Are the Armenians a racially or phenotypically homogenous ethnicity?

[Veritator]

How homogenous would you consider Armenians to be?

[Hadouken]

heey armenians are no homos

[MarkyMark]

Not really. They are a mixture of native Anatolians and Indo-Europeans.

[Arkadi Agapetos]

Well, judging by the location of their homeland - being at the cross-roads from Asia Minor to the Middle East and Caucasus - I would not think so.

[Black Wolf]

No they are not homogenous at all.

[LightHouse89]

homogenous

[armenianbodyhair]

There are 3 types of Armenians do you mean the ones that consider themselves as unhyphenated?

[Musso]

Armenians are a relatively small ethnic group and we are from a mountainous region, which all adds to our homogeneity. Of course, there are genetic variations among Armenians based on regional differences, but despite that we are pretty homogeneous, but I think it's unfair to compare our homogeneity to that of Iranians or Russians, which are much more diverse due to their size/geography.

[Hayalet]

According to classical physical anthropology, there are some important differences between eastern and western Armenians.

[Maleficent]

I think are pretty much a mixture of Caucasus/Anatolian/Mesopotamian in their genetics; but other than that they seem quite homogenous, yes.

[Lemon Kush]

More homogenous than other people in that region

[Arkadi Agapetos]

There are 3 types of Armenians do you mean the ones that consider themselves as unhyphenated?

What do you mean by three types of Armenians?

[Arkadi Agapetos]

More homogenous than other people in that region

I would agree.

[Maleficent]

What do you mean by three types of Armenians?

Turkish Armenians
Armenian Armenians
Levantine Armenians

[Musso]

According to classical physical anthropology, there are some important differences between eastern and western Armenians.

The thing is many Western Armenians fled to Eastern Armenia during the Genocide and over the century there has been undoubtedly mixing between the two leading to a blurring of differences and creation of a more homogeneous Armenian group with a more homogeneous identity/culture.

[Arkadi Agapetos]

The thing is many Western Armenians fled to Eastern Armenia during the Genocide and over the century there has been undoubtedly mixing between the two leading to a blurring of differences and creation of a more homogeneous Armenian group with a more homogeneous identity/culture..

Interesting. Can you describe the difference in the common phenotypes of each group? How do they differ from one another?

[armenianbodyhair]

Turkish Armenians
Armenian Armenians
Levantine Armenians

I think it's Russian and Iranian but I could be wrong about that. An Armenian friend tried to explain it to me once a long time ago.

[Arkadi Agapetos]

According to classical physical anthropology, there are some important differences between eastern and western Armenians.

Really, like what? Can you give an example?

[Arkadi Agapetos]

I think it's Russian and Iranian but I could be wrong about that. An Armenian friend tried to explain it to me once a long time ago.

So you mean, there are four 'types'?

[armenianbodyhair]

So you mean, there are four 'types'?

No there are three types, Armenian Russian and Iranian. Or it might be the ones FQ said. I also had an Armenian violin teacher who was fluent in Russian...that's why I think it's Russian and Iranian.

[gregorius]

Hemshen,cherkesogai and armenians are the three armenian groups

Hemshens live on the blacksea coast in abchazia and turkey.
Cherkesogia people live in cherkessia/north caucasus

[Maleficent]

Turkish Armenians
Armenian Armenians
Levantine Armenians

I think it's Russian and Iranian but I could be wrong about that. An Armenian friend tried to explain it to me once a long time ago.

So you mean, there are four 'types'?

No there are three types, Armenian Russian and Iranian. Or it might be the ones FQ said. I also had an Armenian violin teacher who was fluent in Russian...that's why I think it's Russian and Iranian.Armenian, Russian, and Iranian Armenians sounds correct but you can't forget the Armenians of Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Quarter
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Armenians
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Armenians

[Arkadi Agapetos]

Guys let me ask you something slightly off topic:

Are Armenians in general darker than Turks? And I don't mean European looking necessarily, but white in terms of phenotype?

[Arkadi Agapetos]

I have a plot here. Can someone interpret it for me? I don't really understand these plots, but and at least I am honest about it ;)

http://http://abload.de/img/k13_mfa_waeuna_fixed2ykst3.png

[Musso]

Guys let me ask you something slightly off topic:

Are Armenians in general darker than Turks? And I don't mean European looking necessarily, but white in terms of phenotype?

Turks are much more diverse than Armenians in phenotype, so there are lighter Turks, darker Turks, even Afro-Turks.

[Hayalet]

Turks are much more diverse than Armenians in phenotype, so there are lighter Turks, darker Turks, even Afro-Turks.
You have to compare ethnic Armenians with ethnic Turks to see which one is more diverse. "Afro-Turks" are not ethnic Turks.

