SV: Tamil Muslims/ Re: Aryans

[Venkatraman Iyer]

Maciej is right about the huge popularity of Aryan claims
in Europe. Some scholarly attempts are made sometimes to maintain a
little distinction.

The problem is succinctly said in the dedication page of
Leon Poliakov's book, The Aryan myth.

"
Man is an incorrigible genealogist, who spends his whole
life in the search of a father.

(Don Cameron Allen, The legend of Noah, Urbana, Ill., 1949)

Aryan(Sanskrit). Name of the Persians, later of the
Indo-Germanic peoples, who settled in Iran and in north-west
India .... The designation "Aryan" in the sense "not of
Jewish descent" is problematic.

(Trans. from Universal-Lexikon, Cologne, 1968.) "


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Maciej St. Zieba [SMTP:mszieba at UW.LUBLIN.PL] skrev 5.
desember 2000 10:32:
 > As far as I have heard (not being specialist in Indo-European
 > ethymology or in Celtic) the word "Eire"/"Ireland", same as "Iran",
 > comes from the same root as "Arya"  - therefore - may be "at least"
 > (some) Celts are also Aryans?

Probably not. I once asked a Norwegian Indo-Europeanist cum Celticist
about this, and he said the connection made between Eire and Aryan was
spurious. But there has been such a theory.

 >
 > I know of two uses of the word Aryan, very frequent
 >         1) Aryan = Indo-European (from this comes the use of
 >"Indo-Aryan" as opposed to "Indo-non-Aryan"  i.e. to Dravidian,
 >Munda, and whatever else)
 >
 >         2) Aryan = Indo-Iranian
 >
 > I don't think the first use is erroneous - it's only a question of
 > convention.

In a scholarly context, the first use is erronous. (Aryans are a
subgroup of the Indo-Europeans). It goes back to a time when being
"Aryan" was supposed to be very nice. The Germans for a period loved
being Aryan, and the term was politicized with the consequences we
know. Today, the non-technical use of "Aryan" should be avoided, since
it is so closely connected to European fascism. Only the Indo-Iranians
were Aryans in the technical sense.

Lars Martin Fosse

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