QuoteReplyTopic: Uyghur-Chinese relations Posted: 07-Feb-2009 at 19:18
The original Anatolian Turks, the earliest peoples to inhabit Turkey, were the Hitites, then the Celts, and with each successive wave, the original Hitites always mixed with whoever settled in their country. Its part of the reason modern Turks are so strange looking; they have mixed with so many people, that the majority of modern Turks don't associate themselves with any race so they simply call themselves "Turks."
Ancient Turkey was originally the homeland of the Hitites, a middle eastern people who were cousins to the semites, although, shorter and sturdier. Most of Turkey in fact was dominated by the Hitites until their empire fell. Their glory days were over, but as a people they survived. Western Turkey was home to Greek colonists, one colony eventually prospering and becoming the fabled city of Troy, which was destroyed by the Myceneans.
The Myceneans of Sparta, in turn, were invaded and enslaved (turned into the helot class) by a band of Dorians who went on to become the more famous warlike Spartans. Karma's a b*tch, what can I say. So anyway; despite the Myceneans destroying Troy, the other colonies survived, grew, prospered and spread throughout the rest of Turkey and began breeding with the local Hitites, so thus, ancient Turkey was a mixture of Greek and Hitite elements, that is why some Turks look Greek.
In other words, the Turks are REAL mutts, not like some American airhead who says " Oh, I've got Austrian, German and Italian in me; I'm such a mutt! tehee!" Give a freaking break man; you're only a mut if you are mixed with different peoples, like for example, the Turks. The Turks, are only linguistically related to the current residents of Turkmekistan who, appearance wise, look nothing like modern Turks. The Turks are a mixture of the above mentioned Middle Eastern people but it doesn't end there; one of the peoples the Hitites warred against, were a band of Celtic warriors originally from Central Europe. So....... they also have a little bit of Celtic in there.
Then the Persians took it over, they really liked that land, and so they sent colonists, and they too decided to breed with the locals, so now the Turks are a mixture of Greek, Hitite, and Persian. But then Greece under Macedonian rule wanted revenge against the Persians, and Alexander the Great overran it, and conquered the Persian empire. And many Greeks decided to stay in Turkey, so once again the now mixed Hitite, Persian, and earlier Greek mixed turks, mixed with the more recent Greeks.
But then Alexander's empire fell and then Rome rolled along, and they largely left it alone and decided not to breed with them although, there were a small handful of Romans who really liked the country so they stayed there and intermarried, but not in significant numbers. Seeing the prosperity of Anatolia (Turkey), many Slavic tribes escaping the depredations of barbarians from the north, the ancestors of the Vikings the Rus, decided to move south.
So now the Hitite, Greek and Persian mixed Turks, mixed with some Slavs. But then Rome in a typically guido fashion pissed off too many people and thus those people decided Rome should burn, so they burned it. And then Attila and his Huns decided to more or less finish the job, although, Rome was already finished by then. The Central Asiatic hunish hordes really like Anatolia, and so, a band of them stayed, and the Hitite, Greek, Persian and Slavic mixed Turks, decided to breed with them. And thus now the turks are mixed Hitite, Greek, Persian, Slavic, and Central Asian Hunish.
But then finally the Byzantine empire fell, and a band of people from Turkmekistan decided to make that place their home, and like the Huns they were also Central Asian. And thus, the Turks decided to mix with the locals, who were Hitite, Greek, Persian, Slavic, central Asian and Hunish, and because it was a really nice country some Arabs decided they too wanted to join along, and so the turks became a mixture of Hitite, Greek, Persian, Slavic, Central Asian and Hunish, in ADDITION to Arabs.
But it doesn't end there. As if that wasn't enough, people from Kurdistan and the Caucasus mountains, not to mention eastern European Balkan origin Janissaries, decided to mix with the Turks. Thus, the Turks are a mixture of Hitite, Greec, Persian, Slavic from two different fronts, Central Asian from two different Central Asian tribes, and finally, Persian and Arabic.
Again, Turks are only related to the people from Turkmekistan, linguistically. Appearance wise, genetically speaking, they are only partially related to them, so many empires, so many peoples have settled in Anatolia, later called Turkey, that it doesn't belong to any one race, and all races who have ever lived there, lived in relative harmony with one another with the exception of their relationship with the Kurds. So why have so many empires and peoples invaded those lands?
Linguistic, historical and genetic connections are well-established in the Chinese-Japanese case.
I don't agree.