[Musso]

You have to compare ethnic Armenians with ethnic Turks to see which one is more diverse. "Afro-Turks" are not ethnic Turks.

They are still Turks, no? According to your Ataturk, they are as much Turk as any other Turk.

[Hayalet]

They are still Turks, no? According to your Ataturk, they are as much Turk as any other Turk.
By nationality, yes; by ethnicity, no. Anthropological comparisons are made between ethnic groups. When comparing the British and the French, you don't take the Afro-British or the Afro-French into account.

[Musso]

By nationality, yes; by ethnicity, no. Anthropological comparisons are made between ethnic groups. When comparing the British and the French, you don't take the Afro-British or the Afro-French into account.

So how do you define the Turkish ethnicity?

[Hayalet]

So how do you define the Turkish ethnicity?
Basically: Speaking Turkish as mother tongue, considering yourself Turkish and being considered Turkish by others, and having ancestors that did the same.

[Musso]

Basically: Speaking Turkish as mother tongue, considering yourself Turkish and being considered Turkish by others, and having ancestors that did the same.

And so, why aren't Afro-Turks ethnic Turks? I'm sure many fit this criteria.

[Hayalet]

And so, why aren't Afro-Turks ethnic Turks? I'm sure many fit this criteria.
No, they don't. Their ancestors were called Arabs by Turks despite the fact that they weren't. They are a visible minority that obviously originated in Africa, it's self-evident why they aren't ethnic Turks.

[Musso]

No, they don't. Their ancestors were called Arabs by Turks despite the fact that they weren't. They are a visible minority that obviously originated in Africa, it's self-evident why they aren't ethnic Turks.

So then, the Turk whose ancestors were Greeks or Bulgarians that converted to Islam a long time ago, how are they ethnic Turkish?

[LightHouse89]

would say the real turks would be Anatolians and not the modern pseudo Turks? That's like saying Nigerians in Ireland are Irish. They are not and will never be despite what legal loop holes they try to use to define what our people are. I have to laugh at modern political correctness. Then again I think all the groups in that general area look slightly similar. That's like comparing me too other British Islanders I am sure I look similar to many to them.

[Hayalet]

So then, the Turk whose ancestors were Greeks or Bulgarians that converted to Islam a long time ago, how are they ethnic Turkish?
It is basically impossible for there to be Turks who exclusively descend from Greeks and Bulgarians that converted to Islam a long time ago. Genetics show Turks have varying degrees of East Asian and Siberian admixture in their autosomal DNA that indicates a Central Asian origin while neighboring Balkan and West Asian populations are devoid of them. Turks are sort of like the English in this respect, who descend from both Anglo-Saxons and the Celtic Britons.

[Musso]

It is basically impossible for there to be Turks who exclusively descend from Greeks and Bulgarians that converted to Islam a long time ago. Genetics show Turks have varying degrees of East Asian and Siberian admixture that indicates a Central Asian origin while neighboring Balkanite and West Asian populations are devoid of them. Turks are sort of like the English in this respect, who descend from both Anglo-Saxons and the Celtic Britons.

But the East-Asian genetic contribution is minimal in comparison to the genetic contribution from Anatolian groups and also groups in and around Anatolia like Greeks, Kurds, etc. To my knowledge the average Turk has around 5% or smaller East-Asian genes. I'm sure there are Turks that don't even have that 5%. So is being ethnically Turk, dependent on the tiny genetic East-Asian genetic contribution?

[Hayalet]

But the East-Asian genetic contribution is minimal in comparison to the genetic contribution from Anatolian groups and also groups in and around Anatolia like Greeks, Kurds, etc. To my knowledge the average Turk has around 5% or smaller East-Asian genes. I'm sure there are Turks that don't even have that 5%. So is being ethnically Turk, dependent on the tiny genetic East-Asian genetic contribution?
No, being ethnically Turkish is dependent on one's identity, language and ancestors. Genetics is just supplemantary, which proves the connection to Central Asia. And Turks who came from Central Asia to Anatolia were only partially East Asian or Siberian, so when you say Turks are 5% East Asian and Siberian, you don't mean Turks only have 5% ancestry from them, it's much more.

