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Germans are not even the original Germans.

by sedatk 3y ago

brabel 3y ago
The history of Europe is fascinating. I think there's not a single "country" today whose ethnicity was not almost entirely replaced with another in the last 10,000 years. EDIT: I think even 2,000 years is enough.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- walthamstow 3y ago
  I don't know much about this stuff but I think Wales and Ireland might be confounding examples here for your 2000-year example Both had their language replaced (or taken away) but the people are still Celts going back to the Beaker culture, aren't they? Of course it does help to be on the far edge of Europe
  - brabel 3y ago
    You're probably right, but looking at Germany and most of the region around it, it's clear that a lot of different "tribes" lived in overlapping areas before and after the Roman Empire, at different times... there were the Goths, Vandals, Gauls, Celtics, Suebis, Franks, Synthians, Vikings, "Greeks" (or Helenics), the Rus, Tatars, lots of Slavic tribes that seem to have arrived in Eastern Europe out of "nowhere"... if you include the Iberic Peninsula, Arab peoples dominated for several hundred years, then "disappeared" again in the 15-16th centuries. Most of these completely disappeared (though they obviously left genetic material in the local populations, their culture/language was entirely replaced and mostly forgotten)! Take the Vandals... they seem to have originated in Poland, migrated south pushed by the Mongol raids and later the Goths (themselves coming from Northern Germany or even Scandinavia), ended up in the Iberian Peninsula, then somehow moved even further to Northern Africa... They got their reputation which lives on today (in the word vandalism in case you didn't know) by sacking Rome when the Western Roman Empire had already lost most of its glory, coming from Northern Africa and a few Mediterranean islands, the most import of which was probably Sicily. More recently, the Lithuanian people lost almost all of their territory when the Grand Duchy of Lithuania disappeared (it was subdued by the arch-rivals Russia, Sweden which at the time was nosing around in the area, occupying places like today's Estonia, and the Austrians)... Lithuania only became a country again, and a tiny one at that, after the USSR collapsed, something like 300 years later. In the last couple of centuries the history is even more complex!! We don't notice in a lifetime but the map keeps changing and the previous century was no exception. Where are Yougoslavia and Checkoslovakia now? :D ... did you know that Kyiv changed countries dozens of times over its history? It was capital of the Rus, invaded by the Mongols, incorporated by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then Poland, the Russian Empire, then it really went crazy and switched back-forth between the earlier "rulers" and short-lived Ukrainian states multiple times (like 10 times, seriously), was captured by the German army not once, but twice (in WWI and WWII), before kind of stabilizing as part of the USSR, and then finally, a proper Ukrainian state. I was in the area some time ago and it was mind blowing to learn all that.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Greeks would also be another example. The Hellenes have been in the general area with linguistic continuity since the Bronze age. Though their populations in Asia Minor were expelled in the early 20th century. Possibly the Armenians are another example. And Georgians if you lump the Caucasus in with Europe. Albanians maybe also, as they are proposed by some to be descendants of the Illyrians. Balts, Slavs, Germans, Celts, and maybe Italic speakers seem to have moved around a lot more.
    - pookha 3y ago
      Aren't most these European cultures all heavily descended (genetically and linguistically) from the Western Steppe hunter-gatherer horse tribes? Those guys got into Greece just like they got into the UK (probably sooner in Greece). The Minoans weren't though. Which is why you've got the wild Greek culture wars with Crete (Minoans and their Minotaur will eat your baby).
      - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        Well yes, but the point is they stayed where they were for longer than the 2k year horizon that the grandparent commenter was talking about.
  - imbnwa 3y ago
    The English themselves are also still largely the same Celtic stock, the genetic impact of Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Norman colonialism have been minor, even though the cultural impact of these various rulers has been outsized.

Germans are not even the original Germans.

by sedatk 3y ago

Germans are not even the original Germans.

The history of Europe is fascinating. I think there's not a single "country" today whose ethnicity was not almost entirely replaced with another in the last 10,000 years. EDIT: I think even 2,000 years is enough.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
walthamstow 3y ago
I don't know much about this stuff but I think Wales and Ireland might be confounding examples here for your 2000-year example Both had their language replaced (or taken away) but the people are still Celts going back to the Beaker culture, aren't they? Of course it does help to be on the far edge of Europe
- brabel 3y ago
  You're probably right, but looking at Germany and most of the region around it, it's clear that a lot of different "tribes" lived in overlapping areas before and after the Roman Empire, at different times... there were the Goths, Vandals, Gauls, Celtics, Suebis, Franks, Synthians, Vikings, "Greeks" (or Helenics), the Rus, Tatars, lots of Slavic tribes that seem to have arrived in Eastern Europe out of "nowhere"... if you include the Iberic Peninsula, Arab peoples dominated for several hundred years, then "disappeared" again in the 15-16th centuries. Most of these completely disappeared (though they obviously left genetic material in the local populations, their culture/language was entirely replaced and mostly forgotten)! Take the Vandals... they seem to have originated in Poland, migrated south pushed by the Mongol raids and later the Goths (themselves coming from Northern Germany or even Scandinavia), ended up in the Iberian Peninsula, then somehow moved even further to Northern Africa... They got their reputation which lives on today (in the word vandalism in case you didn't know) by sacking Rome when the Western Roman Empire had already lost most of its glory, coming from Northern Africa and a few Mediterranean islands, the most import of which was probably Sicily. More recently, the Lithuanian people lost almost all of their territory when the Grand Duchy of Lithuania disappeared (it was subdued by the arch-rivals Russia, Sweden which at the time was nosing around in the area, occupying places like today's Estonia, and the Austrians)... Lithuania only became a country again, and a tiny one at that, after the USSR collapsed, something like 300 years later. In the last couple of centuries the history is even more complex!! We don't notice in a lifetime but the map keeps changing and the previous century was no exception. Where are Yougoslavia and Checkoslovakia now? :D ... did you know that Kyiv changed countries dozens of times over its history? It was capital of the Rus, invaded by the Mongols, incorporated by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then Poland, the Russian Empire, then it really went crazy and switched back-forth between the earlier "rulers" and short-lived Ukrainian states multiple times (like 10 times, seriously), was captured by the German army not once, but twice (in WWI and WWII), before kind of stabilizing as part of the USSR, and then finally, a proper Ukrainian state. I was in the area some time ago and it was mind blowing to learn all that.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Greeks would also be another example. The Hellenes have been in the general area with linguistic continuity since the Bronze age. Though their populations in Asia Minor were expelled in the early 20th century. Possibly the Armenians are another example. And Georgians if you lump the Caucasus in with Europe. Albanians maybe also, as they are proposed by some to be descendants of the Illyrians. Balts, Slavs, Germans, Celts, and maybe Italic speakers seem to have moved around a lot more.
  - pookha 3y ago
    Aren't most these European cultures all heavily descended (genetically and linguistically) from the Western Steppe hunter-gatherer horse tribes? Those guys got into Greece just like they got into the UK (probably sooner in Greece). The Minoans weren't though. Which is why you've got the wild Greek culture wars with Crete (Minoans and their Minotaur will eat your baby).
    - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      Well yes, but the point is they stayed where they were for longer than the 2k year horizon that the grandparent commenter was talking about.
- imbnwa 3y ago
  The English themselves are also still largely the same Celtic stock, the genetic impact of Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Norman colonialism have been minor, even though the cultural impact of these various rulers has been outsized.