Who exactly were the Aryans? Being Indian, I’ve heard all about the mythic accomplishments of my forefathers, who were reputedly Aryan. But how much of it is true and how is it that Aryan blood is prized from Calcutta to Berlin? Where exactly did they come from and where did they go? When people make mention of Indo-European languages, cultures, etc., are they referring to Aryans? What did the Aryans look like? I’m pretty sure they weren’t the blond-haired, blue-eyed stock of Hitler’s wet dreams, but what racial characteristics did they possess? Also, how did the myths of Aryan supremacy come up? –RS
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A long strange story, although it began innocently enough. Since ancient times people had noticed that there were a lot of similarities among European languages. But it wasn’t until the 16th century, when Europeans began studying the Indian language Sanskrit, that scholars realized this similarity extended to several Asian languages as well. The classic example was the word “father,” which was echoed by vater in German, pater in Latin, and pitar- in Sanskrit.
The idea that the blond Aryans were a superior race was first raised explicitly in 1853 by one Joseph Arthur, comte de Gobineau. De Gobineau was a respected ethnologist who argued in all seriousness that the Aryan races would prosper as long as they did not allow themselves to be tainted by mixing with black and yellow peoples. De Gobineau’s ideas were widely popular and are said to have influenced Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche. Stripped of the scholarly trappings, Aryanism soon filtered down to the beer halls and eventually became one of the central tenets of Nazism. By then it had shed any linguistic significance; Hitler justified his persecution of the Slavs on the grounds that they were racially inferior, although they spoke Aryan languages.
