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The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept which emerged in the late 19th-century to describe people of Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping.^[1]^[2] Anthropological, historical and archaeological evidence do not support the validity of this concept.^[3]^[4]

The concept derives from the notion that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or belonging to a subrace of the obsolete racial group of Caucasian race, alongside the Semitic race and the Hamitic race.^[5]^[6] This taxonomic approach to categorizing human population groups is now considered to be misguided and biologically meaningless due to the close genetic similarity and complex interrelationships between these groups.^[7]^[8]^[9]

The term was formerly adopted by various racist and antisemitic writers such as Arthur de Gobineau, Richard Wagner and Houston Stewart Chamberlain during the nineteenth century,^[10] whose scientific racism influenced the Nazi racial ideology.^[11] By the 1930s, the concept had been associated with Nazism and Nordicism,^[12] and used to support the white supremacist ideology of Aryanism which portrayed the Aryan race as a "master race,"^[13] with non-Aryans as racially inferior (Untermensch) and an existential threat to be exterminated.^[14] Under Nazi rule, these ideas formed an essential part of the state ideology that led to the Holocaust.^[15]^[16]

Etymology

The term Aryan has generally been used to describe the Proto-Indo-Iranian language root *arya which was the ethnonym the Indo-Iranians adopted to describe Aryans. Its cognate in Sanskrit is the word ārya (Devanāgarī: आर्य), in origin an ethnic self-designation, in Classical Sanskrit meaning "honourable, respectable, noble".^[17]^[18] The Old Persian cognate ariya- (Old Persian cuneiform: 𐎠𐎼𐎡𐎹) is the ancestor of the modern name of Iran and ethnonym for the Iranian people.^[19]

The term Indo-Aryan is still commonly used to describe the Indic half of the Indo-Iranian languages, i.e., the family that includes Sanskrit and modern languages such as Hindi-Urdu, Bengali, Odia Nepali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Romani, Kashmiri, Sinhala and Marathi.^[20]

History

In the 18th century, the most ancient known Indo-European languages were those of the ancient Indo-Iranians. The word Aryan was therefore adopted to refer not only to the Indo-Iranian peoples, but also to native Indo-European speakers as a whole, including the Romans, Greeks, and the Germanic peoples. It was soon recognised that Balts, Celts, and Slavs also belonged to the same group. It was argued that all of these languages originated from a common root – now known as Proto-Indo-European – spoken by an ancient people who were thought of as ancestors of the European, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan peoples.

In the context of 19th-century physical anthropology and scientific racism, the term "Aryan race" came to be misapplied to all people descended from the Proto-Indo-Europeans – a subgroup of the Europid or "Caucasian" race,^[21]^[22] in addition to the Indo-Iranians (who are the only people known to have used Arya as an endonym in ancient times). This usage was considered to include most modern inhabitants of Australasia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, Siberia, South Asia, Southern Africa, and West Asia.^[23] Such claims became increasingly common during the early 19th century, when it was commonly believed that the Aryans originated in the south-west Eurasian steppes (present-day Russia and Ukraine).

Max Müller is often identified as the first writer to mention an "Aryan race" in English. In his Lectures on the Science of Language (1861),^[24] Müller referred to Aryans as a "race of people". At the time, the term race had the meaning of "a group of tribes or peoples, an ethnic group".^[25] He occasionally used the term "Aryan race" afterwards,^[26] but wrote in 1888 that "an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar".^[27]

While the "Aryan race" theory remained popular, particularly in Germany, some authors opposed it, in particular Otto Schrader, Rudolph von Jhering and the ethnologist Robert Hartmann (1831–1893), who proposed to ban the notion of "Aryan" from anthropology.^[24]

Müller's concept of Aryan was later construed to imply a biologically distinct sub-group of humanity, by writers such as Arthur de Gobineau, who argued that the Aryans represented a superior branch of humanity. Müller objected to the mixing of linguistics and anthropology. "These two sciences, the Science of Language and the Science of Man, cannot, at least for the present, be kept too much asunder; [...] I must repeat, what I have said many times before, it would be as wrong to speak of Aryan blood as of dolichocephalic grammar".^[28] He restated his opposition to this method in 1888 in his essay Biographies of words and the home of the Aryas.^[24]

