Branch of Indo-European which belongs to the Indo-Iranian subgroup, with over thirty languages, some of which contain numerous dialects; in total about 650 million speakers. The most significant languages are Hindi-Urdu (over 220 million speakers,...

The Aryans, far from being a "race," were speakers of Vedic Sanskrit in India, the earliest form of that classical Indo-European language. These people entered India from the northwest about 1500 BCE, and their descendants today form most...

From Ārya (Sk.) meaning noble. In P.Ariya, e.g., the Aryan or noble Eightfold Path, or the four Aryan or noble Truths. Taken from the Aryan race, the word was used by the Buddha as worthy of the race, noble in...

Aryan is an English language word derived from Sanskrit and Avestan term Ärya- meaning "noble" or "spiritual".[1] It is widely held to have been used as an ethnic self-designation of the Proto-Indo-Iranians. Since, in the 19th century, the...