The Aryans, Sanskrit Ārya, were a group who invaded India from the north around 1500 BC as recorded in the Rigveda, the earliest Indian literary work.
In Sanskrit, Ārya means noble. The Sanskrit word is derived from Ariya, a native name for Iran.[1]
A recent genetic study showed that the Brahmin caste, the highest Indian caste, is descended from the Yamnaya archaeological culture found north of the Black Sea.[2] The Yamnaya flourished from 3300–2600 BC. They are thought to have spoken Proto-Indo-European, the ancestral language of the Indo-European language family.
The Yamnaya were pastoralists who conquered various farming peoples of eastern Europe. They slaughtered the men of the farming communities and mated with the women. This resulted in the creation of the Corded Ware culture. This culture spread widely, causing Proto-Indo-European to fracture into proto-Germanic, proto-Baltic, and other ancestral languages. The easternmost branch of the Corded Ware culture became the Andronova culture, an archaeological culture of the central Asian steppe. This group is thought have spoken proto-Indo-Aryan and entered India by way of the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor. Indo-Aryan is a family of languages spoken in Iran and India.
Master Race
In modern usage, the word Aryan most commonly refers to Nordic people, especially those with blond hair and blue-eyes. This usage is somewhat removed from the historical and linguistic meaning of the term. It reflects the influence of Nazi "master race" ideology.
Due to the association with Nazi ideology, the word Aryan has slipped into disfavor. The term Aryan has also been used by Adolf Hitler and numerous other racialists to refer to what they believe to be the superior race of white, Nordic Europeans. The originator of the Aryan master race theory was French author Joseph Arthur de Gobineau.