Alan
Elite member
- Messages
- 2,517
- Reaction score
- 450
- Points
- 0
- Ethnic group
- Kurdish
- Y-DNA haplogroup
- R1a1a1
- mtDNA haplogroup
- HV2a1 +G13708A
It's not surprising. Peoples' or tribes' names are often defined by outsiders to distinguish them from themselves. For example, I doubt that the Lombards (Langobardi or "long beards") gave themselves that name. If they had a tradition if letting their beards grow longer than average, then other tribes would have defined them as the 'long beards'. The same would have happened with the Albans or 'white people' when the Proto-Indo-Europeans started invading Europe and the Middle East. Descriptive names only work if they are used to contrast against other tribes/peoples, and therefore very often the name is bestowed by outsiders. In the case of Aryan, the term was apparently applied only to the Indo-Iranian R1a tribes when they invaded Central, South and West Asia.
Indeed it is not even clear if Aryan is solely Indo European. For example the Hurrian are said to have been called Harri or Ari which is believe to be another version of the very same name "Arian/Aryan".
Now we still don't know what kind of language the Hurrians spoke there are mere speculations that it shows some affinities to Northeast Caucasic (Lezgian) language, other believe it is isolated (for me isolated simply means A. either linguists couldn't yet reconstruct the language properly because of lack of language samples or B. couldn't yet find any major relationship to modern languages).
I have already elaborated what kind of strong Indo European characteristics are found among Hurrians (Pre Mitanni dynasty). Among those Teshub the Thunder God who is equivalent to Zeus, Taranis, Tarhun and Thor but predates any of them.
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