The genetic relatedness of different European nationalities

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codarac
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09 Feb 2012, 4:51 pm

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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09 Feb 2012, 5:32 pm

YippySkippy wrote:
Differences in race amongst various "white" peoples is interesting.
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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09 Feb 2012, 6:16 pm

codarac wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Mummy_of_Peanut wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
donnie_darko wrote:
Mummy_of_Peanut wrote:
I watched a TV programme recently about UK history/ genetics. It was said that you could basically split the UK in half, from top to bottom, and the genetic difference between the 2 halves was quite significant. The people from the west are more closely related to the others from the western fringes of Europe, e.g. North West Spain, than they are to those from the eastern UK. This can't be seen on the map in the original post as UK is lumped together as one group.

I love this stuff (special interest).


What irritates me is some people think even talking about this stuff is racist. :hmph:


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



ruveyn
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09 Feb 2012, 7:56 pm

codarac wrote:

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



Kraichgauer
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09 Feb 2012, 8:11 pm

ruveyn wrote:
codarac wrote:

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



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10 Feb 2012, 10:44 am

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.



naturalplastic
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10 Feb 2012, 1:03 pm

donnie_darko wrote:
Indeed one could almost say the Dutch, Germans and English form an ethnic continuum. Germany seems very similar to the States/Canada/England imo, even though I can only understand the most basic sentences in the language.


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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10 Feb 2012, 3:02 pm

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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donnie_darko
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10 Feb 2012, 3:19 pm

YippySkippy wrote:
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.


I actually don't think Irish people look that different from Germans to begin with.



donnie_darko
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10 Feb 2012, 3:20 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
donnie_darko wrote:
Indeed one could almost say the Dutch, Germans and English form an ethnic continuum. Germany seems very similar to the States/Canada/England imo, even though I can only understand the most basic sentences in the language.


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.



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10 Feb 2012, 3:40 pm

codarac wrote:
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?)


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.



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10 Feb 2012, 3:54 pm

donnie_darko wrote:
Mummy_of_Peanut wrote:
I watched a TV programme recently about UK history/ genetics. It was said that you could basically split the UK in half, from top to bottom, and the genetic difference between the 2 halves was quite significant. The people from the west are more closely related to the others from the western fringes of Europe, e.g. North West Spain, than they are to those from the eastern UK. This can't be seen on the map in the original post as UK is lumped together as one group.

I love this stuff (special interest).


What irritates me is some people think even talking about this stuff is racist. :hmph:


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.



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10 Feb 2012, 5:46 pm

Mummy_of_Peanut wrote:
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.

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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10 Feb 2012, 5:58 pm

Aimless wrote:
Mummy_of_Peanut wrote:
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.

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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10 Feb 2012, 7:31 pm

Mummy_of_Peanut wrote:
Aimless wrote:
Mummy_of_Peanut wrote:
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.

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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10 Feb 2012, 8:14 pm

donnie_darko wrote:

I actually don't think Irish people look that different from Germans to begin with.


Same here. I have a hard time telling white people's ethnicity just by looking at them.


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