The Real Ethnic Composition of Modern Greece

[Carlin]

Why did the Arvanites of Greece start speaking Greek in the war of independence from the Ottomans?

"I believe that the idea that the Arvanites ‘started speaking Greek during the war of independence from the Ottomans’ stems from the writings of the Austrian albanologist Johann Georg von Hahn. In his book ‘Albanesische Studien’ (=Albanian Studies) published in 1853 he makes such an assertion. Here is the extract where the statement is made (the English translation was taken from ‘The Westminster Review’ vol. 62 (1854) pp.191–192[1])"

"From this extract it is, however, clear that among the Arvanites only the women could not speak Greek prior to the War for Independence. The men obviously could."

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-Arvanites-of-Greece-start-speaking-standard-Greek-in-the-war-of-liberation-from-the-Ottomans-Is-it-true-that-one-leader-declared-one-to-another-I-knew-that-you-are-Arvanitis-like-me-where-did-you-learn

[Carlin]

Antonis Rizos.

The screenshot above is derived from the periodical edition "Ta istorika", issue 28-29, of the publishing house Μέλισσα (Melissa).

In the highlighted text of the above screenshot A. Rizos states that he considers that the mainly agricultural populations of southwest Thessaly, known as Karagounides (Garagounides), are the hellenized descendants of Arvanites who, according to the available reports, appeared in those parts at the beginning of the 14th century.

[Carlin]

URL:

https://archive.org/details/jstor-3014268

[Carlin]

In ancient times, Evrytanians/Eurytanians were described as forming a great part of the Aetolian ethnos

https://books.google.ca/books?id=T7aH-tU3x3UC&pg=PA6&dq=Eurytanians+barbarians&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7_rKd2pPdAhUr_4MKHffEDZMQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Eurytanians%20barbarians&f=false

Fanis Michalopoulos referring to the visit of Cosmas of Aetolia to Aspropotamos and Agrafa regions, stresses that "the language here (was) Vlach in most villages"

[Amphipolis]

LOL, most of the questions posed in the forum during the last decade are already answered (separately) in each DNA company. I haven't received my results yet, but after registering My-Heritage-DNA it does provide tables with ethnicity percentages for each country.

Watch out. These percentages do not add-up to 100%. It means that 1,3% of Greek users have some small Nigerian heritage. It also suggests that 79% have Greek heritage (in various percentages), i.e. 21% have 0 Greek heritage (of course in the way the company defines Greek). So here's the percentages for Greece (explanations are mine):

Greek 79%
Balkan 27%
Italian 21%
West Asian 21% (This covers Turkey-Iran)
N-W Europe 8% (this is France-Germany)
Iberia 7%
Scandinavia 6%
Middle East 6%
Sardinia 4%
East Europe 4%
England 3%
Ireland-Scotland-Wales 3%
Sephardic Jews-North Africa 3%
Baltic 2,1%
India 2,1% (gypsies, I guess)
Mizrachi Jews-Iran-Iraq 1,3%
Nigeria 1,3%
Askenazi Jews 1%

[Amphipolis]

This is the link. I hope it gives access to you. You can also check by ethnicity.

https://www.myheritage.com/ethnicities/europe/continent-country-list

[maco2envy]

This is the link. I hope it gives access to you. You can also check by ethnicity.

https://www.myheritage.com/ethniciti...t-country-list

I don't find these clusterings intuitive at all. Is there really a "Greek" cluster/ethnicity if that collection of DNA markers is also present in 73% of Bulgarians (in comparison to the 79.4% of Greeks)?

[Amphipolis]

I don't find these clusterings intuitive at all. Is there really a "Greek" cluster/ethnicity if that collection of DNA markers is also present in 73% of Bulgarians (in comparison to the 79.4% of Greeks)?

Based on random YouTube videos I can find, in Bulgarians or Albanians the "Greek" will appear in smaler percentages but, yes, it will be there for 70% of the people. Other companies don't have "Greek" but a wider "Greece/Italy" category.

[maco2envy]

To me ansetoryDNA's classifications make much more sense. The link you posted basically shows it's more of a "Bulgarian/Greek" cluster than a "Greek/Italian"


see:

https://www.myheritage.com/ethnicities/greek/ethnicity-worldwide-distribution

[Amphipolis]

To me ansetoryDNA's classifications make much more sense. The link you posted basically shows it's more of a "Bulgarian/Greek" cluster than a "Greek/Italian"


see:
https://www.myheritage.com/ethniciti...e-distribution

The dominant gene in Bulgaria is "Balkan", so is in other Balkan countries North of Greece.

