The genetic relatedness of different European nationalities
So anyway, dragging the thread away from oh-so-controversial areas for fear of it getting shut down ... I have long found it interesting that the Finnish and the Hungarian languages are supposedly similar since the Finns and Hungarians are not especially close genetically (in European terms).
Mummy_of_Peanut
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In college, I was told that folks in Nothern Ireland can tell who's Catholic (primarily Celtic or 'native' Irish) and who's Protestant (English/Anglo descent) just by looking at each other. I couldn't imagine how that could be, at the time. Later, I lived in Ireland for a couple of years. I found that Irish people have certain shapes of noses, eyes, ears, hairlines, etc. It was fascinating to me because, as an American, I'd been used to seeing all types of Europeans blended together into one big white race. Now I can see that Germans have a look, and Italians have a look, etc.
Kind of sad that Europeans are all lumped together as "whites" when race is mentioned. I'm sure it's the same for "blacks" and "Asians" too. A Japanese person doesn't look just like a Korean, and people from different regions of Africa have different characteristics, too.
Ooh, that reminds me of a documentary I saw once. A scientist (anthropologist? I'm not sure what kind of scientist) was using regional race characteristics to help African-Americans find out which part of Africa their ancestors came from.
It's all very interesting, and I agree that being interested in race does not make one a racist.
I live in the west of Scotland and we have a huge Irish/ Northern Irish immigrant population (recent and not so recent). The 2 main football clubs in Glasgow are Celtic (predominantly supported by Catholics) and Rangers (predominantly supported by non Catholics). There's an undeniable difference in the look of the different groups of supporters. I'm a bit of an anomaly. I'm only about 1/8 Irish yet somehow managed to be raised as Catholic, but I've never been taken for Protestant. (Believe it or not, this is a very common topic of convesation here, similar to Northern Ireland's issues, which isn't pretty.) Maybe it's because I'm so dark; people think I might be Spanish or Italian, so obviously Catholic.
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Kraichgauer
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I love this stuff (special interest).
What irritates me is some people think even talking about this stuff is racist.
Unfortunately, racists have highjacked such genetic research, which they use on their embarrassing internet sites in order to promote white separatism and supremacy. And so people with a legitimate interest in genetics often feel they're painted with the same tainted brush as those mouth breathing bigots.
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
It is really unfortunate and sad. I had worried that this thread might turn a bit like that and I admit I'm watching with my moderator hat on. I'm really interested in this subject because of the health implications for people with various genetic inheritances (e.g. type 2 diabetes in Afro-Carribeans, coeliac disease incidence in Irish, lactose intolerance and alcohol metabolism). I believe if we knew more about where our genes came from, we could eat accordingly and avoid many diseases. I'm the most non-racist person you could ever meet and disgusted by anyone who claims superiority of certain races.
Oh, absolutely. And there is nothing wrong with just wanting to know something about your ethnic heritage.
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
And yet you think there's something wrong with a person wanting their own ethnic group or race to have a future. (Or is that only if the person is white?)
When did I say that? I have a problem with racist as*holes who have to demean others. And despite what racists claim, the introduction of outsiders into a population's gene pool doesn't destroy it. Archaeologists had uncovered the grave of an Arab man in Denmark- - from two thousand years ago! Who knows how he got there - maybe he was a merchant who had traded with the northern tribesmen. And if so, it's very likely that he had raised a family with a local girl, and had children. And yet, the people of Denmark today are essentially Germanic, despite this man interjecting himself into their gene pool. Another case was in central Germany, where the Thuringian tribe had not only emulated the Mongolian Huns for their martial abilities, but from the presence of Hunnish graves found in 5th century Thuringian territory, it's a good guess that they had intermixed with the Huns to one degree or another. And yet, the population of the current Thuringia and adjacent areas in Germany have the genetic subclades representing Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic types, with the Hunnish contribution having been swamped by European genes.
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
And yet you think there's something wrong with a person wanting their own ethnic group or race to have a future. (Or is that only if the person is white?)