Another thing is, Turks used to have their tribal identity in the past, which is more precise than the "Turkish" ethnicity which is like an umbrella term for the Turkic Oghuz tribes in Anatolia and the Balkans:


Alayundlu
http://i50.tinypic.com/2sb1pgp.jpg

Avshar
http://i48.tinypic.com/5n3bs7.jpg

Bayad
http://i47.tinypic.com/6zrcc8.jpg

Bayundur/Bayındır
http://i47.tinypic.com/2rc5uyr.jpg

Beg-dili
http://i47.tinypic.com/34qpdas.jpg

Chepni
http://i49.tinypic.com/2hresme.jpg

Chunkar-Barak
http://i46.tinypic.com/ziowia.jpg

Dodurga
http://i47.tinypic.com/1zyajow.jpg

Döğer
http://i49.tinypic.com/35mkv84.jpg

Eymür
http://i49.tinypic.com/ycdue.jpg

Iğdir
http://i50.tinypic.com/xcoxmv.jpg

Kargyn
http://i46.tinypic.com/vg5u21.jpg

[Hayalet]

Kayı
http://i50.tinypic.com/2v8ho9s.jpg

Kınık
http://i50.tinypic.com/20jgrj5.jpg

Pecheneg
http://i46.tinypic.com/33nu58x.jpg

Salur/Salgur
http://i49.tinypic.com/2znpcsz.jpg

Varsak
http://i46.tinypic.com/2gucrww.jpg

Yaparlı-Chavundur-Karaevli
http://i49.tinypic.com/9pubnb.jpg

Yazyr-Yazır
http://i47.tinypic.com/2hoiopi.jpg

Yıva
http://i50.tinypic.com/34jdtad.jpg

Yüreğir-Yuregir
http://i47.tinypic.com/euoqyu.jpg

http://i48.tinypic.com/w8uptx.jpg

http://i45.tinypic.com/29zrjpw.jpg

[Roy]

They have their own quite distinct look.

[Musso]

I see Turkish ethnicity as the result of the Turkic tribal invasions and their subsequent mixing with the native groups in the Anatolia region and their imposition of an Altaic language on the resulting peoples. Of course, the genetic contribution by the Turkic invaders has diluted and diluted over the centuries. Turkish identity for this reason is more "loose" than let's say the Armenian identity.

[Hayasa]

You have to compare ethnic Armenians with ethnic Turks to see which one is more diverse. "Afro-Turks" are not ethnic Turks.

Then who are the ethnic Turks?

Do the assimilated Balkan Turks also count as "ethnic" Turks?

[Mehmet]

Armenians are Armenoid nation. Their ethnicity is their race. An ugly one.

[Hayasa]

Armenians are Armenoid nation. Their ethnicity is their race. An ugly one.

Ok, you know what you're asking for it already.

This is a public poll (http://www.topix.com/forum/world/germany/TVIRU1B0M41MDIFLU), in which 4060 people have voted.
The poll is titled "Are Turks Ugly?"
Only 13% of the votes negates the proposition, which means that the remaining 87% accepts that Turks are "ugly" (in one way or another).

I only did this because of your trolling.

And there is no such thing as an Armenoid "race". At best it refers to a "phenotype" or a collection thereof.

[Hayasa]

Here is the Wikipedia article for "Armenoid race". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenoid_race)

And here is the public discussion page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AArmenoid) for the article where the Wikipedia contributors discuss the term "Armenoid".
(It's not a forum.)

[Mehmet]

:) the 'Are Turks ugly?' thread is opened in a German forum obviously.
Well yes Turkish women are uglier compared to German ones (beware, on average, one can show you thousands or even millions of exception to the rule).
Comments come from Dutch or Polish people... And there are still some in the comments telling Turks look nice.

Start the same topic in a Lebanese or Syrian environment, and ask to compare Turks to Armenians.
You know what the results will be like.
They will praise Turks and bash Armenians. Even the Christian ones :)

[Hayasa]

Have you ever Googled the dictionary definition of "Armenoid race"?

Well, here (http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Armenoid+Race) it is.


Warning! The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Armenoid Race

a Southwest Asian variant of the Balkano-Caucasian race, a member of the large Europoid race. It is characterized by particularly well-developed tertiary body hair, a very prominent nose with an arching back and a lowered base, brachycephaly, a short and relatively broad face, and medium height. Part of the population of Southwest Asia and the Caucasus (Armenians) belongs to the Armenoid race.

[Hayasa]

Here (http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Armenoid) is the "Armeniapedia" entry for "Armenoid Race".


The Armenoid type is a stable hybrid between two principal elements, the Alpine race and the Irano-Afghan division of the Mediterranean stock, mixed at the ratio of 2 of the latter to 1 of the former. The combination has produced a greater laterality than either parent stock, an excess of brachycephaly, and an excess of facial length and nasality. In northern and eastern Armenia, a strong Nordic infusion has altered the blend in a linear direction, and has infused a minority with partial blondism; in southern and western Armenia, a parallel infusion of Mediterranean factors, comparable to those found in Syria and Arabia, has reduced the stature and other linear dimensions, while increasing the brunet character of the pigmentation.