By the late 19th century the steppe theory of Indo-European origins was challenged by a view that the Indo-Europeans originated in ancient Germany or Scandinavia – or at least that in those countries the original Indo-European ethnicity had been preserved. The word Aryan was consequently used even more restrictively – and even less in keeping with its Indo-Iranian origins – to mean "Germanic", "Nordic" or Northern Europeans.^[29] This implied division of Caucasoids into Aryans, Semites and Hamites was also based on linguistics, rather than based on physical anthropology; it paralleled an archaic tripartite division in anthropology between "Nordic", "Alpine" and "Mediterranean" races.^{[citation needed]} The German origin of the Aryans was especially promoted by the archaeologist Gustaf Kossinna, who claimed that the Proto-Indo-European peoples were identical to the Corded Ware culture of Neolithic Germany. This idea was widely circulated in both intellectual and popular culture by the early twentieth century,^[30] and is reflected in the concept of "Corded-Nordics" in Carleton S. Coon's 1939 The Races of Europe.^{[citation needed]}

This usage was common among knowledgeable authors writing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An example of this usage appears in The Outline of History, a bestselling 1920 work by H. G. Wells.^[31] In that influential volume, Wells used the term in the plural ("the Aryan peoples"), but he was a staunch opponent of the racist and politically motivated exploitation of the singular term ("the Aryan people") by earlier authors like Houston Stewart Chamberlain and was careful either to avoid the generic singular, though he did refer now and again in the singular to some specific "Aryan people" (e.g., the Scythians). In 1922, in A Short History of the World, Wells depicted a highly diverse group of various "Aryan peoples" learning "methods of civilization" and then, by means of different uncoordinated movements that Wells believed were part of a larger dialectical rhythm of conflict between settled civilizations and nomadic invaders that also encompassed Aegean and Mongol peoples inter alia, "subjugat[ing]" – "in form" but not in "ideas and methods" – "the whole ancient world, Semitic, Aegean and Egyptian alike".^[32]

In the 1944 edition of Rand McNally's World Atlas, the Aryan race is depicted as one of the ten major racial groupings of mankind.^[33] The science fiction author Poul Anderson, an anti-racist libertarian of Scandinavian ancestry, in his many works, consistently used the term Aryan as a synonym for "Indo-Europeans".^[34]

The use of "Aryan" as a synonym for Indo -European may occasionally appear in material that is based on historic scholarship. Thus, a 1989 article in Scientific American, Colin Renfrew uses the term "Aryan" as a synonym for "Indo-European".^[35]

The Aryan race in Nazi racial theories

The Nazi Party in Germany claimed to observe a strict scientific hierarchy of the human race. Adolf Hitler's view towards race and people can be found throughout his book Mein Kampf, but specifically in chapter 11 "Nation and Race". Hitler made references to an "Aryan race" founding a superior type of humanity. The purest stock of Aryans according to Nazi ideology was the Nordic people of Germany, England, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. The Nazis defined Nordics as being identified by tall stature (average 175 cm), long faces, prominent chins, narrow and straight noses with a low bridge, lean builds, doliocephalic skulls, straight light hair, light eyes, and fair skin.^[36] The Nazis claimed that Germanic people specifically represented a southern branch of the Aryan-Nordic population.^[37] The Nazis did not consider all Germans to be of the Nordic type (which predominated the north), and stated that Germany also had a large "Alpine" population (identified by, among other features, lower stature, stocky builds, flatter noses, and higher incidences of darker hair and eyes). Hitler and Nazi racial theorist Hans F. K. Günther framed this as an issue to be corrected through selective breeding for "Nordic" traits.^[38]^[39] Hitler Youth propaganda emphasized the "Nordic" nature of Germans, with the text issued to all Hitler Youth members stating: "the principal ingredient of our people is the Nordic race (55%). That is not to say that half our people are pure Nordics. All of the aforementioned races appear in mixtures in all parts of our fatherland. The circumstance, however, that the great part of our people is of Nordic descent justifies us taking a Nordic standpoint when evaluating our character and spirit, bodily structure, and physical beauty."^[40]

These Nazi views of the superiority of the "Aryan race" and the inferiority of other races, especially the Slavic people, black people, "Gypsies" and, at the bottom of the scale, Jews became the basis for German national social policies once Hitler became Chancellor and then "Führer" of the country. They were also a major factor in Hitler's invasions of Poland and the USSR, and they resulted in the Holocaust and the killing of many millions of people, including 6 million Jews.

