Aryans Belong to a Linguistic Group, not a Race

The common misconception that started in the nineteenth century and that unfortunately continues today is that Aryans are a race — it’s a pity that still, people consider ‘language groups’ and ‘races’ the same thing.

I am, for one, raised in America. I can speak English fluently as my one and only language. However, my parents are migrants from India who speak Hindi and Punjabi. Therefore, my race is ‘Indian’, so according to the Aryan misinterpretation, it is the same as the language that falls from my mouth — English. As the two have no co-relation, the ‘Aryan race’ can be proved false.

To be Aryan is to come from a language group. Your biological DNA is not Aryan. The culture you or your parents or further generations down that share the same DNA as you have been raised in and have a part in is Aryan.

You are not where you live. You are not where your family is from. To some degree, your DNA is from these places, yes, but these places are not Aryan.

It is a great failing in the modern day that despite our progress in dozens of other fields — biotechnology, artificial intelligence, etc. — we still have so much ignorance when it comes to our backgrounds. Yes, diversity is our strength — but first, we need to understand that diversity exists, and we need to make it so that instead of trying to hide diversity, we learn about it. The Aryan race is a false thing that needs to be explained and falsified to the world so that it becomes known that being Aryan isn’t a negative race, it’s a language. Few can deny that in this world, currently, acceptance of differences is a goal that nations and individuals alike are striving to reach.

Historian Romila Thapar says it best; “The difference between language and race is enormous. The two cannot be equated. Why? Because language is cultural. It is a functional construct deliberately forged by a society for communication and articulation. When a society wishes to communicate within itself or with other societies it invents language. When it wishes to express something it invents language. So it is a deliberate cultural construct– that is why a particular language has different forms and it varies from one social group to another. And when a person starts speaking in a language you can generally tell if you are familiar with the language which social group that person comes from. Race, on the other hand, is physical, biological descent. It has got nothing to do with social construction.”

Language is a way of communication, nothing more. While the way words move out of mouths may change with demographics, the purpose is the same; to find a way to talk to the other humans near you to ultimately survive. This is nothing wrong — this is what humanity is — and the Aryan people are like all the others, speaking a language group to survive through communication.