IRA'NIAN, or ERANIAN. The term ap plied to peoples, sonic of which are now almost or altogether extinct, speaking languages belong ing to the Aryan stock, and inhabiting the plateau lying between Asia Minor and the Cas pian on the west and the Hindu Kush Mountains on the east (of which modern Persia forms the chief part). The chief Iranian peoples are the Persians (Tajiks of the East ; Hajemis of the Caspian littoral, and the Teheran-Ispahan coun try; Parsis, now principally resident in Western India. but also in the region between Ispahan and the Persian Gulf). ancient and modern, and the old Baetrians, whose descendants are said to speak still a purer Persian than that in vogue in Persia itself, together with the partly civilized Kurds; while the Tats and Azerbaijanis, the Saris of Russian Turkestan, and certain portions of the population of Afghanistan, Baluchistan, etc., are physically Persians who speak, more or less, Turkic dialects. Earlier authorities classed the Armenians and the Ossetes with the Iranians, but it is better to regard these two as independent members of the Aryan stock. The mass of the Aryan tribes of Afghanistan and Baluchistan, by sonic considered Iranian, show on the whole greater affinities with the Aryans of Hindustan. The Golehas of Pamir are rather an independent Aryan branch than a subdivision of the Iranians. From the dawn of history the land from the borders of Asia Minor to the moun tains of Pamir has been inhabited, generally speaking, by tribes and nations of Aryan stock, and chiefly of the variety called Iranian. Even beyond the Oxus, the traditional frontier between Iran and Turan. Iranian culture, old and new, can be traced beyond the borders of China, and no doubt some of the nomad hordes who hovered al out Western Europe were not all Turanian in their make-up. Within the Iranian area many blends exist. Besides the descendants of the Aryan Diodes and Persians of a fairly pure strain, and the purer Eastern Iranians. almost. every people of Asia Minor and of Central Asia has added its quota to the hybrid populations. Mon gelian, Arabian, Turkish conquests. and the com mercial and colonizing instincts of Jews, Arme nians. natives of the Caucasus, etc., have also contributed their share to the mixture. War,
slavery, and peaceful nomadism have likewise helped, both in ancient and in modern times. The range of culture of the Iranians is very exten sive, reaching from the civilizations of ancient Pactrians, Mules, and Persians (and their mod ern representatives) to the half-savage seclusion and isolation of some of the small hill-com /nullities. Most authorities do not assign to the Iranians as high a rank intellectually as is possessed by the Aryans of India or by the Semites, to say nothing of the Aryans of Europe. The situation of the plateau of Iran between India and China on the one hand and Asia Minor and Arabia on the other has made it it evitably an absorber and a transmitter of cul ture, a highway of commerce, and a theatre of religious disputes. The great mass of the Ira nians are now professors of Islam. but of the Shiite or 'unorthodox' sort, a protest, as it were, of the Aryan against the Semitic mind. The ancient Aryan religion. Zoroastrianism. indige nous to the Eastern Iran, with its dualism and reverence of fire as the sacred symbol, exercised considerable influence upon the Hebrews. Some of the Iranians (Persians and Parsis in par ticular) have from time immemorial been de voted to commerce, and have spread Persian in fluence to the Red Sea on the west, and to the western shores of India. in the other direction, while northward they have carried it into Siberia and China. The best side of the Iranians of the present time is seen in the educational and charitable activities of the great Parsi mer chants of India, who in many respects are set ting examples for the whole world. The worst is seen in some of the aspects of Persian tyr anny. All grades between still exist here and there over the wide Iranian land. The Iranians in general are judged by Ripley to belong phys ically to the 'Mediterranean' race, their ideal type represented to a certain extent by the Farsis about the ancient Persepolis and the Luris of the mountains of Western Persia, having been modified in the southwest by the Semitic intruders, in the east and northeast (the mass of the people) by Mongolian admixture, and on the littoral of the Arabian Sea toward the southeast by Indian, or perhaps Negritie, addi tions. See IRANIAN LANGUAGES.