References

^ Knight Dunlap (October 1944). "The Great Aryan Myth". The Scientific Monthly. 59 (4). American Association for the Advancement of Science: 296–300.
^ Arvindsson, Stefan (15 September 2006). Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. University of Chicago Press. pp. 13–50. ISBN 9780226028606.
^ Arvidsson 2006:298 Arvidsson, Stefan (2006), Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, translated by Sonia Wichmann, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
^ Ramaswamy, Sumathi (June 2001). "Remains of the race: Archaeology, nationalism, and the yearning for civilisation in the Indus valley". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 38 (2): 105–145. doi:10.1177/001946460103800201. ISSN 0019-4646. S2CID 145756604.
^ Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.:1994--Merriam-Webster See original definition (definition #1) of "Aryan" in English--Page 66
^ Pattanaik, Devdutt (27 March 2016). "Leveraging the Aryans". www.mid-day.com. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
^ Templeton, A. (2016). "Evolution and Notions of Human Race". In Losos, J.; Lenski, R. (eds.). How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. pp. 346–361. doi:10.2307/j.ctv7h0s6j.26. ... the answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no.
^ Wagner, Jennifer K.; Yu, Joon-Ho; Ifekwunigwe, Jayne O.; Harrell, Tanya M.; Bamshad, Michael J.; Royal, Charmaine D. (February 2017). "Anthropologists' views on race, ancestry, and genetics". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 162 (2): 318–327. doi:10.1002/ajpa.23120. PMC 5299519. PMID 27874171.
^ American Association of Physical Anthropologists (27 March 2019). "AAPA Statement on Race and Racism". American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
^ Paul B. Rich (1998). "Racial ideas and the impact of imperialism in Europe". The European Legacy. 3 (1): 30-33. doi:10.1080/10848779808579862.
^ David W. Anthony (2007). The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press. pp. 300–400. ISBN 978-0-691-14818-2.
^ Gregor, A James (1961). "Nordicism Revisted". Phylon. 22 (4): 352–360. doi:10.2307/273538. JSTOR 273538.
^ Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0195137779.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-516947-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
^ Longerich, Peter (5 April 2010). Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191613470.
^ Gordon, Sarah Ann (1984). Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Question". Mazal Holocaust Collection. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 96. ISBN 0-691-05412-6. OCLC 9946459.
^ "Aryan". Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
^ Monier-Williams (1899).
^ "Monier Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (2008 revision)". UNIVERSITÄT ZU KÖLN. Retrieved 25 July 2010.
^ Bailey, H.W. "Arya". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
^ Fortson, Benjamin W. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. 2nd ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, paras. 10.28 and 10.58.
^ Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.:1994--Merriam-Webster Page 66
^ Widney, Joseph P Race Life of the Aryan Peoples New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1907 In Two Volumes: Volume One--The Old World Volume Two--The New World ISBN B000859S6O
^ Rand McNally's World Atlas International Edition Chicago:1944 Rand McNally Map: "Races of Mankind" pp. 278–279.
^ ^a ^b ^c Andrea Orsucci, "Ariani, indogermani, stirpi mediterranee: aspetti del dibattito sulle razze europee (1870-1914) Archived 2002-03-10 at the Wayback Machine", in Cromohs, 1998 (in Italian)
^ OED under race, n.⁶ I.1.c has "A group of several tribes or peoples, regarded as forming a distinct ethnic set. Esp. used in 19th-cent. anthropological classification, sometimes in conjunction with linguistic groupings."
^ Romila Thapar, "The Theory of Aryan Race and India: History and Politics," Social Scientist 24.1/3 (Jan.–Mar. 1996), 6. Thapar cites an 1883 lecture in which Mueller spoke of someone as "belonging to the south-eastern branch of the Aryan race."
^ F. Max Müller, Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas (1888), Kessinger Publishing reprint, 2004, p. 120; Dorothy Matilda Figueira, Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority Through Myths of Identity (SUNY Press, 2002), p. 45.
^ Speech before the University of Stassbourg, 1872, Chaudhuri, Nirad, Scholar Extraordinary: The Life of Professor the Rt. Hon. Friedrich Max Muller, Chatto and Windus, 1974, p.313
^ Vacher de Lapouge (trans Clossen, C), Georges (1899). "Old and New Aspects of the Aryan Question". The American Journal of Sociology. 5 (3): 329–346. doi:10.1086/210895.
^ Arvidsson, Stefan (2006). Aryan Idols. USA: University of Chicago Press, 143. ISBN 0-226-02860-7.
^ Wells, H.G. The Outline of History, 3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1921), Ch. 20 ("The Aryan-Speaking Peoples in Prehistoric Times"), pp. 236-51.
^ "H.G. Wells in 1922 on the early history of "the Aryan peoples" (Proto-Indo Europeans)". bartleby.com. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
^ Rand McNally (1944) "Races of Mankind" (map)Rand McNally's World Atlas International Edition Chicago: Rand McNally. pp.278–79 – In the explanatory section below the map, the Aryan race (the word "Aryan" being defined in the description below the map as a synonym for "Indo-Europeans") is described as being one of the ten major racial groupings of mankind. Each of the ten racial groupings is depicted in a different color on the map and the estimated populations in 1944 of the larger racial groups except the Dravidians are given (the Dravidian population in 1944 would have been about 70,000,000). The other nine groups are depicted as being the Semitic race (the Aryans (850,000,000) and the Semites (70,000,000) are described as being the two main branches of the Caucasian race), the Dravidian race, the Mongolian race (700,000,000), the Malayan race (Correct population given on page 413 – 64,000,000 including besides the populations of the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, and Madagascar also half of the Malay States, Micronesia, and Polynesia), the American Indian race (10,000,000), the Negro race (140,000,000), the Native Australians, the Papuans, and the Hottentots and Bushmen.
^ See, for example, the Poul Anderson short stories in the 1964 collection Time and Stars and the Polesotechnic League stories featuring Nicholas van Rijn
^ Renfrew, Colin. (1989). The Origins of Indo-European Languages. /Scientific American/, 261(4), 82-90.
^ Bytwerk, Randall. "The German National Catechism". German Propaganda Archive (Calvin University). translating May, Werner (1934). Deutscher National-katechismus: Dem jungen Deutschen in Schule und Beruf [German National Catechism: Young Germans in School and Work] (in German). Breslau: Verlag von Heinrich Handel. pp. 22–26.
^ Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. p. 240.
^ Günther (1927), p.97.
^ Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. p. 247.
^ Harwood L. Childs (translator). "The Nazi Primer." New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1938. Page 34.

