Are Armenians and Georgians Europeans? Poll!

[Petros Agapetos]

What do you think about Armenians and Georgians being ethnically or culturally European?
Georgians and Armenians are old Christian nations. The Armenian language is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. Georgian is its own language family.

[user_]

They are part of modern Europe. Especially Georgia.

[Wanderer]

Sure. Why not?

[Petros Agapetos]

A new study into Armenian genetics reveals that present day Armenians are a mixture of local Bronze Age people who have retained homogeneity for over three thousand years, and show great affinity to Neolithic Europeans, PeopleOfAr reports.

Armenians are an ethno-linguistic-religious group distinct from their surrounding neighbors. They have their own church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, which was founded in the 1st century CE, and became in 301 CE the first branch of Christianity to become a state religion. They have also their own alphabet and language which is classified as an independent branch of the Indo-European language family.

The historical homeland of the Armenians sits north of the Fertile Crescent, a region of substantial importance to modern human evolution. Genetic and archaeological data suggest farmers expanding from this region during the Neolithic populated Europe and interacted/admixed with pre-existing huntergatherer populations. Furthermore, Armenia’s location may have been important for the spread of Indo-European languages, since it is believed to encompass or be close to the Proto-Indo-European homeland (Anatolia or Pontic Steppe) from which the Indo-Europeans and their culture spread to Western Europe, Central Asia and India.

[Petros Agapetos]

Armenia participates in Eurovision, European cup and other inter-European competitions. Armenia has signed onto the Eurointegration Agreement. Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Council of Europe and the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

[Grenzland]

More European than Asian.

[PsychoPrincessJ]

They are as European as Turks.

[Berahthraban]

More European than Asian.

I would like them to be, but no. Culturally, perhaps, and otherwise they're more similar to West Asian people by a long shot. I think "we" can have some really nice cooperation though. It's not like we have nothing in common at all.

[Root]

Armenians and Georgians are Europeans and Ukrainians and Lithuanians are Middle Easterners.

[Mingle]

No. Their food is more West Asian than Eastern European by a long shot, they eat little to no pork even. Their history is more associated with Iran and Turkey than with Europe. Armenia's name in Armenian is Hayastan, its completely flooded with Persian and especially Parthian words due to being ruled by them for many centuries. Georgia was also ruled by them for a while but has much less influence from Iranians than Armenia does. Armenians claim descent from Urartu, a West Asian people who live in the same region as modern day Kurds do. The Armenian kingdom of Cilicia was in the Levant/Anatolia region, which is a core part of Armenian history. Look at the "Greater Armenia" map. It includes mainly Kurdish regions and some Turkish ones but not an inch of Europe. It can actually be argued that Armenians are more West Asian than they are Caucasian since they are more similar to Anatolian Turks and Persians than to Chechens and Circassians. There are even a decent amount of Armenians in Iranian Azerbaijan today that live there peacefully and are well integrated.

The only thing that can be argued for their "Europeaness" is Christianity. By that logic though, even Assyrians are European. They may be part of European political stuff like UEFA, Eurovision, etc. but even Turkey and Azerbaijan are so that is a moot point.