Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.551

c10.551

**ARYAN**, adj. Skt. *Ārya*, 'noble.' A term frequently used to include all the races (Indo-Persic, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Sclavonic, &c.) which speak languages belonging to the same family as Sanskrit. Much vogue was given to the term by Pictet's publication of *Les Origines Indo-Européennes, ou les Aryas Primitifs* (Paris, 1859), and this writer seems almost to claim the name in this sense as his own (see quotation below). But it was in use long before the date of his book. Our first quotation is from Ritter, and there it has hardly reached the full extent of application. Ritter seems to have derived the use in this passage from Lassen's *Pentapotamia*. The word has in great measure superseded the older term, Indo-Germanic, proposed by F. Schlegel at the beginning of the last century. The latter is, however, still sometimes used, and M. Hovelacque, especially, prefers it. We may observe here that the connection which evidently exists between the several languages classed together as Aryan cannot be regarded, as it was formerly, as warranting an assumption of identity of race in all the peoples who speak them.