External links

[1] Knight Dunlap (October 1944). "The Great Aryan Myth". The Scientific Monthly. 59 (4). American Association for the Advancement of Science: 296–300.

[autogenerated12-2] Arvindsson, Stefan (15 September 2006). Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science. University of Chicago Press. pp. 13–50. ISBN 9780226028606.

[autogenerated1-3] Arvidsson 2006:298 Arvidsson, Stefan (2006), Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, translated by Sonia Wichmann, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

[4] Ramaswamy, Sumathi (June 2001). "Remains of the race: Archaeology, nationalism, and the yearning for civilisation in the Indus valley". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 38 (2): 105–145. doi:10.1177/001946460103800201. ISSN 0019-4646. S2CID 145756604.

[5] Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.:1994--Merriam-Webster See original definition (definition #1) of "Aryan" in English--Page 66

[6] Pattanaik, Devdutt (27 March 2016). "Leveraging the Aryans". www.mid-day.com. Retrieved 27 February 2022.

[7] Templeton, A. (2016). "Evolution and Notions of Human Race". In Losos, J.; Lenski, R. (eds.). How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. pp. 346–361. doi:10.2307/j.ctv7h0s6j.26. ... the answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no.

[8] Wagner, Jennifer K.; Yu, Joon-Ho; Ifekwunigwe, Jayne O.; Harrell, Tanya M.; Bamshad, Michael J.; Royal, Charmaine D. (February 2017). "Anthropologists' views on race, ancestry, and genetics". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 162 (2): 318–327. doi:10.1002/ajpa.23120. PMC 5299519. PMID 27874171.

[9] American Association of Physical Anthropologists (27 March 2019). "AAPA Statement on Race and Racism". American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Retrieved 19 June 2020.

[10] Paul B. Rich (1998). "Racial ideas and the impact of imperialism in Europe". The European Legacy. 3 (1): 30-33. doi:10.1080/10848779808579862.

[11] David W. Anthony (2007). The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press. pp. 300–400. ISBN 978-0-691-14818-2.

[12] Gregor, A James (1961). "Nordicism Revisted". Phylon. 22 (4): 352–360. doi:10.2307/273538. JSTOR 273538.

[13] Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0195137779.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-516947-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

[14] Longerich, Peter (5 April 2010). Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191613470.

[15] Gordon, Sarah Ann (1984). Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Question". Mazal Holocaust Collection. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 96. ISBN 0-691-05412-6. OCLC 9946459.

[16] "Aryan". Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 25 February 2022.

[17] Monier-Williams (1899).

[18] "Monier Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (2008 revision)". UNIVERSITÄT ZU KÖLN. Retrieved 25 July 2010.

[19] Bailey, H.W. "Arya". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 21 April 2018.

[20] Fortson, Benjamin W. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. 2nd ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, paras. 10.28 and 10.58.

[21] Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.:1994--Merriam-Webster Page 66

[22] Widney, Joseph P Race Life of the Aryan Peoples New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 1907 In Two Volumes: Volume One--The Old World Volume Two--The New World ISBN B000859S6O

[23] Rand McNally's World Atlas International Edition Chicago:1944 Rand McNally Map: "Races of Mankind" pp. 278–279.

[Orsucci-24] Andrea Orsucci, "Ariani, indogermani, stirpi mediterranee: aspetti del dibattito sulle razze europee (1870-1914) Archived 2002-03-10 at the Wayback Machine", in Cromohs, 1998 (in Italian)

[25] OED under race, n.⁶ I.1.c has "A group of several tribes or peoples, regarded as forming a distinct ethnic set. Esp. used in 19th-cent. anthropological classification, sometimes in conjunction with linguistic groupings."

[26] Romila Thapar, "The Theory of Aryan Race and India: History and Politics," Social Scientist 24.1/3 (Jan.–Mar. 1996), 6. Thapar cites an 1883 lecture in which Mueller spoke of someone as "belonging to the south-eastern branch of the Aryan race."

[27] F. Max Müller, Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas (1888), Kessinger Publishing reprint, 2004, p. 120; Dorothy Matilda Figueira, Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority Through Myths of Identity (SUNY Press, 2002), p. 45.

[28] Speech before the University of Stassbourg, 1872, Chaudhuri, Nirad, Scholar Extraordinary: The Life of Professor the Rt. Hon. Friedrich Max Muller, Chatto and Windus, 1974, p.313

[29] Vacher de Lapouge (trans Clossen, C), Georges (1899). "Old and New Aspects of the Aryan Question". The American Journal of Sociology. 5 (3): 329–346. doi:10.1086/210895.

[30] Arvidsson, Stefan (2006). Aryan Idols. USA: University of Chicago Press, 143. ISBN 0-226-02860-7.

[31] Wells, H.G. The Outline of History, 3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1921), Ch. 20 ("The Aryan-Speaking Peoples in Prehistoric Times"), pp. 236-51.

[bartleby-32] "H.G. Wells in 1922 on the early history of "the Aryan peoples" (Proto-Indo Europeans)". bartleby.com. Retrieved 16 August 2015.

