Aryan language is a term not generally used by today's linguists merely for political reasons, but is encountered often in works published in the 19th century and most of the 20th century to mean:
- The Old Persian language
- The Vedic Sanskrit language
- The Proto-Indo-Iranian language
- Any of the Indo-Iranian languages
- In works published in the late 19th century and early 20th century, this term, or the term Proto-Aryan, was sometimes used to describe the Proto-Indo-European language.
- In works published in the late 19th century and early 20th century, this term in the plural was sometimes used as a synonym for the Indo-European languages
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“As in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must still more distinguish the language and the imaginary aspirations of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)