what does the Nazi term Aryan mean?

Answer 1

Aryan, as others have pointed out, is not a Nazi term.
How and why anyone in Germany ever thought of referring to themselves as Aryans is subject to much debate.
Basically, Aryan (also spelt Arian) is the race to which the majority of Persian people belong. It's an old Persian word meaning noble. Even the name Iran means Land of the Aryans. How (and why) the Nazis would suddenly decide to call themselves Aryans, beats me! Hundreds of books have been written on this issue. I'm sure you can find good sources on the web. The CAIS website (see link below) has good articles.

I am Darius the Great; King, King of Kings; King of countries containing all kinds of men; King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage." --Darius the Great (549 BC - 486 BC) of the Persian Empire

You may find this article http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Anthropology/aryans_origin.htm an intersting read.

Answer 2

It has meant many things over time. Initially it referred to Persians and their language and morphed into Iranian.

It then was a title of repect given to Hindus for noble deeds.

It was used to describe the earliest Indo-Europeans.

By 1900 it was taken to mean non-Jewish or gentile.

People also used the term to describe the white race but it fell out of favor because of the negative implications that Nazis put on it.

Nazis applied the term to anyone that they chose to perceive as being sufficiently nationalistic. The Gypsies were excluded but the Japanese were called Aryan. The blond haired blue eyed model was made popular because their ancestry was harder to doubt. Even Hitler smiled more when coming across a blond haired blue eyed man but dark haired dark eyed humans were not excluded from the Nazi model. The blond haired blue eyed image was magified by the west as being representaive of the Nazi Aryan race.

Now it is used to describe an exclusively white racial situation by hate groups like the Aryan Brother Hood and the KKK.

Answer 3

The Aryan race was a term used in the early 20th century by European racial theorists who believed strongly in the division of humanity into biologically distinct races with differing characteristics. Such writers took the view that the Proto-Indo-Europeans constituted a specific race that had expanded across Europe, Iran and India. This meaning was, and still is, common in theories of racial superiority which were embraced by Nazi Germany. This usage tends to merge the Avestan/Sanskrit meaning of "noble" or "elevated" with the idea of distinctive behavioral and ancestral ethnicity marked by language distribution. In this interpretation, the Aryan Race is both the highest representative of mankind and the purest descendent of the Proto-Indo-European population.

Answer 4

The "Aryan race" is a concept in European culture that was influential in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages constitute a distinctive race. In its best-known incarnation, under Nazism, it was argued that the earliest Aryans were identical to Nordic people
In its original meaning, in languages of the 3rd or 4th millennium BC, "aryan" may or may not have had any racial meaning, certainly not in the sense that we define race today. Its possible the term grew from a tribalist self-identity, until more recent racialist distortions, attempting to justify eugenics policies, colonialism and genocide.

Answer 5

The "Aryan race" is a concept in European culture that was influential in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages constitute a distinctive race. In its best-known incarnation, under Nazism, it was argued that the earliest Aryans were identical to Nordic people. Belief in the superiority of the "Aryan race" is sometimes referred to as Aryanism. This should not be confused with the unrelated Christian religious belief known as Arianism.

Answer 6

What Does Aryan Mean

Answer 7

Aryan didn't come from the Nazi's they just used it for people they thought were superior, blonde hair and blue eyes

Answer 8

An Aryan was (ideally) a person of pure German ancestry, who was tall, thin, blonde and blue-eyed. This definition could be changed, though, if say the person in question were Norwegian or Swedish (or some other European nationality).
People who were decidedly non-Aryan were the Roma (the Gypsies) and the Jews.

Answer 9

Aryan isn't a Nazi term.

It is "a member or descendant of the prehistoric people who spoke Indo-European."

Answer 10

aryan isn't a nazi term in the sense that they invented it. they did use it because they thought it meant their ideal person, a blue-eyed blonde. isn't it ironic that hitler led them, being a brown-eyed, brown-haired a**hole. :)

other people have already gone to wiki and defined aryan, so i'll let you read their stuff...