Who are the Slavs? - Citations and Sources

[Voltron]

Originally Posted by chentovist

My view is that Slavs were at one time a racial group, and that in the case of Russia, the Viking Rus ruled over these Slav people. They adopted the national name of Rus over time in honour of the state-forming nation of Rus. Over time however these Slav peoples have spread out and intermingled with various peoples, and are today more of a linguistic group, rather than a racial group. I guess a similar analogy can be used for Germanic peoples, and the English for example who are a Germanic nation, and their language a Germanic language. This however does not make them any less English.

Agreed, Thats my belief as well.

@ Sovius, my intention wasnt to get deep into haplogroups and genetic markers. The articles was meant to be read as a whole, I briefly visited the site you posted. Interesting but its not something that I would spend a lot of time reading. If you can tell me in laymen terms what is different from the article that I posted in 2007 that would be great.

[Voltron]

Originally Posted by Soldier of Macedon

The problem I have with that interpretation is the following. If they were a unique 'racial' group' then that almost implies they spoke a language that was unrelated to other languages. However, that is not the case. Slavic languages descend from the same proto language that produced Baltic (and in my opinion Paleo-Balkan) languages. The 'Slavs' were merely peoples that descended from indigenous populations in Europe, who espoused a common identity based on a common lingua franca (this doesn't mean that all of them gave up their tribal or ethnic identities completely), most likely as a bulwark against Gothic, Hunnic and Avar encroachment. Many of those peoples already spoke languages that would be considered as kindred to the Slavic lingua franca, before they adopted the latter.

I think what we are saying is that originally they were a distinct group as the Germans were. Of course during their expansion they absorbed local indigenous elements so it doesnt necessarly conflict with what your saying either. As a result I suggested if we wanted to point to an ethnos that would best represent the Slavic one today where would we go ? I said Poland and from various articles that I have read its certainly a contender.

[Onur]

Originally Posted by Bill77

What is a "Slav"?

Bill77, actually Chentovist indirectly answered your question. Aside from linguistics, The slavs means Varangian Vikings, Kypchak/Cumans, Germanic goths and various other peoples in case of Russia. It was more or less same for the other so-called slavic peoples too.

I gave the examples of 3 medieval Russian rulers but he asks for another "slavic nobility". Well, these 3 rulers were the slavic nobility too and the rest were their descendants. These Kypchak/Cumans, Tatars, Vikings has became the slavs of Russia both for the nobility and the ordinary folk.

[Voltron]

How did this thread take a turn on focusing on Russia ?
Scratch a Russian find a Tatar, ok lets move on.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Voltron

I think what we are saying is that originally they were a distinct group as the Germans were. Of course during their expansion they absorbed local indigenous elements so it doesnt necessarly conflict with what your saying either. As a result I suggested if we wanted to point to an ethnos that would best represent the Slavic one today where would we go ? I said Poland and from various articles that I have read its certainly a contender.

Germans are not a good analogy, and like I told you before, the German language (before going through a number of changes and stages of development) originated from Proto Germanic in the south of Sweden and the northern tip of Germany. The ancestors of modern Germans are not the original "ethnos" of all other peoples who speak Germanic languages today, for example, the people and language of Germany did not spread into Scandinavia. Even in the case of the Netherlands, people who spoke Germanic languages settled the area well before a specifically 'German' ethnic identity was established, even if a common linguistic and partly cultural identity had existed at the time. Therefore, you need cease equating German with Germanic, you shouldn't have to be continually reminded of such a simple distinction. I find it interesting when some people try to connect the spread of the term 'Slavic' with DNA results and the similarities shared by the populations between Slovenia and Russia. Is there any evidence suggesting that the relevant genetical markers spread from the 6th century AD?

Originally Posted by Sovius

Many Swedes are the descendents of colonists who were previously living in what would become known as Poland and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe many thousands of years ago. If the Russians were Slavs, would not the Vikings be Slavs, as well? Or is it the other way around?

