Spot the Language 19

Максим (Кроха) практически не скрывал своих противоестественных страстей. Никого не стесняясь, он заходил к очередному любовнику и принимался за черное дело. Свидетель такого цирка, оттого ушедший из МП, тогда неосторожно заглянул в помещение и, увидев, чем занимается правящий архиерей, сказал:

- Паскуда, хотя бы панагию снял…
В свое время еще существовавший Совет по делам религий был обезкуражен многочисленными неблаговидными выходками одного Члена Синода. Поводом послужило несколько письменных заявлений уборщицы. Суть заключалась в следующем.

- У меня – строгий рабочий день,- сообщала глупая тетка.- В 19.00 я оканчиваю работу и ухожу домой. По трудовому договору я обязана до этого сделать мокрую уборку в помещении. А я захожу в митрополичий кабинет – а они там безобразят.

- Как это? – испуганно интересовались чиновники.
- А так,- не сдавалась представительница пролетариата.- Они друг дружку употребляют прямо на письменном столе и мешают уборке. Я им говорю: «Кончайте быстрее. Мне надо убираться и уходить». А они – ни в какую, только сопят. Ну, я их мокрой тряпкой попыталась разогнать. Так они мне стали угрожать увольнением. Я так это дело не оставлю!..

Но особенно хорошо:

Вспомнилась мне, когда-то прочитанная стенограмма одного заседания в обкоме КПСС, кажется, Волынской области. Там что-то сильно требовались зоотехники, скотники, доярки и т.д. Речь шла, если помню правильно, о селе Торчине. Но каков официальный ответ местного партийного руководителя:

- Зоотехникiв немаэ. Абу пип, абу милиционэр. Скотникiв тэж немаэ…

И вот так везде - абу пип, абу милиционэр, а скотникiв немаэ.

To mother! Mother! Holy Mother! Glory to Mother!

It was 1910-1914. It was before King-Crane already, yet the cruel imperialists were already carving up and feasting on Arab lands, and Mother sat down to eat. Dining on Ottoman's choice cuts, as she had always lustily dreamed. The hate, the hate for Ottoman, the burning hate.

Well, no man will stand for being eaten alive, and in Ottoman's mansion, a great mutiny arose with the finest of his sons, the Young Men. There was a rising on the Bosporus and they had murder in their eyes.

Little did history realize the significance of those days, the rise of the Young Men, that it would lead to a war that shattered all things, the Great Imperialist Slaughter as the Left snorted amid heaves, half a decade hence. Who today yet connects the two tremors? Ah, but it is true. The War, the war, the maddest of all the horrible wars, a war for no reason!

It was 1914 and it was 1915 and it was war, the worst war the world pretended it had ever seen.

Mother was beaten and nearly died at Tannenburg and Masurim Lakes as a Hun went mad.

Mother crawled back scrambling to the Hinterland, where no man could ever beat her for good. With her, a 100,000 man Czech Legion, traitors to a one, rallying to the cry of their own flesh and blood. There was war in Galice, in the Pallid Lands. There, in a Sallow Land, the fight stalemated for years, and a million of Mother's sons never did breathe again.

Brusilov, in 1916, opened the door, and Mother grabbed the tallest Carpathian peaks. In reaching for the sky, a million more sons were trampled dead. At home there were riots and frustration with the dying, the long dying and the sadness of the dying. The monarch toppled and the people dreamed that they ruled. It was March 1917, and the world was shaking.

Mother was dragged to Brest-Livotsk, raging and snarling all the way and clawing with her nails. At gunpoint, she signed, and they cruelly hacked away her flesh. "Mother! Holy Mother!" the people cried, as they always did in this cruel enraptured land.

"For land, for bread, for peace," the wild peasant crowds longed and roared, and revolution shook the land. In Red and White, the blood ran across the wheezing land for years.

Wrangel and Denikin grabbed the South, and Kolchak grabbed the East. 40,000 Czechs, turncoats in the Great War, changed colors again and the rails were seized.

It was 1921, we were at a seaport, just us. We watched in terror, you and me, as the sailors raged and burned, and 400 brave ones fell. We ran from the flames and the soldiers bullets mowing down men.