This is an example of a Bulgarian with Zero Greek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Uedxoz8oM

And this is a Bulgarian girl with Zero Balkan!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfSh938Hb4E

[maco2envy]

Err these are not simply "genes" but a collections of DNA markers which are grouped according to some criteria.

Myheritage's so called "Balkan" group does not sound really Balkan either, given it's really common for Slovenians, Romanians and Slovakians. Also going by your logic the "Balkan" group should probably be "Slovenian", as it is the most prevalent in Slovenians.

Also given that only 19.1% of Turks have an affiliation to this "Greek" group makes it sound like these markers are related to Paleo Balkan people mixed with other people whom settled in the Balkans (Slavs, Vlachs, ect). I'd assume many people in RoM and Albania will also belong to this "Greek" group.

[Amphipolis]

I don’t really know if it would be fair to understand the Balkan marker as ancient Thracian or Thraco-Illyrian. It seems to be Paleo-Balkan and not Greek.

I also suspect “Eastern European” is for Slavic, though something seems to be wrong with Hungary.

19% Greek in Turkey seems correct, as Turkey is a very big country and extends very far to the East. The West-Asian marker seems to describe Anatolian-Persian people which is most of Turkey’s population.

I don’t really know how these markers or genes work but they seem to match with the situation. Example: One of my grandmothers comes from the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, i.e. the borderline of “Greek” and “West Asia” marker. Thus, before getting my results I would bet-expect one of these two or a combination. Let’s wait and see.

[maco2envy]

You should also try GEDmatch with the files you receive from Myheritage for comparison (I think it's for free)

[Amphipolis]

I promise to try everything especially if I don’t like the results.

This is another DNA results video from a different company (didn’t get the name). A beautiful black girl who knows she’s 100% Ethiopian, yet very light-color skinned finds out she’s 2/3 African and 1/3 Arab.

In 8:30-9:30 there’s something interesting. The company provides full (weighted) DNA makeup per country (in % percentages) which is what my-heritage-DNA doesn’t give though it’s mathematically simple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a7Z8Q43cfw

[Amphipolis]

I moved this here:

Balkan is a classification specifically made by MyHeritage to denote South Slavic ancestry, which is a combination of incoming Slavic tribes in the Early Middle Ages, and assimilated Thracians, Illyrians, Dacians etc. Since Albanians are a Paleo-Balkanic people without (major) Slavic ancestry.. they do not score this in great amounts. Matter of fact, I have seen Greeks score more of this, especially northern Greeks score around 30% Balkan, than Albanians.


My impression is that Balkan stands for Ancient Thracians (and Illyrians maybe), not for Slavs. A Northern Greek having 30% Balkan seems normal. I’m 50% Northern Greek (Macedonian & Thracian) let’s see how much Balkan I will score.

That's it. No other classification than 'Greek', a fellow Paleo-Balkanic ethnic group, that makes the slightest sense for Albanians to score in their results. It does not matter whether it is South or north, Tosk or Gheg Albanians we are speaking of, they score 'Greek' because that is the only ethnic group in MyHeritage's database genetically closest to them. It has nothing to do with Tosks having some Greek ancestors, Kosovars also score loads of 'Greek' and often even more than actual Greeks.


That’s an interesting DNA classification problem. My understanding is that Albanians, a separate people, with a separate language and NO brotherly populations SHOULD have some major differences in their DNA. One company cannot separate Greeks from Italians another company seems to achieve this successfully. I knew all Scandinavians are one people but I’m impressed no company can separate German and French people.

My father took a Myheritage DNA test, he is both Kosovar and Greek, and he turned out to be 67.1% 'Greek'. His Greek side is from the Peleponnese and northern Greece, where the people do have quite some foreign admixture thus if he were only Greek he would not score more than 60% Greek, and his Albanian side is obviously from Kosovo, a region with absolutely no historical Greek population. A Gheg (northern) Albanian I met on the internet showed his results and they said he is 94% Greek.


These are not the strangest results. Overall Albanian results do not exist yet, so I don’t know what Albanians would expect as normal.

'Greek' includes the descendants of other Paleo-Balkanic peoples with little Slavic ancestry, so does it include many west Anatolian ancient nations such as Carians, Lydians, Lycians, Mysians, Bithynians etc. It is a big mistake for companies to call the classification they make for the Greek people 'Greek' if they do not make seperate additional classifications to represent Albanians and ancient Anatolian ancestry, who otherwise just fall under the ‘Greek’ section. Thus one should take their results with a grain of salt.


I believe Slavs are clustered in the “Eastern Europe” category and most of the other people in “West Asia”