Sovius, been a little while, welcome back. What are your thoughts on the origin of Germanic? Do you think it descended directly from PIE or developed as a 'creole' mix of IE languages (or an IE and other language)? I would also like to know your opinion on the below:

If they were a unique 'racial group' then that almost implies they spoke a language that was unrelated to other languages. However, that is not the case. Slavic languages descend from the same proto language that produced Baltic (and in my opinion Paleo-Balkan) languages. The 'Slavs' were merely peoples that descended from indigenous populations in Europe, who espoused a common identity based on a common lingua franca (this doesn't mean that all of them gave up their tribal or ethnic identities completely), most likely as a bulwark against Gothic, Hunnic and Avar encroachment. Many of those peoples already spoke languages that would be considered as kindred to the Slavic lingua franca, before they adopted the latter.

[Voltron]

Originally Posted by Soldier of Macedon

Germans are not a good analogy, and like I told you before, the German language (before going through a number of changes and stages of development) originated from Proto Germanic in the south of Sweden and the northern tip of Germany. The ancestors of modern Germans are not the original "ethnos" of all other peoples who speak Germanic languages today, for example, the people and language of Germany did not spread into Scandinavia. Even in the case of the Netherlands, people who spoke Germanic languages settled the area well before a specifically 'German' ethnic identity was established, even if a common linguistic and partly cultural identity had existed at the time. Therefore, you need cease equating German with Germanic, you shouldn't have to be continually reminded of such a simple distinction. I find it interesting when some people try to connect the spread of the term 'Slavic' with DNA results and the similarities shared by the populations between Slovenia and Russia. Is there any evidence suggesting that the relevant genetical markers spread from the 6th century AD?

I think we are overanalysing the substance of what is being said. In my reference to " Germans " although not as accurate for the reasons you pointed it out was a general comparison. If rephrasing it to Germanic vs Slavic makes it more accurate than that is what I meant. DNA it doesnt reflect an ethnos. Thats why I dont buy into DNA reasoning but I guess if it can point to a migration of certain peoples than its perfectly reasonable to use it as evidence.

Is there any evidence suggesting that the relevant genetical markers spread from the 6th century AD?

For that to happen wouldnt you need before and after "6th century AD" samples to compare ? I dont know how one would be able to figure out the timeline of when it was introduced.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Originally Posted by Voltron

I think we are overanalysing the substance of what is being said. In my reference to " Germans " although not as accurate for the reasons you pointed it out was a general comparison. If rephrasing it to Germanic vs Slavic makes it more accurate than that is what I meant.

Germanic is more accurately compared to Balto-Slavic, and as a descendant of the latter, Slavic did not spread in the same way as Germanic.

DNA it doesnt reflect an ethnos. Thats why I dont buy into DNA reasoning but I guess if it can point to a migration of certain peoples than its perfectly reasonable to use it as evidence.

If there is no evidence of genetical commonalities having only spread from the 6th century AD among the peoples between Slovenia and Russia, then it can't be used in support of a 'Slavic migration'.

[Sovius]

Voltron:
R1a1 has been present in Central Europe since at least the Corded Ware Period or roughly 2,600 years ago, give or take a century. Scientists, even ones utilizing obsolete historical interpretative models, now know this because the closest living descendents of people who once lived at the Eulau archeological site in what is now Germany have been identified through DNA testing as still living in places like Poland, Slovakia, Norway and Czechia. The M458 marker, which defines a good number of Modern Polish people, evolved out of this Haplogroup. Why are there so many "Corded Ware" toponyms in places like Norway and Sweden? Why would a population carrying an evolved mutation still be living amongst the population that this mutation evolved out of in the first place? I'll give Onur a hint. Its not mass extinction or population displacement.

Your paper also forgets to mention that most of the oldest samples of the general R1a Haplogroup that have been discovered in Europe have been found in places like Macedonia, not Northern Europe. Would this not have made Elau a cultural extension of pre Corded Ware Period SE European cultures? What was Elau known as prior to the adoption of the Frankish lingua franca in the area? When you walk across the street, do you still continue to speak the same language that you did before you crossed it? If you answered yes, then you are living proof that languages follow genes. And if language follows genes, so does culture.

SoM:
Thanks. Hope you're doing well. Been following the press releases. Its good to see the MTO moving forward with a sharp knife.