[33] Rand McNally (1944) "Races of Mankind" (map)Rand McNally's World Atlas International Edition Chicago: Rand McNally. pp.278–79 – In the explanatory section below the map, the Aryan race (the word "Aryan" being defined in the description below the map as a synonym for "Indo-Europeans") is described as being one of the ten major racial groupings of mankind. Each of the ten racial groupings is depicted in a different color on the map and the estimated populations in 1944 of the larger racial groups except the Dravidians are given (the Dravidian population in 1944 would have been about 70,000,000). The other nine groups are depicted as being the Semitic race (the Aryans (850,000,000) and the Semites (70,000,000) are described as being the two main branches of the Caucasian race), the Dravidian race, the Mongolian race (700,000,000), the Malayan race (Correct population given on page 413 – 64,000,000 including besides the populations of the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, and Madagascar also half of the Malay States, Micronesia, and Polynesia), the American Indian race (10,000,000), the Negro race (140,000,000), the Native Australians, the Papuans, and the Hottentots and Bushmen.

[34] See, for example, the Poul Anderson short stories in the 1964 collection Time and Stars and the Polesotechnic League stories featuring Nicholas van Rijn

[35] Renfrew, Colin. (1989). The Origins of Indo-European Languages. /Scientific American/, 261(4), 82-90.

[36] Bytwerk, Randall. "The German National Catechism". German Propaganda Archive (Calvin University). translating May, Werner (1934). Deutscher National-katechismus: Dem jungen Deutschen in Schule und Beruf [German National Catechism: Young Germans in School and Work] (in German). Breslau: Verlag von Heinrich Handel. pp. 22–26.

[:0-37] Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. p. 240.

[38] Günther (1927), p.97.

[39] Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. p. 247.

[auto-40] Harwood L. Childs (translator). "The Nazi Primer." New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1938. Page 34.