Agile and adaptive as a snake, from privation, the state went to NEP and won the bloody war. The people had no food, they shrunk, huddled and then died, and no one knew how many starved, but starving was a normal way here, like the endless forests and the mean soil.

Everyone from other lands pitched in to the fight, everyone against Mother, as usual, but in the end the People prevailed as the peasants cheered. To this day, the Ruling Class of the World trembles with rage at this horrible blow.

The saga of Mother, the strange, sad, terrible and beautiful saga of Mother, so proud but so backwards and full of rage, like a wild woman living in the woods with her head held high, does not end here, but here we shall end our tale. Even today, she rises again, and no one can figure her out.

Those wily Eastern ways, and the eternal resentment of the West. The icy wind blows, she throws back another hard drink, and listens to her great composers. The bookshelves heave with her authors, the greatest lettermen that walked on soil. Her pride and her pain and her rage. She tosses back another drink as the wind howls.

It is late, she is beautiful, blond and blue yet alone again, and she rages at the snowy drifts fighting her sills. Mother is horny and she wants sex again and again, wants the world, wants to do the world, and the men are all drinking again, drinking and singing, drinking and fighting, drinking and sleeping. There is death everywhere, but there always is and always was, as death is part of Mother as dear as her very heart.

She will rise again.

Like her or not, always respect Mother. The way you respect a Grizzly Bear. Imperious yet crippled, she demands you look her in the eye and give her her due.

Les Linguistes Parlent Plusieurs Langues

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German. Email me if you are interested.

This is the French translation of the Linguists Know Lots of Different Languages post. Translator: Natalie from France.

C'est une erreur courante. Une variante est que le programme de linguistique ne t'acceptera pas si tu n'es pas polyglotte, et surement pas si tu es monolingue.

Beaucoup de gens pensent que le mot « linguiste » est synonyme de « polyglotte »

J'ai un master en linguistique et je ne parle, lis et écris bien qu'une seule langue: l'anglais. Mon espagnol est correct, mais je ne le parle pas couramment ou comme une langue maternelle. Je connais un peu d'italien, de français, portuguais et chukchansi yokuts (langue des indiens de Californie), mais mon espagnol et bien meilleur que toutes ces langues-ci.

On n'a pas besoin de savoir plus d'une langue pour être linguiste. Par exemple, je lis la moitié d'un dictionnaire et un livre de grammaire de chukchansi yokuts, mais je ne sais pas du tout parler cette langue. Simplement j'acquiers les données, je les organise, les analyse, et organise le tout en petit dico et quelques matériels d'apprentissage.

Mon cursus universitaire ne nécessite pas d'être bilingue pour y accéder, il y avait beaucoup de monolingue dans ce cours. A vrai dire il y avait aussi beaucoup d'étudiants étrangers, mais ils étaient en train de passer leur ESL (English Second Language (Anglais Deuxième Langue) : apprentissage de l’anglais dans un pays anglophone) pour pouvoir enseigner l'anglais comme deuxième langue, outremer.

Nous ne faisons qu'étudier les langues. On a pas besoin de les apprendre pour les étudier. Il paraît que pour quelque obscure raison, les gens ne n'arrivent pas à comprendre cela.

C'est bien vrai que beaucoup de linguistes parlent, lisent, écrivent et connaissent plus d'une langue.

Une blague de linguiste, voyez si vous la comprenez (vous devrez peut-être réfléchir un peu), on dit que Roman Jacobsen, linguiste renommé, parlait Russe en 17 langues différentes.

Los Lingüistas Saben Muchos Idiomas

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German. Email me if you are interested.

French translation (en Français).

This is the Spanish translation of the Linguists Know Lots of Different Languages post.

Esta es una confusión muy común. Una de sus variantes es que los cursos para ser lingüista no te aceptarán a no ser que seas políglota, y que está clarísimo que no lo harán si eres monolingüe.

Mucha gente mayor incluso piensa que la palabra "lingüista" es sinónimo de "políglota".

Yo tengo un máster en lingüística y sólo hablo, leo y escribo bien en un idioma: inglés. Mi español es normal, pero realmente no es fluido o se acerca siquiera a ser nativo. Sé algo de italiano, francés, portugués y chukchansi yokuts*, pero mi español es bastante mejor que cualquiera de estos.

