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> Even Persians are (largely) of Indo-European ancestry, migrating from the same steppes that filled Europe. It is worth emphasizing that "Indo-European" is a
by Mediterraneo10 5y ago
> Even Persians are (largely) of Indo-European ancestry, migrating from the same steppes that filled Europe.
It is worth emphasizing that "Indo-European" is a linguistic description, not a genetic one. The Indo-European languages spread through Europe, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent largely through the people already living there shifting from the language they had been speaking before to Indo-European, because Indo-European had higher social prestige. That Iranians today speak an Indo-European language does not mean that their ancestors all came down from the steppe.
(In the last decades, work on historical DNA has identified certain genes that do appear to testify to some Indo-European population movements, but the impact of this is less than one might think for a discussion like this one.)
- dragandj 5y agoAlthough Persians are on the edge of the Roman Empire, so I don't think this is related to this discussion too much, it depends on what you consider "white". When I google "iranians" and go to images, I see people that, if I must classify them into a "race", I can most closely classify them as white(ish). Here's an interesting (USA) article that illustrates this issue: https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-north-africa-race/ https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-census-middle-east-no... Are people from Teheran, for example, "white, black, Asian, American Indian, or Native Hawaiian" (copy-pasted the choices from the article)? In my opinion, American obsession with race is silly.
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoYes, definitely the "were they white or not?" discussion is silly. I just wanted to emphasize that whatever Iranians look like, you can't assume they represent a look that moved down from the steppe just because they speak an Indo-European language.