Thus the Armenoid race is a product of the same principle of hybridization which has produced Dinarics in Europe,151 the chief difference being that among the Armenians the Mediterranean factor involved is Irano-Afghan, while in countries farther east it is one of several varieties more familiar to Europeans. In tracing relationships between Dinarics and Armenoids, as between groups of Dinarics, it is futile to look for historic associations, since the relationship is parallel rather than derivative. Racial analysis has indicated something that archaeology has only begun to reveal; that Anatolia, the Syrian highlands, and the Armenian plateau are not, in all likelihood, basic Mediterranean racial territory, but the former homelands of a population similar to that living in Europe during late glacial times. The Alpine race, here as in central Europe, from France to Albania, has reëmerged, and in so doing has blended with Mediterranean forms in a characteristic way. Another conclusion which one may make from this study is that Anatolia was never, until the time of the Ottoman Empire, an important highroad of racial movements; its main role has been that of a refuge area, and the same is true of the Syrian mountains and those of Armenia.

A separate group of brachycephalic Near Eastern people living until recently in the neighborhood of the eastern Armenians is that of the Aissores, or Assyrians, Christians who still speak the old Syric language, now used in Syria in a ritual sense only, but once widespread also in Mesopotamia. These Assyrians, Christians in Mesopotamia since their conversion in 70 AD., were, at the time of the Arab conquest of their country, granted a firman issued by the Prophet himself permitting them to practice their religion without hindrance. Under this sanction they flourished greatly, sent missionaries to China, and founded a colony, which still exists, in India.152 At the time of the Mongol invasions, between 1230 and 1400 A.D., their country was laid waste, and those who survived the calamity fled northward into Turkey, settling in the mountain district of Hakkiari, in Kurdish country, south of Lake Van and west of Lake Urmia. In 1914, 80,000 of them were still established there, while another 35,000 lived in Iran, near Lake Urmia, and 10,000 more had returned to the lowlands of Iraq, near Mosul. During the World War and in the two decades since, the Assyrians have suffered further political disasters which have left them homeless and have greatly reduced their numbers.

These Assyrians, whose ancestors, presumably plainsmen from Iraq, may have been no different in a physical sense from the other inhabitants of that valley, are now, after some six hundred years of living in the mountains, more brachycephalic than the Armenians.153 Their mean stature is about 167 cm., their cephalic index mean about 87, with series by different authors varying from 85 to 90. They are almost purely brunet, and characteristically aquiline in nasal profile. Their total resemblance to Armenians, however, is not close; the faces of the Assyrians are both shorter and narrower than those of the Armenians, and their noses are likewise smaller. It is possible that mixture with Armenians produced the initial stimulus toward hyperbrachycephaly, but whatever its immediate origin, the facial dimensions show that the basic Mediterranean type involved is western, and not Irano-Afghan.

Even more of a refuge area than Asia Minor, the Caucasus mountain range and the valleys to either side provide shelter to an extremely varied conglomeration of peoples. Besides the Armenians, the Aissores, the Kurds, the Tats, who are Iranians living near Baku, and the Azerbaijani Turks, and some Tatars and Mongols, the Caucasus contains the Caucasians proper, who are the speakers of Caucasic languages, and the Ossetes, whose language is Iranian and for whom descent is claimed from the Alans, the last ethnic survivors of the Sarmatians recorded in history.154

The Caucasic speakers are divided into four main branches, each of which has many subdivisions; these branches are the Lesghians, the Chechens, the Cherkesses or Circassians, and the Georgians. Map 16 will show the distribution of these peoples. The various subdivisions of these peoples, living in their separate valleys, follow different forms of Christianity and of Islam, while the presence of Jewish villages complicates the religious pattern. The Georgians, however, are mostly Christian, the Cherkesses mostly Moslems; with the Russian conquest of the northern Slopes of the Caucasus, many of the latter emigrated to Ottoman Turkish territory, including Syria and the Balkans. Most of the Lesghians are also Moslems, while the Chechen are for the most part Christians, as is the majority of the Indo-European-speaking Ossetes. The Tats are Moslems.

Source: The Races of Europe by Carleton Stevens Coon Near Eastern brachycephals; Syria, Armenia, and the Caucasus - Chapter XII, section 18

[Sky earth]

:) the 'Are Turks ugly?' thread is opened in a German forum obviously.
Well yes Turkish women are uglier compared to German ones (beware, on average, one can show you thousands or even millions of exception to the rule).
Comments come from Dutch or Polish people... And there are still some in the comments telling Turks look nice.

Start the same topic in a Lebanese or Syrian environment, and ask to compare Turks to Armenians.
You know what the results will be like.
They will praise Turks and bash Armenians. Even the Christian ones :)

Who decides if Turkish women are uglier than German women on average? If you think so than it's your opinion but the problem with your intellectual low comments is that you portray your opinion as a fact that Turkish women are uglier on average than German women. There isn't a "rule" that German women are more attractive than Turkish women on average

[Hadouken]

Mehmet post a pic of yourself

[Musso]

When a person calls another nation "ugly looking", it's not really worth carrying forward the conversation with him.