No necesitas saber más de un idioma para ser lingüista. Por ejemplo, yo me leí la mitad de un diccionario y un diccionario fraseológico de Chukchansi Yokuts, pero para nada podría hablar en ese idioma. Simplemente recogí los datos, los organicé, los analicé y los dispuse en un glosario y algunos materiales de aprendizaje.

Mi carrera no requiere que seas bilingüe para entrar. Había muchos monolingües en nuestro curso. También es cierto que había muchos estudiantes extranjeros, pero todos tenían la intención de conseguir el grado ESL para enseñar inglés como segunda lengua en el extranjero.

Todo lo que hacemos es estudiar lenguas. No necesitas aprender lenguas para estudiarlas. Parece que, por alguna razón, mucha gente no entiende esto.

Aunque es cierto, eso sí, que muchos lingüistas hablan, leen, escriben o conocen más de un idioma.

Un chiste de lingüistas, a ver si lo pilláis (quizá tengáis que pensar un poco):

Dicen que Roman Jacobsen, el famoso lingüista, hablaba ruso en 17 idiomas distintos.

*Un idioma de los indions de California.

Linguists Know Lots of Languages

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German. Email me if you are interested.

Spanish translation (en Español). French translation (en Français).

This is a common misconception. A variation being that a Linguistics program will not accept you unless you are a polyglot, and certainly will not if you are a monolingual.

Many older people even think the word "linguist" is a synonym for "polyglot."

I have a Master's in Linguistics, and I only speak, read and write only one language well - English. My Spanish is ok, but it's not really fluent or even near-native. I know a bit of Italian, French, Portuguese and Chukchansi Yokuts* but my Spanish is far better than any of those.

You don't need to know more than one language to be a linguist. For instance, I got about 1/2 way through a dictionary and phrasebook of Chukchansi Yokuts, but the Hell if I can speak that language. I simply acquired the data, organized it, analyzed it, and made it into a lexicon and some learning materials.

My program did not require you to even be bilingual to enter the program. There were lots of monolinguals in our program. True, there were lots of foreign students too, but they were all getting ESL degrees to teach English as a Second Language overseas.

All we do is study languages. You don't really need to learn languages to study them. A lot of people can't seem to figure that out for some reason.

It's definitely true that lots of linguists do speak, read, write or have knowledge of more than one language.

A linguist joke, see if you can get it (you might have to think a bit):

They say that Roman Jacobsen, the famous linguist, spoke Russian in 17 different languages.

*A California Indian language.

The Moriori and the Dangers of Pacifism

The saga of Moriori is instructive.

The Maori have long been known as ferocious headhunters and cannibals who had one of the cruelest and evillest cultures on Earth. The Moriori seem to be a Maori split dating back to about 1500 or so. They left New Zealand and colonized the Chatham Islands. The Chatham Islands are small, very cold and isolated, and there is not a lot of food other than from the sea.

Moriori legend has it that initially, widespread tribal warfare, headhunting and cannibalism was practiced as the normative cruel Maori culture. On such a small island, this savagery was disastrous, and soon the population plummeted to near extinction. A leader arose among the Moriori, Nunuku-whenua, who preached a new doctrine of extreme pacifism, Nunuku's Law. Nunuku's Law was strictly adhered to 300 years.

Fighting was allowed between males, but it had to be conducted with each armed with a stick the width of a finger. At the first sign of blood, the duel was called off, and the beef was considered settled. Homicide, rape and other crimes were reportedly rare to absent among the Moriori for centuries.

In 1835, the Chatham Islands were invaded by Maori warriors, who promptly proceeded to slaughter, cannibalize and enslave the Moriori. The Morioris gathered for a meeting to decide whether or not to fight the invaders. Many young men argued for fighting back, but the elders decided that Nunuku's Law could not be violated for any reason.

The Moriori ran away and hid and were found and dealt with by the Maori.

Rightwingers have used this episode to exemplify the folly of pacifism.