Japanese and Chinese languages are mutually not intelligible. Yes, Chinese and Japanese can guess the probable meaning of the written passages in another language, but here the connection ends. And although, most of the Japanese words have Chinese origin they are pronounced very different from a contemporary Chinese. It will take many years for a Chinese to become fluent in Japanese language.
By contrast, Turkish and Uyghyr language do share some degree of mutual intelligibilty and it will take a short time of the speakers of both languages to become complitely fluent in anothr.
The genetic connection of Japanese and Chinese is minimum. By contrast Uyghyrs and Turks come from the same ancestors.
Historical connection as I said, Turks and Uyghyrs view their past in the terms of their common Turkic origins, byt contrast despite of the adobtion of the most civilizational values by Japan from China, historical memories of both countries about themselves are rather bitter than positive.
The original Anatolian Turks, the earliest peoples to inhabit
Turkey, were the Hitites, then the Celts, and with each successive
wave, the original Hitites always mixed with whoever settled in their
country.
This is so incorrect.
1. Hitites have been extinct for millenias. 2. Hitites were not Turks or Turkic 3. The Turks originated as a social group in Central Asia.
Pebbles Its part of the reason modern Turks are so strange looking;
Strange? keep your racist language to yourself, anyone calling other groups of people strange is a sign or total ignorance.
Pebbles they have mixed with so many people, that the majority of modern Turks don't associate themselves with any race so they simply call themselves "Turks."
Who associates themselves as a "race", do Europeans view themselves as the "White" race, or as English, Itallians, French?
Turks view themselves as Turks due to speaking Turkic, having a Turkic identity and sharing a national historiy/root.
Pebbles Ancient Turkey was originally the homeland of the Hitites, a middle
eastern people who were cousins to the semites, although, shorter and
sturdier.
Shorter and sturdier
Pebbles Most of Turkey in fact was dominated by the Hitites until
their empire fell. Their glory days were over, but as a people they
survived. Western Turkey was home to Greek colonists, one colony
eventually prospering and becoming the fabled city of Troy, which was
destroyed by the Myceneans.
How did they survive? what makes a people a people, is their language, identity, religions, percieved historic origns etc this is all that seperates us, remove that and were all humans no different from each other.
Hitites as a nation/ethnic became extinct. This does not mean that there are no Hitite descendants, it means that over time through mixing, assimilation and domination they ceased to exist and were merged into different peoples like the incomming Greeks.
Pebbles In other words, the Turks are REAL mutts,
A mutt is a mixed-breed dog, I don't think Turks are "Dogs".
Pebbles The
Turks, are only linguistically related to the current residents of
Turkmekistan who, appearance wise, look nothing like modern Turks.
Actually, people in Turkmenistan don't look too different to peoples in Turkey or Northern Iran.
The rest of what you have written can be applied to any country in Eurasia.
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
Albert Pine
Linguistic, historical and genetic connections are well-established in the Chinese-Japanese case.
And although, most of the Japanese words have Chinese origin they are pronounced very different from a contemporary Chinese. It will take many years for a Chinese to become fluent in Japanese language.
The genetic connection of Japanese and Chinese is minimum. By contrast Uyghyrs and Turks come from the same ancestors.
That's not true.
The on'yomi( 音読み ) remains very close to original pronunciations.I know this because I speak both Cantonese and Mandarin.Any Japanese & Western Japanese-language learners can tell you that it takes shorter time for Chinese to study Japanese to fluency.Chinese are always place in the " advanced " courses at J universities and local city-sponsored Japanese language centers in Japan.Of-course,we have to consider the learning ability of individuals as there are fast & slower learners.
The on'yomi( 音読み ) remains very close to original pronunciations.I know this because I speak both Cantonese and Mandarin.
To "original" the one that was used 1300 years ago, yeah may be, but I actually addressed this issue in my previous post. Besides, how actually it could be similar to the correct Chinese pronouncation when it doesn't have the tones?
Originally posted by pebbles
Any Japanese & Western Japanese-language learners can tell you that it takes shorter time for Chinese to study Japanese to fluency.Chinese are always place in the " advanced " courses at J universities and local city-sponsored Japanese language centers in Japan.Of-course,we have to consider the learning ability of individuals as there are fast & slower learners.
Yeah, of course they do, because of the characters. Chinese pick them up very fast compare to the Westerners. But Japanese grammar is actually quite hard for Chinese. And, in any case, an Uyghur will learn Turkish much faster than any Chinese will learn Japanese.
In many ways, the relationship to different Turkic peoples is similar to the relation between Latin Americans. To a certain extent, the relationship between Uighur and Anatolian Turkish could be compared to the relation between Mexicans and Cubans.
