ARYAN, a technical term, applied to one of the great families of language, which extends from India to Europe, and which, for that reason, is called also Indo-European,. Friedrich Schlegel, who first recognised the family relationship of these languages (Die Sprache and Weisheit der Indier, 1808), assigned to them the name of Indo-Germanic, name still used by preference by many scholars in Germany (Pott, Benfey, &c.) Bopp (lTergleichende Grammatzk, vol. i. p. xxiv.) decided in favour of Indo-European as a more appropriate name for that large family of speech. Other scholars have used the names Japhetic, Sanskritic (W. von Humboldt), and Mediterranean (Ewald).

The objection to Indo-Germanic as the technical name of the whole family is that it is too long, and yet not sufficiently extensive. If the family is to be distinguished by the names of its two extreme members, the name ought to be Indo-Celtic, rather than Indo-Germanic ; if by its most important members, then, as remarked by Bopp, the name should be Indo-Classic. Indo-European is an equally cumbersome name, and less correct even than Indo-Gervaanic, considering that there are many languages spoken both in India and Europe which do not belong to that family. Sanskritic would be a misleading name, as countenancing the idea that all the members of this family are derived from Sanskrit. Japhetic seems to revive the Jewish conception of the three ancestors of the human race, ,S'hent, Ilan and Japhet and would, from the strictly Hebrew point of view, comprehend many tribes in the north of Asia and Europe who speak Turanian languages. Ewald, who suggested the name of Mediterranean, distinguishes, besides the Mediterranean, three other families of speech, the Northern, commonly called North Turanian or Altaic, the Semitic, and the Copto-African. He explains the name of Mediterranean by saying, that "the races speaking these languages inhabited the large central circle, surrounded by Semitic, South-Indian, Chinese, TurkoTataric, and Bask languages" (Lehrbuch der lIebriiischen, Sprache, p. 17, note). The reason why this name has not been accepted, seems to be that locality has little to do with the essential character of languages, and that the central position once occupied by the people who spoke these tongues belongs to them no longer.

Aryan, as a name for a whole family of languages, has the advantage of being short, and, being a word of foreign origin, of lending itself more easily to any technical definition that may be assigned to it. It has been accepted by many writers in England, France, and India. In Germany, too, it is used in this wide sense by Lassen and others, while some scholars have used the term in the more restricted sense of Indo-Iranian, - i.e., as comprehending the languages of India and Persia, which constitute the south-eastern as distinct from the north-western (Greek, Latin, Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic) branch of the family.

Origin of time Word. - Aryan, as a technical term, has been borrowed from the Sanskrit arya or arya, the Zend airya. In the later Sanskrit arya means, of a good family. It is used as a complimentary address. Originally, however, it was used as a national name, and even as late as the time of the Laws of Manu, India is still called AryaCivarta, i.e., the abode of the Aryas. In the Veda, Arya is the name by which the believers in the gods of the Veda call themselves, in opposition to their enemies, who are called Ddsas or Dasymms. The distinction appears in passages such as the following :- I. 51, S. "Distinguish, indra„ the Aryas and those who are Dasyus" (vi ganihi gryan ye ha dasyavah).

X. 86, 19. "I, Indra, distinguishing the Dasa and the Arya" (vikinvan dgsam gryain).

We frequently read of the gods protecting the Arya and destroying his enemies.

HI. 34, 9. " Indra, having killed the Dasyus, protected the Aryan colour" (hatvi dasyun pra dryam varnam avat). This looks like an ethnological distinction of colour between Aryas and Dasyus.

X. 49, 3. "I (Indra) who do not give over the Aryan I. 103, 3. " Indra, increase the Aryan power " (gryam sahah, vardhaya).