Morioris were forbidden to marry each other, and Moriori women were forced to marry Maori men. It was a true genocide. From 1835-1862, the population declined from 1,600 to 100. Tommy Solomon, the last pure Moriori, died in 1933.

Tommy Solomon on his yearly visit to Christchurch. He was definitely a big fellow! He married a Maori woman, so his descendants are technically not pure Moriori.

Although popular myth says the Moriori were exterminated by the Maori, several thousand mixed-race Moriori still exist today. The Moriori language is extinct, but efforts are being made to raise it from the dead.

The saga of the Moriori gives the lie to the notion that race is destiny, at least among Polynesians.

It is commonly thought that Polynesians selected for extreme aggression on their long sea voyages to colonize distant islands. Food may have run low on these voyages, and the survivors may have killed others and cannibalized them to survive.

Perhaps the biggest and strongest were the ones most likely to survive the voyages, and this explains the huge size of Polynesians, probably the largest race on Earth, and possibly their high levels aggression and outrageous cruelty.

In modern Westernized societies, Polynesians characteristically become an Underclass with high crime, violence, gang membership and general pathology. In traditional societies, they often do well.

Whatever Polynesian genes look like, the saga of the Moriori shows that they are not doomed to high crime rates or Underclass pathology.

Genetics is the clay, culture is the sculptor.

Revisions to Races of Man Classification

Click to enlarge. This is the chart from the paper, The Origin of Minnan & Hakka, the So-called "Taiwanese", Inferred by HLA Study, utilized in this post.

I usually try to be very conservative about adding in new races to my races of man post, but sometimes I just feel like I'm forced to. Based on this article, and in particular, the figure above, forced me to make some new splits.

The question was what to do about the Taiwanese people. Not the Taiwan aborigines - but the Hakka and Min Nan people of SE China who settled in Taiwan in the past 400 years. It turns out that they appear to be a discrete race, and that they are linked to Singapore Chinese and the Thai Chinese. In Singapore and Thailand, Chinese form a market-dominant minority position.

They are a minority of the population, but they tend to run businesses and be very wealthy. Similar cases are seen in Indonesia and the Philippines, where tiny Chinese minorities of 2-3% control up to 70% of the wealth in the nation.

So the interesting question arises - who exactly are the Chinese minorities of Thailand and Singapore? By genetic studies, we can now see that they are SE Chinese people related to the Min Nan and the Hakka.

The Min Nan and Hakka both speak languages that are called Chinese dialects, but in reality, they are completely separate languages. Both languages are doing fine - Min Nan (Southern Min) with 49 million speakers and Hakka with 34 million speakers.

Min Nan and Hakka both strangely lack official status anywhere, although Southern Min is widely spoken in Taiwan. It's odd that some of the world's most widely spoken languages lack official status - Min Nan is the 24th largest language, and Hakka is the 35th largest language, in terms of numbers of speakers.

Both languages are vigorous and are in good shape. Southern Min has a roman script that is fairly widely used. Hakka also has a roman script but I am not sure how widely it is used.

Southern Min actually may be four separate languages: Min Nan proper, Amoy, Teochew and Hainanese .

Click to enlarge. Here is a map of the various Chinese languages. These are not Chinese dialects, but actual separate languages. Some may be dialects of other Chinese languages though. The main languages are Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, Min, Xiang, Hakka and Gan. Ping, Hui and Jin are classed above as dialects of those larger languages.

Jin is classed as a dialect of Mandarin, but it is actually a separate language with 45 million speakers, making it around the 25th largest language in the world.

Min is 5 separate languages, but it is probably actually 9 separate languages. The 5 separate languages are Min Nan, Min Dong, Min Zhong, Min Bei and Puxian. Min Nan itself is probably 4 separate languages. Huizhou, or Hui, is a separate language that is probably a set of related languages. Wu may also be more than one and possibly as many as 3 separate languages.

Ping is traditionally considered to be part of Cantonese, but it is probably a separate language. Mandarin may also be a set of related languages instead of one language - up to 5 separate languages. Cantonese may also be more than one language - it is probably at least 3 languages. Hakka may also be more than one language - it may be 2 or 3 separate languages.

It is nonsense to say someone speaks "Chinese". There is no such thing as a language called "Chinese".