Being concerned about a group to which you belong to voluntarily makes more sense than being concerned with one's "race". None of us have chosen our "race". It is a purely accidental matter.
If you voluntarily stay affiliated to your religion or nation or society then be concerned with that.
I only know of one race to which I belong: the human race. We are the smartest, baddest creatures in the Primate House.
ruveyn
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And yet you think there's something wrong with a person wanting their own ethnic group or race to have a future. (Or is that only if the person is white?)
Being concerned about a group to which you belong to voluntarily makes more sense than being concerned with one's "race". None of us have chosen our "race". It is a purely accidental matter.
If you voluntarily stay affiliated to your religion or nation or society then be concerned with that.
I only know of one race to which I belong: the human race. We are the smartest, baddest creatures in the Primate House.
ruveyn
Amen, fellow ape man!
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
My family tree has some pretty bad apples. My Irish-immigrant grandmother is the only one of my grandparents who wasn't involved in horrible shamefulness, and so I've always thought of myself as Irish-American.
However, I probably have more German "blood" than Irish, and the more Germans I see the more I realize that I look much more like them. And I do love my sauerkraut.
That would be the case today- a nice lingusitic continuum stretching from Saxony in Germany to West Saxon ( Wessex) in Britain if it werent for William the Conquerer.
The impact of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 may not have been genetic or "racial" but the Norman Conquest did start a couple centuries of French Speaking aristocrats ruling the Anglo Saxons. This resulted in the Romance-Germanic hybrid language that English is today- which does contrast with the more purely Germanic mainland cousins of English: Dutch, German, and Frisian.
Mummy_of_Peanut
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And just to confuse matters further, although the Normans came from France, they were mainly descendant from Norse Vikings, who had arrived in Normandy centuries before.
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However, I probably have more German "blood" than Irish, and the more Germans I see the more I realize that I look much more like them. And I do love my sauerkraut.
I actually don't think Irish people look that different from Germans to begin with.
That would be the case today- a nice lingusitic continuum stretching from Saxony in Germany to West Saxon ( Wessex) in Britain if it werent for William the Conquerer.
The impact of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 may not have been genetic or "racial" but the Norman Conquest did start a couple centuries of French Speaking aristocrats ruling the Anglo Saxons. This resulted in the Romance-Germanic hybrid language that English is today- which does contrast with the more purely Germanic mainland cousins of English: Dutch, German, and Frisian.
True, English is still Germanic in spirit though - the Latin influence is mostly loan words, not so much the grammar or the sound of the language.
I for one want all of humanity to have a future. The people who are only concerned with the future of the "white race", whatever the hell that means, wouldn't hesitate to throw you under the bus for being an aspie and thus genetically inferior in their oh-so-aryan eyes.
I love this stuff (special interest).
What irritates me is some people think even talking about this stuff is racist.
I don't think that discussing genetic relationship and linguistic families on this level is racist. I just wanted to make that clear after my previous comment Only when notions of racial supremacy or integrity are brought into this topic, things tend to get ugly.
One of my ancestors apparently. He went to England with William the Conqueror and got a piece of Yorkshire. My last name used to have a "de" in front of it.
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Mummy_of_Peanut
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One of my ancestors apparently. He went to England with William the Conqueror and got a piece of Yorkshire. My last name used to have a "de" in front of it.
Same here. Norman name, folk with that name settled mainly in SE England, then my ancestor went to Northern Ireland and my great-grandfather came to Scotland.
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"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiatic about." Charles Kingsley
One of my ancestors apparently. He went to England with William the Conqueror and got a piece of Yorkshire. My last name used to have a "de" in front of it.
Same here. Norman name, folk with that name settled mainly in SE England, then my ancestor went to Northern Ireland and my great-grandfather came to Scotland.
The columnist Roy Blount Jr.'s family name is Norman.
In a humorous little piece in the Washington post he said "Britain may have oppressed the world but if you're Anglosaxon atleast you have a connection to the English soil. We Normans oppressed the Anglosaxons which makes us the oppressors of the oppressors!"
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