Mexicans, Cubans, Colombians, and Argentinians do not look alike and surely are descended from a mixture of distinct peoples; but they all share a fair percentage of common Spanish ancestry. Their language is Spanish and their religion is Catholic. Most important of all their cultural identity is Latin-based.
Comparing Chinese to Japanese is parallel to comparing Poles to Britons. They might look more similar and they share the same alphabet; but the national origin of Poland had nothing to do with that of Great Britain.
It is very racist, U.S. mentality to place very distinct nationalities in the same category just because they "look alike". By following this argument, then Anatolian Turks and Castillian Spaniards should be closely related, which is certainly not the case.
Again, Turks are only related to the people from Turkmekistan, linguistically. Appearance wise, genetically speaking, they are only partially related to them, so many empires, so many peoples have settled in Anatolia, later called Turkey, that it doesn't belong to any one race, and all races who have ever lived there, lived in relative harmony with one another with the exception of their relationship with the Kurds. So why have so many empires and peoples invaded those lands?
By using your very argument to separate Turks from Central Asian Turkic peoples, you could separate Chinese and Japanese even more.
China, like Turkey, was invaded by a host of peoples; among them Turkic, Mongol, Tungus, Tibetan, Iranian, and Tocharia peoples. Southern China wasn't even populated by ethnic "Han" until relatively late; yet most of these natives assimilated into the Han ethnic identity.
Most of these ethncities that "melted into" China did not even show their face in Japan.
Turks and Uighurs share common ancestors among the Xiongnu and the Gokturk tribes.
The last time that Chinese and Japanese shared a common ancestor was probably before the Neolithic age when hunter-gatherers from mainland Asia colonised Japan. Back then identities such as "Chinese" and "Japanese" did not even exist.
The fact remains,modern day Turkish population is a " hodge podge ".
The subject of " relatedness " can be a bias has aspects that reflect cultural/social/historical currents.
By the way,my lengthy post on this page was " C & P " from Yahoo's Q & A forum answer written by a White-American male not me.
Pebbles, you must understand that "race" in the biological sense can be very hardly defined. All of us descend from migrants from east africa 60000 years ago who mixed, isolated, and remixed over the milleniums. There is no such thing as the 19th century colonial idea of "pure race" (which still lives in the minds of many today, especially in the U.S.). There are simply populations that have been more isolated than others.
What defines an "ethnicity" depends more on language, culture, historical identity etc. North Africa and the Middle East are "related" because they share the Arabic language and the Islamic religion; Latin American countries and Spain and Portugal are related because of the Catholic religion and Latin languages; the Central Asian Turkic nations are Turkey are related through the same means.
For example, everyone nowadays classifies Egypt as an "Arab nation", and Egypt is even considered one of the most sophisticated centre of "Arab culture"; yet modern Egyptians today descend very little from the "Arabic tribes" of the Middle East. Modern Egyptian DNA is still very much the same as during Pharonic times. This, however, DOES NOT IMPLY THAT THE EGYPTIANS ARE NOT ARABS; because "Arab" is a cultural rather than a biological identity.
Biologically speaking, no one know who he is related to more or less. Just because 2 peoples look similar it would not necessarily mean that they are more related to each other.
For example, a Castillian Spaniard might look similar to a Greek in outward appearance, and less similar to a Mexican mestizo; yet the Spaniard and the Mexican are MUCH MORE related to each other than the Spaniard is to the Greek.
Going back to the original point. China and Japan have few interconnecting links than between Uighurs and Turks.
The fact remains,modern day Turkish population is a " hodge podge ".
According to our distinguished member and scientist Beylerbeyi there are over 100 genetic studies proving the Turkish population is largely Anatolian, with similar genetic material to the neighboring populations of Greece and the Levant and with very little in common with the Turkic peoples of central Asia. Linguistically it is course a different matter.
That is what I have found as well. The consensus seem to be that the Japanese, Koreans and other peoples of northeast Asia form one group with many similarities, while the Chinese have in more in common with Tibetans and Vietnamese. The Uighurs I suppose have more in common with the Turkic peoples of central Asia than the Sino-Tibetans.
I wonder what is the case with the Mongols and Manchus.
Edit: I checked up on this and apparently the Koreans are related to the Altaic peoples, that is Mongols and Turks, whereas the Japanese are not. The classification of Japanese is quite problematic; some do claim a relationship with Korean, others with Altaic (not mutually exclusive these two) and some even with Austronesian languages. Others simply settle for it being an isolate family.
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