Instead, there are various languages in the Chinese language family - at least 14 separate languages, and probably even more. A casual count by me reveals up to 30 separate languages and possibly more. Mandarin is by far the largest of these languages, and most of the smaller languages are suffering under the influence of Mandarin. In addition, the Chinese government favors Mandarin and does not support the other languages much, if at all.

I also split off a group called the Li and another group called the Oroqen based on the chart above.

The Li are a transitional group between the Northern Chinese and the Southern Chinese, though they live on Hainan Island in the far south of China. They speak a Tai-Kadai language called Hlai which has 667,000 speakers. Use is vigorous; the language is doing well, but it is generally not written, although a Roman script exists. Mandarin is used for writing.

The Oroqen are nomadic people who live in far northeastern China and speak a Tungusic tongue. As you can see from the chart, they are closer to the Japanese than to the NE Chinese. There are only 1,200 speakers left out of a small 7,000 population, but there are 800 monolinguals and use is vigorous by those who speak the language.

They live by hunting and used to practice shamanism. They still lack an official script for their language, but there are radio programs in Oroqen.

The truth is that both the Oroqen people and their language are in poor shape, and most of the blame can be placed on the Communist Chinese regime, even though the regime has also done many good things for the Oroqen. The Cultural Revolution in particular was a period of insanity, stupidity and terror.

An Oroqen Race was added to the NE Asian Major Race due to the extreme divergence of these people. I also added Inner Mongolians to the Mongolian Race inside of NE Asian.

I added the Buyei to the Tai Race within the SE Asian Major Race and created a new race called SE Chinese Race consisting of Min Nan, Hakka, Singapore Chinese and Thai Chinese. The Buyei live in southern China and northern Vietnam and speak a Tai language that has over 2 million speakers yet has no official status. Buyei language use is vigorous and it is in good shape.

There is a romanized script and there are newspapers in the language, but they mostly use Mandarin for writing. The Buyei language is probably made up of a few separate languages, because some of the dialects are not mutually intelligible. The language is very close to the Zhuang language.

The SE Chinese Race really consists of the descendants of the ancient Chinese people known as the Yueh. The Yueh, or Yue, formed a state in southeastern coastal China during the Warring States Period and the Spring and Autumn Period. The state lasted from about 525 BC to 334 BC. The Chinese were already involved in metallurgy and were producing excellent swords during these periods.

The new lineup looks like this:


Northeast Asian Major Race*

Japanese-Korean Race
Southern Japanese Race (Honshu Kinki - Kyushu)
Ryukyuan Race
Ainu Race***
Gilyak Race**
Northern Chinese Race (Northern Chinese - Qiang - Manchu - Hui)
Oroqen Race
Sherpa-Yakut Race
Nepalese Race (Nepali - Newari)
Mongolian Race (Mongolian - Inner Mongolian - Buryat - Kazakh)
Northern Turkic Race (Dolgan - Altai - Shor - Tofalar - Uighur - Chelkan - Soyot - Kumandin Teleut - Hazara)***
Central Asian Race (Kirghiz - Karalkalpak - Uzbek - Turkmen)
Tuva Race
Tungus Race (Even - Evenki - Russian Saami)
Siberian Race
Beringian Race** (Chukchi - Aleut - Siberian Eskimo)
Koryak-Itelmen Race
Reindeer Chukchi Race
General Tibetan Race (Tibetan - Lisu - Nu - Karen - Tujia - Hui - Akha - Burmese - Bai - Yizu - Pnar - Mizo)
Bhutanese Race
Siberian Uralic Race (Nentsy - Samoyed - Ket - Mansi - Khanty)
Nganasan Race
Uralic Race (Komi - Mari)
North American Eskimo Race