I hold the same opinion as archeologist JP Mallory. Western European languages were not Indo-European to begin with. Contemporary computational linguistics research has made the case that what we today call the Germanic languages, a classification that a Roman Period computational linguist would likely find quite puzzling, developed out of the convergence of Celtic, Italic, Baltic and Slavic (Slovenian) language speakers. I'm putting my money on the Netherlands, as that's where researchers can still find Venetic toponyms. Given the computational analysis, the Germanic languages had to have developed as an initial creole language. DNA evidence also suggests that European prehistory witnessed a coming together of different peoples in a single place. The Iron Age Jasdorf Culture would then be an extension of a new material culture that was largely influenced by Halstatt or, rather, Slavstatt Culture, as well as, having originally been populated, in part, by these same populations.

Regarding your discussion with Pelister, I posted a few thoughts on the matter a page or two back in support of the counter argument for the sake of demonstrating the complexities involved. I'm not sure if you got a chance to read those yet or not. I imagine geo-linguists and historical linguists are having similar knock down drag out matches about the same subject. There's definitely a schism forming.

Every language goes through changes every day to some degree or another, but when does a language become something that it no longer once was? If Dacian (Slavic) originated out of the same parent language use area that Thracian and Illyrian did, then I believe Aristotelian logic dictates that the causal language is the correct language to use as a general classification of a specific dependent language. If you pour a drop of non-fat milk into a container of low-fat milk, you're still basically left with the same thing. I'd say the Slovenian classification better represents these languages as a general classification, as Slavic is based on Sklavene, as far as how the term entered the Western Roman collective consciousness and the Western European territories. We can associate the meaning of sloveni with the slavic term, but to truly make better sense of Europe's past, I think it would be beneficial for scholars to use the term Dacian when they refer to Dacians as a matter of principle as far as objectively communicating to others and that Dacian should be treated as a Slovenian, not a Slavic language. If I recall correctly, according to Orbini, Alexander the Great was slovjanski; therefore, using this objective approach that conveys the true meaning of "sloveni" and not that of a "Sklavene", he was a Macedonian who spoke an early form of one of the Slovenian (Paleo-Balkan) languages, not a Slav, who spoke a Slavic language, as a western translator would be convention bound to regard him as, as far as, what he or she thought Orbini was trying to communicate.




It's a tough stretch of trail to follow to be sure. If one wanted to bind indigenous geographic nomenclature to a non-contradictory Aristotelian argument as a universal designation to better represent the language group's area of origination, Macedonian (Matka Domija) would be a good candidate term. A short term Dacian occupation of Roman held lands alongside an insurrection of Illyrians, Thracians and Macedonians, yes. A sea of smelly, mud covered savages who just happened to have established the Odrysian kingdom (read civilization) during Herodotus' time engulfing the entire penninsula, no. I believe Slav is one of those terms where misleading connotations have come to outweigh its original denotations as far as the general public is concerned. It's not about what the writer thinks, its about what the reader comes to think.

[Voltron]

Originally Posted by Sovius

If I recall correctly, according to Orbini, Alexander the Great was slovjanski; therefore, using this objective approach that conveys the true meaning of "sloveni" and not that of a "Sklavene", he was a Macedonian who spoke an early form of one of the Slovenian (Paleo-Balkan) languages, not a Slav, who spoke a Slavic language, as a western translator would be convention bound to regard him as, as far as, what he or she thought Orbini was trying to communicate.

I hope your kidding.

[chentovist]

Originally Posted by Onur

Bill77, actually Chentovist indirectly answered your question. Aside from linguistics, The slavs means Varangian Vikings, Kypchak/Cumans, Germanic goths and various other peoples in case of Russia. It was more or less same for the other so-called slavic peoples too.

I gave the examples of 3 medieval Russian rulers but he asks for another "slavic nobility". Well, these 3 rulers were the slavic nobility too and the rest were their descendants. These Kypchak/Cumans, Tatars, Vikings has became the slavs of Russia both for the nobility and the ordinary folk.

Onur, aren't these very Slavs the ones who have made the Turks of today resemble Europeans? Remember the original Turks were a yellow race resembling the Chinese.