was used in Sanskrit and in India to mean noble, honorable or spiritual, and it was mainly from this group, the Indians, that the term travelled out of the Indo-Iranian speakers and was subsequently used in linguistics and Europe. 
 
 In Iran, the name of which is a cognate of the term 'Arya', it has been and is still used as an ethnic/national designation. If you go to Iran, you will notice that it is used for anything that can be named, from personal names, to company names, to shop names, to street names and .....etc,  which shows how deep the term is rooted in the society.
 
 However, in order to understand the term and its past better, we need to consider the history of Indo-Iranians. Where they came from, how they spread, and how the term 'Arya' was used within this context.
 
 Archaeological evidence suggest that Indo-Iranians originated in the Pontic-Caspian steppe as a branch of the greater Indo-European family, and spread from where the Srubnaya culture and Andronovo culture overlapped (north of Caspian sea). Their spread correlates with the spreads of these two cultures, especially the Andronovo culture which explains their spread to the east and south. The Indic group to which Sanskrit language belongs to, spread and became sedentary earlier, while the Iranic/Iranian group split into two groups, one who stayed in the Pontic-Caspian steppe mainly remaining nomadic, and another who spread from their homelands many of whom became sedentary.  The Avestan language originated in the latter group of the Iranics/Iranians. Historical documents such as the Avesta show that only the sedentary Iranians were referred to in the Avestan language as 'Aryans' (Farvardin Yasht 143~144) and that they called themselves as such. Within the Iranians,  'Aryan'  was basically a term to differentiate the sedentary and ''civilized'' Iranians in the south and east from the nomadic and ''barbaric'' Iranians to the north and west. From this we can see that Iranian peoples such as the Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans were not really Aryans.
 
 We can conclude that 'Aryan' was used distinctively only by the Indo-Iranians who migrated out of their homeland and became sedentary, from whom both Sanskrit and Avestan emerged.



 Below is a sentence from  wikipedia regarding the linguistic usage.      
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan#Indo-Iranian
In linguistics, the term Aryan currently may be used to refer to the Indo-Iranian language family. To prevent confusion because of its several meanings, the linguistic term is often avoided today. It has been replaced by the unambiguous terms Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Indo-Iranian, Iranian and Indo-Aryan.



 Another sentence from  wikipedia regarding the usage in Iran.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan#Iranian
Since ancient times, Persians have used the term Aryan as a racial designation in an ethnic sense to describe their lineage and their language, and this tradition has continued into the present day amongst modern Iranians [6]. In fact, the name Iran is a cognate of Aryan and means "Land of the Aryans."


Edited by omshanti - 21-Jul-2008 at 14:52

The Tocharians were not all absorbed by the Uighir tribes.  A nice big chunk (if not the majority) of Tocharians migrated out of Tarim Basin and into Afghanistan where they created the Kushan Empire.

Edited by Afghanan - 14-Sep-2008 at 13:18