arayan

Arayan is a term with multiple related senses, most commonly treated as a transliteration variant of Aryan. In historical and linguistic contexts, arayan refers to a label historically used to describe certain ancient Indo-Iranian peoples and their languages. The root is from the Sanskrit ārya meaning “noble” or “respected,” and the Avestan form airya shares the same origin. In ancient South Asian and Iranian sources, ārya was often a self-designation used by groups who saw themselves as noble, and it also appeared as a descriptor for a social or ethnic identity in classical texts.

In modern scholarship, Aryan was adopted in the 19th and early 20th centuries to denote a broad family of languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. Over time, the term acquired contentious associations through racial theories in the 20th century, leading contemporary linguists and historians to emphasize linguistic and cultural history rather than any racial classification. Today, terms such as Indo-Iranian or Indo-European are preferred for linguistic classification, while Aryan or arayan is typically reserved for historical or textual discussions or for specific proper names.

Other uses of arayan may include its appearance as a personal name or surname in various cultures, independent of the historical-linguistic sense. When used in text, clarity about the context—linguistic, historical, or onomastic—is important to avoid conflating distinct meanings.

See also: Aryan; Aryan (ethnolinguistic concept); Indo-Iranian languages.