Southeast Asian Major Race*

Southern Chinese Race (Hmong - Mien - Dong - Henan Han - Yi - Naxi)
Li Race
Southeast China Race (Hakka - Min Nan - Singapore Chinese - Thai Chinese)
South China Sea Race (Filipino - Ami Taiwanese Aborigine - Guangdong Han)
Tai Race (Thai - Lao - Lahu - Aini - Deang - Blang - Shan - Dai - Vietnamese - Muong - Buyei)
Kachin Race (Kachin - Va - Nung - Lu)
General Taiwanese Aborigine Race (Ayatal - Bunun - Yami)
Island SE Asian Race (Paiwan Taiwanese Aborigine - Sea Dayak - Sumatran - Balinese)
Indonesian Race (Sulawesi - Borneo - Lesser Sunda)
Malay Race (Javanese - Sarawak - Malaysia)
Zhuang Race (Senoi - Zhuang - She - Santhal - Ho - Nicobarese)
Austroasiatic Race (Mon - Khmer - Khasi - Nongtrai - Bhoi - Maram - Kynriam - Wajaintia)
Meghalaya NE Indian Race (Khasi - Garo - Lyngngam)
Philippines Negrito Race (Aeta - Ati - Palau Micronesian)
Mamanwa Philippines Negrito Race
Andaman Islands Negrito Race**
Semang Malay Negrito Race***

References

Lin M, Chu CC, Chang SL, Lee HL, Loo JH, Akaza T, Juji T, Ohashi J, Tokunaga K. March 2001. The Origin of Minnan & Hakka, the So-called "Taiwanese", Inferred by HLA Study. Tissue Antigens:57(3):192-9.

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Thoughts on Ethnocentrism and "Race-Mixing"

White nationalists tend to say that any White person who dates or marries outside the White race is a "race traitor" who is engaging in "race mixing" and is fostering "racial suicide". They also say that any such person must be a "White self-hater" with no love or pride on their own people.

This post will examine whether or not that is so. It will also examine ethnocentrism cross-culturally, with a view towards whether or not it is normal. It will also examine the tendency among human groups to simultaneously guard their women from outsiders while the males also attempt to mate with outsiders.

I argue that all of these things are cultural norms in human beings and may have biological or genetic origins.

I've been talking to some of my smart friends about this stuff, and here's what we came up with.

I noted that I have met persons from all over the world. One tendency that I noted among most, but not all, persons, was ethnocentrism, often of an extreme type. They all had a lot of pride in their race, nation, ethnic group, religion, or whatever. In particular, they did not like to hear criticism of it from outsiders.

At the same time, many were not particularly racist. They certainly were friendly enough towards me. These same people, if they were young and unmarried, often combined a profound ethnocentrism with a desire to marry outside their group. In this case, many of them wanted to marry an American, especially a White American.

This would seem to strongly contradict White nationalist theory that everyone who desires to marry outside their race, nation or ethnicity is race-traitor who is full of hatred for their own kind. That just doesn't seem to be true. White nationalists are flat out wrong. It's perfectly possible to love your people and marry outside of them.

Oddly enough, people seem to be able to combine an often profound ethnocentrism with a desire to marry out and commit "race-treason" or "racial suicide".

I talked to one of my friends, and while he is not a White nationalist (He despises them), he admitted that he thinks Whites, specifically Northern Europeans, are superior to all other groups. He also said that he had been in love with a number of non-White women, and he would have gladly married them.

He said that even after he married them, he would probably still have felt that Northern Europeans were superior, even though he loved his wife. He suggested that many people of other races who marry non-group members probably feel the same way.

How can we make sense of these findings?

First of all ethnocentrism does seem to be a norm in human societies. As an example, let us look at a tribe in the Brazilian Amazon called the Pirahã.

This tribe has been the subject of a lot of research lately because they appear to lack recursion in their language. As recursion is said to be a human linguistic universal (or part of universal grammar in the Chomsky-Pinker paradigm) that is genetically coded into our brain, its absence in the Pirahã implies either that they are genetically distinct (dubious) or that the Chomsky-Pinker theory of universal grammar needs a lot of work.

Leaving aside the Pirahã's lack of recursion for a moment, let us look at their extreme ethnocentrism. The Pirahã have been in contact with Europeans for a good 200 years. During that time, many a missionary has tried to convert them to Christianity. However, for a primitive people, the Pirahã are very scientific-minded, so they have never accepted Christianity.

Anthropologist/linguist Daniel Everett has worked with the Pirahã for 30 years. He originally started out as an evangelical minister to them, but their rejection of his preaching caused him to question his own religion, and he is now an atheist.