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 The '''Aryan race''' is an obsolete [[historical race concepts|historical race concept]] which emerged in the late 19th-century to describe people of [[Proto-Indo-Europeans|Indo-European]] heritage as a [[Race (human categorization)|racial grouping]].<ref>{{cite journal | title=The Great Aryan Myth|author=[[Knight Dunlap]]|volume=59|number=4|date=October 1944|journal=[[The Scientific Monthly]]|publisher=[[American Association for the Advancement of Science]]|url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/18253|pages=296-300}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated12">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.ca/books/about/Aryan_Idols.html?id=idTPDI6l0mkC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y|pages=13-50|publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|first=Stefan|last=Arvindsson|date=15 September 2006|title=Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science|isbn= 9780226028606}}</ref> [[Anthropology|Anthropological]], [[History|historical]] and [[Archaeology|archaeological]] evidence do not support the validity of this concept.<ref name=autogenerated1>Arvidsson 2006:298 Arvidsson, Stefan (2006), Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, translated by Sonia Wichmann, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ramaswamy|first=Sumathi|date=June 2001|title=Remains of the race: Archaeology, nationalism, and the yearning for civilisation in the Indus valley|journal=The Indian Economic & Social History Review|volume=38|issue=2|pages=105–145|doi=10.1177/001946460103800201|s2cid=145756604|issn=0019-4646}}</ref>
-The concept derives from the notion that the [[Proto-Indo-Europeans|original speakers of the Indo-European languages]] and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or belonging to a subrace of the obsolete racial group of [[Caucasian race]], alongside the [[Semitic race]] and the [[Hamitic race]].<ref>Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief ''Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary'' Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.:1994--Merriam-Webster See original definition (definition #1) of "Aryan" in English--Page 66</ref> This [[Taxonomy (biology)|taxonomic]] approach to categorizing human population groups is now considered to be misguided and biologically meaningless due to the close [[Race_and_genetics|genetic]] similarity and complex interrelationships between these groups.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Templeton, A.|title=How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2016|editor1=Losos, J.|place=Princeton; Oxford|pages=346–361|chapter=Evolution and Notions of Human Race|doi=10.2307/j.ctv7h0s6j.26|quote=... the answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no.|editor2=Lenski, R.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Wagner|first1=Jennifer K.|last2=Yu|first2=Joon-Ho|last3=Ifekwunigwe|first3=Jayne O.|last4=Harrell|first4=Tanya M.|last5=Bamshad|first5=Michael J.|last6=Royal|first6=Charmaine D.|date=February 2017|title=Anthropologists' views on race, ancestry, and genetics|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|volume=162|issue=2|pages=318–327|doi=10.1002/ajpa.23120|pmc=5299519|pmid=27874171}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|author=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|author-link=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|date=27 March 2019|title=AAPA Statement on Race and Racism|url=https://physanth.org/about/position-statements/aapa-statement-race-and-racism-2019/|access-date=19 June 2020|website=American Association of Physical Anthropologists}}</ref>
+The concept derives from the notion that the [[Proto-Indo-Europeans|original speakers of the Indo-European languages]] and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or belonging to a subrace of the obsolete racial group of [[Caucasian race]], alongside the [[Semitic race]] and the [[Hamitic race]].