CapitalistImperialistPig

A nation isn't just land and laws, it also requires a mythology. To be glued together as one, people need excuses as to why they are exceptional. Consequently, it's customary to trace one's ancestry to others who can be imagined to be more glorious. Thus the Romans traced themselves back to Troy, Spanish aristocracy traced itself to the Visigoths, and the Nazis to the conquering Aryans, whom they imagined to look a lot like themselves. The word Aryan was the name the Vedic peoples of India gave themselves, and was also used by Persians as an autonym, whence the modern word Iran. Its European roots date to the discovery that Persian and Sanskrit were closely related to most of the modern languages of Europe. Originally a linguistic term for the languages we now call Indo-European, it took on a racial implication under the influence of white people's desire to convince themselves that they were superior to everyone else (the inconvenient fact that those original Ary...

I ran into an old friend in the WalMart a bit ago. He was accompanied by a probably teenage girl whom he introduced as his niece. She quickly corrected him to "granddaughter." He agreed and explained that he had momentarily been confused by the similarity between the Spanish "nieta" = "granddaughter" and the English word "niece". And interesting fact, which I didn't know it at the time, is that the English word "niece" comes from the Old French where it had the dual meaning of niece or granddaughter. This was apparently a common pattern in Proto-Indo-European (PIE), where maternal uncle and grandfather shared a common designation and similarly nephews, nieces and grandchildren. J.P. Mallory, In Search of the Indo Europeans.