ARYAN RACE, a name sometimes applied to that particular ethnological division of man kind otherwise called Indo-European or Indo Germanic, but more properly to the Indo Iranian group alone. The Indo-European divi sion includes two branches, the western, which comprises the inhabitants of Europe, with the exception of the Turks, the Magyars of Hun gary, the Basques of the Pyrenees, and the Finns of Lapland, and the eastern, which com prehends those of Armenia, Persia, Afghanis tan and northern Hindustan. From a multitude of details it has been established that the origi nal mother tongue of all these peoples was the same. It is supposed that the Aryan nations were at first located somewhere in central Asia, probably east of the Caspian and north of the Hindu Kush and Paropamisan mountains. From this centre successive migrations took place toward the northwest. The first swarm formed the Celts, who at one time occupied a great part of Europe; at a considerably later epoch came the ancestors of the Italians, the Greeks, and the Teutonic people. The stream that formed the Slavonic nations is thought to have taken the route by the north of the Cas pian. At a later period the remnant of the
primitive stock would seem to have broken up. Part passed southward and became the dom inant race in the valley of the Ganges, while the rest settled in Persia and became the Medes and Persians of history. It is from these east ern members that the whole family takes its name. In the most ancient Sanskrit writings (the Veda) the Hindus style themselves Aryas, the word signifying "excellent," °honorable,* on "lord of the soil." Bibliography.— Burge, L., 'Pre-glacial man and the Aryan Race' (Boston 1887) ; Cur zon, A., 'On the original extension of the Sans krit language over certain portions of Asia and Europe' (London 1856) ; Huxley, T. H., Place in Nature' (New York 1900) ; Sayce, A. H. (The Primitive Home of the Aryans' (Washington 1891) ; Taylor, Origin of the Aryans' (New York 1890) ; Widney, J. P., Life of the Aryan Peoples' (New York 1907).