The People That Never Were: Linguistic Scholarship and the Invention of the Aryans

— —

Christopher M. Hutton (Chair Professor in the School of English, Chair Professor in the School of English, University of Hong Kong)

The People That Never Were

Linguistic Scholarship and the Invention of the Aryans

Christopher M. Hutton (Chair Professor in the School of English, Chair Professor in the School of English, University of Hong Kong)

$183.95

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Oxford University Press Inc
30 October 2025

Sociolinguistics; Historical & comparative linguistics; History of ideas

Series: Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics

Though most recognize the term Aryan, few understand its extensive and complex history. Scholars continue to debate the location of the original Aryan homeland, but unlike with the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Greece, or Rome, there is no direct textual or archeological evidence of an ancient Aryan civilization. As Christopher M. Hutton argues in this book, Aryan, in essence, is a fictional category--the Frankenstein's monster of the western intellectual tradition.

In The People That Never Were, Hutton takes a fresh look at the concept and asserts that much of the received wisdom is misleading or false. He begins by challenging the belief in the existence of an ancient Aryan race or people, making the case that the concept was brought into being by western philology and Indology. Hutton then takes the reader through the history of the Aryan concept, beginning with colonial scholarship in India around 1800, and ending in the first decades of the twentieth century. With a particular focus on the role of philologists' distorted readings of ancient Sanskrit texts, Hutton shows how Aryan came into English around 1840, promoted primarily by F. Max Müller, whose own conceptual confusions subsequently were projected back onto ancient India and at the same time read into contemporary Europe. As a result, Aryan emerged as a free-standing explanatory device and a key to historical narratives of superiority and inferiority, leading to bitter controversies and profound misunderstandings that continue to this day.

A critical intellectual resource on the Aryan paradigm, The People That Never Were interrogates the conceptual errors that provide the basis for historical linguistics, raising a challenging set of questions for the discipline.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

By: Christopher M. Hutton (Chair Professor in the School of English Chair Professor in the School of English University of Hong Kong)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 243mm, Width: 166mm, Spine: 27mm
Weight: 526g
ISBN: 9780190212988
ISBN 10: 0190212985
Series: Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics
Pages: 298
Publication Date: 30 October 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: Philology and Physical Anthropology Chapter 2: Sir William Jones Chapter 3: The Emergence of the Aryan Paradigm Chapter 4: Philologies Collide Chapter 5: Invasion Theory and the Aryan/Dravidian Dichotomy Chapter 6: Language and Race Chapter 7: Anti-Aryanism and Revivalist Aryanism in India Chapter 8: Concluding Discussion References Index

Christopher M. Hutton is Chair Professor in the School of English at the University of Hong Kong. His research concerns the history of linguistics, in particular the relationship between linguistics and race theory, as well as language and law. He is the author of several books, including The Tyranny of Ordinary Meaning; The Legal Personhood of Animals; and Race and the Third Reich.