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"Aryan" (/ˈɛəriən, ˈɛərjən, ˈær-/)1 is a term meaning "noble" which was used as a self-designation by Indo-Iranian people. The word was used by the Indic people of the Vedic period in India as an ethnic label for themselves, as well as to refer to the noble class and geographic location known as Āryāvarta where Indo-Aryan culture was based.23 The closely related Iranian people also used the term as an ethnic label for themselves in the Avesta scriptures, and the word forms the etymological source of the country Iran.4567 It was believed in the 19th century that it was also a self-designation used by all Proto-Indo-Europeans, a theory that has now been abandoned.8 Scholars point out that, even in ancient times, the idea of being an "Aryan" was religious, cultural and linguistic, not racial.91011

Drawing on misinterpreted references in the Rig Veda by Western scholars in the 19th century, the term "Aryan" was adopted as a racial category through the work of Arthur de Gobineau, whose ideology of race was based on an idea of blonde northern European "Aryans" who had migrated across the world and founded all major civilizations, before being degraded through racial mixture with local populations

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