Referensi epigraf paling awal yang membuktikan kata "Arya" muncul pada prasasti Behistun abad ke-6 SM.[1]
Ras Arya adalah kelompok ras yang muncul pada periode akhir abad ke-19 dan pertengahan abad ke-20 untuk menggolongkan orang-orang keturunan Indo-Eropa.[2]
Dalam World Atlas karya Rand McNally edisi 1944, ras Arya digambarkan sebagai salah satu dari sepuluh kelompok ras besar umat manusia.[7] Penulis fiksi ilmiah Poul Anderson, seorang tokoh libertarianisme anti-rasis berdarah Skandinavia, dalam banyak karyanya secara konsisten menggunakan istilah Arya sebagai sinonim untuk "Indo-Eropa".[8]
Ideologi Nazisme didasarkan pada konsep ras Arya kuno sebagai ras unggul, memegang posisi tertinggi dalam hierarki rasial dan menganggap bangsa Jerman adalah golongan ras Arya yang paling murni secara rasial.[9] Konsep Nazi mengenai ras Arya muncul dari para pendukung supremasi ras sesuai dengan yang dijelaskan oleh pakar teori rasial seperti Arthur de Gobineau dan Houston Stewart Chamberlain.[10]
^Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.:1994--Merriam-Webster See original definition (definition #1) of "Aryan" in English--Page 66
^Bailey, H.W. "Arya". Encyclopædia Iranica. Diakses tanggal April 21, 2018.
^Rand McNally (1944) "Races of Mankind" (map)Rand McNally's World Atlas International Edition Chicago: Rand McNally. pp.278–79 – In the explanatory section below the map, the Aryan race (the word "Aryan" being defined in the description below the map as a synonym for "Indo-Europeans") is described as being one of the ten major racial groupings of mankind. Each of the ten racial groupings is depicted in a different color on the map and the estimated populations in 1944 of the larger racial groups except the Dravidians are given (the Dravidian population in 1944 would have been about 70,000,000). The other nine groups are depicted as being the Semitic race (the Aryans (850,000,000) and the Semites (70,000,000) are described as being the two main branches of the Caucasian race), the Dravidian race, the Mongolian race (700,000,000), the Malayan race (Correct population given on page 413 – 64,000,000 including besides the populations of the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, and Madagascar also half of the Malay States, Micronesia, and Polynesia), the American Indian race (10,000,000), the Negro race (140,000,000), the Native Australians, the Papuans, and the Hottentots and Bushmen.
^See, for example, the Poul Anderson short stories in the 1964 collection Time and Stars and the Polesotechnic League stories featuring Nicholas van Rijn
