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The countries came into existence in the last 200 years. The ethnicities have been there for a while. For instance, my country only started existing in 1991. B
by Swizec 11y ago
The countries came into existence in the last 200 years. The ethnicities have been there for a while.
For instance, my country only started existing in 1991. But we have written records of people speaking our language and thinking of themselves as us going back to 800 AD. Germany can trace its origins straight back to The Holy Roman Empire, the ruling classes of which spoke German, thought of themselves as Germanic, had the same crest as Germany uses now, and started existing as a state in 962 AD.
And so on.
It's less about genetics and more about language.
- _delirium 11y agoSure, the languages and aspects of the cultures do go back quite a ways. I mostly object to portraying it as a stable group of people directly descended with no immigration or adaptation. People changed languages, religions, etc. as borders and rulers changed, as they migrated, and for various other reasons. For example some of today's Greeks are descended from Hellenized Arabs, Persians, Turks, Italians, Romanians, Albanians, etc., while some of today's Italians are descended from Greeks, Visigoths, and others who became Italianized. And these migrations and assimilations also changed the cultures as well as adopting them, especially when they lived side-by-side in multicultural cities. That used to be common in Europe, especially in the big maritime cities and imperial capitals: cities like Vienna, Thessaloniki, Constantinople, Trieste, Rhodes, Gdańsk, Marseilles, and Vilnius were multicultural and multilingual up until they were turned monolingual (often violently) in the 19th and 20th centuries. So I don't really buy the idea that Europe is somehow inherently supposed to be made out of monocultural nation-states, and that a multicultural city like NYC is a uniquely American idea.