Russianicity
- Thread starter Xotica
- Start date
Ken Natton
Registered Member
The people's of the earth are related in a genetic sense. Ethnically, as with anywhere, there are a mix of ethnicities, but I think the dominant ethnicity throughout the lands you mention is Slavic. The historical events when Stalin sought to change the population balance in the Baltic states, for example, was more a question of nationality and culture than ethnicity, I think.
As far as I know, and I am no expert, Europeans and Russians descended from a tribe known as the Proto-Indo-Europeans. They probably came from the Pontic steppe or Anatolia. But were quite possibly a number of tribes scattered throughout both areas. They then migrated west and northwest into modern European Russia, and the rest of Europe. South east into modern Iran, and further east into India.
However, there were already some people living in these areas. The Basques in Western Europe. The Sami people in northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. And many other peoples in Europe, Persia, and India.
This is why nearly all the languages in Europe (except Finish, Hungarian, Lithuanian, and a few others) are all of Proto-Indo-European origin. As are Persian, and many of the languages spoken in India.
But as Ken Natton points out, we are all related genetically. There is more genetic diversity between a German Shepherd and a Pitbull, than there is between a San Bushman, and a Native American.
However, there were already some people living in these areas. The Basques in Western Europe. The Sami people in northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. And many other peoples in Europe, Persia, and India.
This is why nearly all the languages in Europe (except Finish, Hungarian, Lithuanian, and a few others) are all of Proto-Indo-European origin. As are Persian, and many of the languages spoken in India.
But as Ken Natton points out, we are all related genetically. There is more genetic diversity between a German Shepherd and a Pitbull, than there is between a San Bushman, and a Native American.
I would separate the 3 Baltic states from the 3 Slavic nation , but I would add to the Slavic Bulgarian and Serbs.
Interesting. Except for the Scandinavian countries, I have been to every country in Europe and Russia. From my observations, the Baltic peoples look far more Russian than do Slovaks, Czechs, Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, etc.
Good I have been also and I am one of them . Have you looked into Finland ?
On the last 70 years Russia had a strong influence over those 3 states . Look back into history The kingdom of Lithuania at one time Poland and the Ukraine was under Lithuania .
The Finnish language have a similarity with some of Asian culture .
Therefore My assumption is that Baltic states are derivative of Finland . In Finland you have unique culture the Laplander s I believe they are Asian ?
Yes, there has been a heavy mixing of the nationalities. Ethnically speaking, I am White Russian on the paternal side.
I am least familiar with the Scandinavian peoples.
Finland + Asian? Isn't that a stretch?
Yes, there has been a heavy mixing of the nationalities. Ethnically speaking, I am White Russian on the paternal side.
I am least familiar with the Scandinavian peoples.
Finland + Asian? Isn't that a stretch?
Asia is behind the Ural mountain, that is not far. Beside though time there have been a continuous migration from Asia
Beside look into Wiki
The Finnic languages evolved from the Proto-Finnic language after Sámi was separated from it around 1500–1000 BCE.[citation needed] Current models assume three or more hypothetical Proto-Finnic proto-dialects evolving over the first millennium BCE.[9] The most of divergence between Finnic languages is centered south of the Gulf of Finland. Thus, linguists agree that the Proto-Finnic language itself was never spoken in Finland, but in an Urheimat somewhere south of modern St. Petersburg. Its daughter languages, which spread north, then developed into Finnish.[10] The Finnic languages separated around the 1st century, but continued to influence each other. Therefore, the Eastern Finnish dialects are genetically Eastern Proto-Finnic, with many Eastern features, and the Southwestern Finnish dialects have many genuine Estonian influences.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_language
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
It probably isn't always accurate to confuse linguistic/cultural identity with genetic origins.
Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians are all linguistically and culturally Slavic. Lithuanians and Latvians are Baltic. The Slavs and Balts seem to have been related in the distant past, and the ancestors of both of them are derived from the old Indo-Europeans even further back.
The Estonians are linguistically Finno-Ugric. These languages aren't Indo-European, though their group and the Indo-Europeans may have had some common ancestor even further back in prehistory. It's still kind of speculative who was related to who way back in paleolithic times.
Of course genetically, there's been a lot of mixing and sloshing back and forth. Individuals and groups move into new territories and either convert the people already living there to speaking a new language, or else convert themselves to speaking the existing language.
The western representatives of the Finno-Ugric group, in Finland, appear to be very similar genetically to the neighboring Swedes, who speak a Germanic (ancestrally Indo-European) language. But there are other people speaking Finno-Ugric languages located east of the Urals who are physically Asian in appearance, and seemingly very different from the Finns in terms of their ancestors' genetic origins, even though today they speak a distantly related language. It seems that both the western and eastern representatives of the Finno-Ugric group may have experienced large-scale inflows of genes from their neighbors, through population movements of small groups and lots of intermarriage over thousands of years.
I think that the Russians, Ukranians and Belorussians all have similar ancestry and diverged relatively late in history, since medieval times. The cultural and linguistic differences between those three are still relatively small and historically recent.
This is what I was seeking.
I didn’t parse the OP very well. I was thinking of a relationship more in the “visual” (physical appearance) sense rather than cultural and lingual.
Ken Natton
Registered Member
Xotica, for what it is worth, I can only suggest to you that judging degree of relatedness on nothing more than physical appearance is a very bad idea. 'Not very scientific' does not begin to cover why it is a very bad idea. 'Has a tendency to lead to misjudgements' might be a bit closer.