<ref>Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief ''Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary'' Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.:1994--Merriam-Webster See original definition (definition #1) of "Aryan" in English--Page 66</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Pattanaik |first1=Devdutt |author1-link=Devdutt Pattanaik |title=Leveraging the Aryans |url=https://www.mid-day.com/news/india-news/article/devdutt-pattanaik--leveraging-the-aryans-17076154 |website=www.mid-day.com |access-date=27 February 2022 |language=en |date=27 March 2016}}</ref> This [[Taxonomy (biology)|taxonomic]] approach to categorizing human population groups is now considered to be misguided and biologically meaningless due to the close [[Race_and_genetics|genetic]] similarity and complex interrelationships between these groups.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Templeton, A.|title=How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2016|editor1=Losos, J.|place=Princeton; Oxford|pages=346–361|chapter=Evolution and Notions of Human Race|doi=10.2307/j.ctv7h0s6j.26|quote=... the answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no.|editor2=Lenski, R.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Wagner|first1=Jennifer K.|last2=Yu|first2=Joon-Ho|last3=Ifekwunigwe|first3=Jayne O.|last4=Harrell|first4=Tanya M.|last5=Bamshad|first5=Michael J.|last6=Royal|first6=Charmaine D.|date=February 2017|title=Anthropologists' views on race, ancestry, and genetics|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|volume=162|issue=2|pages=318–327|doi=10.1002/ajpa.23120|pmc=5299519|pmid=27874171}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|author=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|author-link=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|date=27 March 2019|title=AAPA Statement on Race and Racism|url=https://physanth.org/about/position-statements/aapa-statement-race-and-racism-2019/|access-date=19 June 2020|website=American Association of Physical Anthropologists}}</ref>
 The term was formerly adopted by various [[racist]] and [[Antisemitism|antisemitic]] writers such as [[Arthur de Gobineau]], [[Richard Wagner]] and [[Houston Stewart Chamberlain]] during the nineteenth century,<ref>{{cite journal |author=Paul B. Rich |year=1998 |title=Racial ideas and the impact of imperialism in Europe |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10848779808579862 |journal=[[The European Legacy]] |volume=3 |issue=1 |page=30-33 |doi=10.1080/10848779808579862}}</ref> whose [[scientific racism]] influenced the [[Nazism and race|Nazi racial ideology]].<ref>{{cite book |author=[[David W. Anthony]] |title=[[The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World]] |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-691-14818-2 |pages=300-400}}</ref> By the 1930s, the concept had been associated with [[Nazism]] and [[Nordicism]],<ref>{{cite journal| last = Gregor| first = A James | title = Nordicism Revisted | journal = Phylon | volume = 22| issue = 4 | pages = 352–360| year = 1961 |jstor= 273538 | doi =10.2307/273538}}</ref> and used to support the [[White supremacy|white supremacist]] ideology of [[Aryanism]] which portrayed the Aryan race as a "[[master race]],"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bryant |first=Edwin |url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195137779.001.0001/acprof-9780195137774 |title=The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate |date=2001 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-19-516947-8 |doi=10.1093/0195137779.001.0001 |author-link=Edwin Bryant (author)}}</ref> with non-Aryans as [[Racial hierarchy|racially inferior]] (''[[Untermensch]]'') and an existential threat to be [[Final_Solution|exterminated]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Longerich |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.ca/books/about/Holocaust.html?id=rLy80aq8tR8C&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y |title=Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews |date=5 April 2010 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=9780191613470 |author-link=Peter Longerich}}</ref> Under [[Nazi Germany|Nazi rule]], these ideas formed an essential part of the state ideology that led to [[the Holocaust]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gordon|first=Sarah Ann|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9946459|title=Hitler, Germans, and the "Jewish Question"|date=1984|publisher=Princeton University Press|others=Mazal Holocaust Collection|isbn=0-691-05412-6|location=Princeton, N.J.|pages=96|oclc=9946459}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/aryan-1|publisher=[[Holocaust Encyclopedia]], [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]]|title=Aryan|access-date=25 February 2022}}</ref>

