Pop Quiz

We all know about Hitler's infatuation with the Aryans Many people assume, therefore, that 'Aryans' means 'Germans' or 'Nordic' something of the sort.

So, today's quiz: what two modern countries take their name directly from the word 'Aryan'?

Comments

  1. Aryan nation and Aryanistan?

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  2. Rubes has gotten one correct (Iran).

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  3. Iran is right, but not Iraq. I didn't know there were two...

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  4. Is it one of the zillion names for India? I mean, it's not Pakistan or Afghanistan, so I can't think of what else it would be...

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  5. Bingo: Aryavarta. What do I win?

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  6. The other is Ossetia, right? It's Ir or Iryston in their language. The Ossetians are ancient cousins of the Persians and direct descendents of the Scythians.

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  7. Iran, ireland

    aryavarta is an old name for india

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  8. Ireland was the second, but someone alerted me to the fact that Wikipedia calls that etymology 'discredited' -- although with no references!

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  9. Brian N.8:33 PM

    Hmmm...the name of Ireland comes from Éire which, according to this dictionary also means 'burden' in Gaelic. According to another Wikipedia article (also without pertinent source citations, in this case not a single cite in the particular passage) Arya was an autonym of various Indus valley cultures. If there is some direct cultural or historical connection between the Indus valley civilizations who referred to themselves as such and one of the ancient tribes that settled in Ireland and gave it its name (the origins of the Celts, and even the descriptive value of the term 'Celt' itself, remain controversial subjects) then this discredit is itself incorrect and in dire need of its own discrediting. If we assume the traditional picture of the emergence of Celtic Ireland is valid, we would then be in the position of requiring a connection between the Halstatt and the Indus valley. As I'm not an expert in any of the relevant fields (I'm not an expert on anything at all, mind you, and if you told me I was not welcome to post here unless I was speaking within my own field, I'd have to shut up forever) I can only wonder. Sadly, the body of literature which might shed the best possible light on this subject is mostly lost to us.

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  10. Murray Tyson1:42 PM

    Michigan.

    Home of Karen DeCoster.

    And

    Alabama

    Home of Lew.

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  11. Brian, no one at all expert in these fields has any doubt of a common background of the "Aryans" of India and Iran and the Irish! They are all Indo-European people speaking languages with a single ancestor. And the name "Aryan" did not originate in the Indus Valley, but in the central Asian steppes.

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  12. Brian N.6:09 PM

    Not to be cute, but if one accepts certain theories as correct we're all at least cousins of relative distance and all life on earth is the descendant of the same 4-billion-year-old pool of extra special stink-water. The question is this; does the Irish word Éire come from the earlier word Arya? Again, I'm no expert. I possess none of the relevant training, but I can at least think clearly enough to frame a question or two. If you could present me with research, or a book discussing research, it would be of no use to me as I am in no position to evaluate it. From what little I have read the controversy over the terms Celt and Celtic deals with their usage being overly broad. In what sense, in what instances or where it was so used I could not say. To reiterate another point, if the answer to the question is yes then the Wikipedia article is in dire need of discrediting itself and the 'discredited' notion deserves front and center acknowledgment. It may have been Wikipedia where I read that statement about the Celts controversy.

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  13. "Not to be cute, but if one accepts certain theories as correct we're all at least cousins of relative distance and all life on earth is the descendant of the same 4-billion-year-old pool of extra special stink-water."

    Yes, but Hindi and Irish share obvious common roots for, say, the numbers one through ten -- which are not shared, say, by orangutans and slime molds.

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  14. scineram10:42 AM

    What did we do, TT?

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  15. scineram, if you`re referring to me (and not this blog`s listed TT Tom contributor), I`m afraid I`m not following you.

    If it`s unrelated to this thread, let me note that I am not treated as a welcome visitor here, so I have no desire to use any of Gene`s valuable web space on a threadjack.

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