To that group I definitively would add the people from Poland.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
We tend to identify people according to their languages, for the obvious reason that in many cases that's the only solid evidence we have of their origins and the relationships between them. On this basis the speakers of the Indo-European language family are divided into the Eastern and Western branches, with a few isolates that don't fall in either category.
The Eastern Branch is divided primarily into the Balto-Slavic group (Lithuanian, Latvian and the various Slavic languages) and the Indo-Iranian group (about half the languages of India/Pakistan, the others belonging to a different family entirely, the Dravidian). The Western Branch is divided into the Celtic, Italic, Germanic and Hellenic groups, which we Westerners are more familiar with and don't usually need a breakdown.
Isolates include Armenian and Albanian, as well as a number of dead languages such as Tocharian.
Nowadays, of course, we are able to analyze human DNA and this gives us a different perspective on our history and origins. Dr. Cavalli-Sforza has performed what to date are the most detailed and exhaustive analyses of the DNA of humans from every part of the globe. Based upon his correlations he has drawn a map of the migrations of humans, going back to the time of the first trek out of Africa and including the movements within Africa since that time. Google his name and you'll have myriad choices of how you want his findings presented, including a PBS special in which one of his colleagues actually drives along many of the migration routes, interviewing the people he encounters along the way and showing us how they fit into the human family.
Most of the surprises he discovered are dated long before the Indo-European diaspora. For example, while there were two distinct migrations out of Africa, one around 60KYA that brought the Native Australians (or "Aborigines") to their new home and the second one around 50KYA that brought out the ancestors of all other non-African people, it was discovered that both treks were made by members of the same African tribe: the San (or "Bushmen"). The modern San still clearly have the genetic markers that all of us share, even though over the past sixty millennia they have migrated south and no longer live in a part of Africa from which they could walk into Asia. There's been some wonderment over how they got to Australia, since that was a long journey for the primitive boat-building technology of the day. It turns out that there are still a few places along the coast of India where some of the people have the same genetic markers as the Australians. Apparently they made the trek on foot, or perhaps hugged the shoreline in small boats, and a few of the migrants decided to settle along the way and established successful colonies before being overrun and assimilated by the second, larger wave.
I found the most poignant moment in the video when the narrator traveled to the Navajo Reservation. The Navajo are proud of their own creation myth (isn't everybody?), which says that they have always lived in Arizona. He showed them photos of the Yenisei people in Siberia, whose DNA most closely matches theirs. One of the young people grabbed a photo and stared at it in amazement, then said to the chief, "Look, Dad. This guy looks just like Uncle Ernie!" The chief studied the photo, composed himself and then looked straight into the camera. Knowing he was speaking to the whole world, he said solemnly, "I guess what you say is true then: We really are all brothers."
The Eastern Branch is divided primarily into the Balto-Slavic group (Lithuanian, Latvian and the various Slavic languages) and the Indo-Iranian group (about half the languages of India/Pakistan, the others belonging to a different family entirely, the Dravidian). The Western Branch is divided into the Celtic, Italic, Germanic and Hellenic groups, which we Westerners are more familiar with and don't usually need a breakdown.
Isolates include Armenian and Albanian, as well as a number of dead languages such as Tocharian.
Nowadays, of course, we are able to analyze human DNA and this gives us a different perspective on our history and origins. Dr. Cavalli-Sforza has performed what to date are the most detailed and exhaustive analyses of the DNA of humans from every part of the globe. Based upon his correlations he has drawn a map of the migrations of humans, going back to the time of the first trek out of Africa and including the movements within Africa since that time. Google his name and you'll have myriad choices of how you want his findings presented, including a PBS special in which one of his colleagues actually drives along many of the migration routes, interviewing the people he encounters along the way and showing us how they fit into the human family.
Most of the surprises he discovered are dated long before the Indo-European diaspora. For example, while there were two distinct migrations out of Africa, one around 60KYA that brought the Native Australians (or "Aborigines") to their new home and the second one around 50KYA that brought out the ancestors of all other non-African people, it was discovered that both treks were made by members of the same African tribe: the San (or "Bushmen"). The modern San still clearly have the genetic markers that all of us share, even though over the past sixty millennia they have migrated south and no longer live in a part of Africa from which they could walk into Asia. There's been some wonderment over how they got to Australia, since that was a long journey for the primitive boat-building technology of the day. It turns out that there are still a few places along the coast of India where some of the people have the same genetic markers as the Australians. Apparently they made the trek on foot, or perhaps hugged the shoreline in small boats, and a few of the migrants decided to settle along the way and established successful colonies before being overrun and assimilated by the second, larger wave.
I found the most poignant moment in the video when the narrator traveled to the Navajo Reservation. The Navajo are proud of their own creation myth (isn't everybody?), which says that they have always lived in Arizona. He showed them photos of the Yenisei people in Siberia, whose DNA most closely matches theirs. One of the young people grabbed a photo and stared at it in amazement, then said to the chief, "Look, Dad. This guy looks just like Uncle Ernie!" The chief studied the photo, composed himself and then looked straight into the camera. Knowing he was speaking to the whole world, he said solemnly, "I guess what you say is true then: We really are all brothers."
Jesus. Take a chill pill Ken. It was a simple personal observation derived from my travels in the areas mentioned. It’s a fun thread, not a thesis.
To the people of Lithuania you could a a mixture of Poles since they formed a united kingdom then, you can add the presence of Teutonic knights for severl hundred years