v t e Historical definitions of race
Scientific racism
Color terminology	Black Bronze Brown Olive Red White
Historical concepts	Australoid Capoid Caucasoid Alpine Arabid Armenoid Aryan Atlantid Caspian Dinaric East Baltic Ethiopid Hamites Indid Iranid Mediterranean Nordic Pamirid Semites Turanid Malay Mongoloid Proto-Mongoloid Sinodonty and Sundadonty Negroid Negrito
Sociological	By region in India in Latin America in Brazil in Colombia in Singapore in the United States Passing Racial discrimination Racism Racial stereotypes Colorism Master race Nazism and race Racial hygiene Whiteness studies Négritude
Writers	Louis Agassiz John Baker Erwin Baur John Beddoe Robert Bennett Bean François Bernier Renato Biasutti Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Franz Boas Daniel Garrison Brinton Paul Broca Alice Mossie Brues Halfdan Bryn Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Charles Caldwell Petrus Camper Samuel A. Cartwright Houston Stewart Chamberlain Sonia Mary Cole Carleton S. Coon Georges Cuvier Jan Czekanowski Charles Davenport Joseph Deniker Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt Anténor Firmin Eugen Fischer Francis Galton Stanley Marion Garn Reginald Ruggles Gates George Gliddon Arthur de Gobineau Madison Grant John Grattan Hans F. K. Günther Ernst Haeckel Frederick Ludwig Hoffman Earnest Hooton Julian Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley Calvin Ira Kephart Robert Knox Robert E. Kuttner Georges Vacher de Lapouge Fritz Lenz Carl Linnaeus Cesare Lombroso Bertil Lundman Felix von Luschan Dominick McCausland John Mitchell Ashley Montagu Lewis H. Morgan Samuel George Morton Josiah C. Nott Karl Pearson Roger Pearson Oscar Peschel Isaac La Peyrère Charles Pickering Ludwig Hermann Plate Alfred Ploetz James Cowles Prichard Otto Reche Gustaf Retzius William Z. Ripley Alfred Rosenberg Benjamin Rush Henric Sanielevici Heinrich Schmidt Ilse Schwidetzky Charles Gabriel Seligman Giuseppe Sergi Samuel Stanhope Smith Herbert Spencer Morris Steggerda Lothrop Stoddard William Graham Sumner Thomas Griffith Taylor Paul Topinard John H. Van Evrie Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer Alexander Winchell Ludwig Woltmann
Publications	An Essay upon the Causes of the Different Colours of People in Different Climates (1744) The Outline of History of Mankind (1785) Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question (1849) An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1855) The Races of Europe (Ripley, 1899) The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899) Race Life of the Aryan Peoples (1907) Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1911) Castes in India (1916) The Passing of the Great Race (1916) The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920) The Myth of the Twentieth Century (1930) Annihilation of Caste (1936) The Races of Europe (Coon, 1939) An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus (1943) The Race Question (1950)
Related	Ethnogenesis Eugenics Great chain of being History of anthropometry Miscegenation Monogenism Multiracial Polygenism Pre-Adamite Pre-modern conceptions of whiteness