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:
“I shall christen this style the Mandarin, since it is beloved by literary pundits, by those who would make the written word as unlike as possible to the spoken one. It is the style of all those writers whose tendency is to make their language convey more than they mean or more than they feel, it is the style of most artists and all humbugs.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)