He used to talk to them about religion and the Pirahã would say, "Well, who is this Jesus guy? Have you ever seen him? Have you ever met him? Do you know anyone who has seen him or met him?" He would have to answer no to all of these questions. The Pirahã would then say, "So why should we believe this stuff?"

According to their culture, one can only believe things that one has experienced with their own senses, or that someone you know has experienced sensually.

Anyway, this is why the Pirahã have been rejecting missionaries for 200 years now. Not only have they rejected missionaries, but they have also rejected the Portuguese language and modern living, which they have also been exposed to for 200 years. They know what the Portuguese language is, and they know what modern living is, but they want no part of either.

Portuguese language classes have often been offered to the Pirahã, and they attend the classes and pretend to be engaged, but actually refuse to learn any of the language. Some of the children start to learn Portuguese, but as soon as they show signs of learning the language, the parents pull them out of class and refuse to let them return. They don't want to learn Portuguese! Period!

Further, they want no part of modern culture. They have been told over and over the advantages of modern culture, but they're not buying.

These refusals are rooted in the Pirahã's profound sense of ethnocentrism. The Pirahã see themselves as superior to all other races, and they are even superior to all of the Indian tribes around them, whom they want nothing to do with. I've seen pictures of the Pirahã, and they just look like Amazonian Indians to me. In my ethnocentric mind, I can't see how they have anything to feel superior about. But they do feel this way.

From this interesting post in Majority Rights, a White Supremacist site that is nevertheless intelligent, interesting and relatively easy to tolerate, we can see that this feeling is not limited to the Pirahã. It's a discussion of racism in China. One commenter, who is Chinese, notes that most NE Asian groups see their race, nation or ethnic group as superior to all others, including surrounding Asians.

A White commenter who met Vietnamese students in Europe noted that these Vietnamese felt the same way. Furthermore, he noted that the Vietnamese place strong restrictions of their women marrying out.

The commenter said that a female member of the group that married out to a White man would be considered a whore who was lower than dirt who had just married into a subhuman race, the Whites. But if she married into an Asian group not her own, that would be even worse. She was now worse than a whore for marrying into a group that was even lower than Whites. The commenter noted that the Chinese felt much the same way.

I would imagine many other East Asians, especially the ethnocentric Koreans and Japanese, feel the same.

We really could go on and on here, but ethnocentrism, even profound ethnocentrism, seems to be a human norm. We can certainly get away from it as individuals, but it's probably always going to be with us. It also implies that the thorough deracination of Western Whites, to the point of deliberate self-abnegation, is simply not normal. Much as I dislike them, the White nationalists are correct on this point.

Another commenter linked to this article, reported in the press as racist anti-African riots by Chinese students in China against African students. To the extent this stuff was written up at all in the Western press, it was as irrational racist riots against innocent Africans by racist Chinese.

The truth seems to be more complicated. A White American who was a student in China at the time noted that the African students were throwing wild parties in their dorms. Non-African males were allowed in, but not Chinese males. Chinese females were very much invited. He attended one of these parties and "rescued" two Chinese women by getting them out of there.

It was common knowledge at the time that the Africans were getting Chinese women drunk and then "raping" them. Whether that meant date rape or actual physical rape is uncertain, but after a while, Chinese students (probably mostly young males) had had enough and there were days of anti-African riots.

Among the regulations that followed was that African male students were forbidden from consorting with Chinese females in their dorms.

In the examples above we see another essential part of ethnocentrism - "Don't any of you outsiders dare to fuck with our women. We will defend the honor of our women with our lives and we will kill any outsider males who take liberties with our females."

You don't have to study a lot of anthropology or history to see how this line seems to be written all through human history. The horrible stoning of Dua Khalil Aswad, a 17 year old Yezidi girl who eloped with a non-Yezidi man, is an example. She was stoned to death by a crowd of 10,000 Yezidi men for "marrying an outsider".

One of the best ways to rile up a population against an invader or an enemy is to suggest that "they are taking liberties with our women." Countless male armies have been roused to defend the honor of the nation's or group's females.

We also see this in the Jim Crow laws of the South where Black males were lynched for looking at, whistling at, talking to, having sex with, or raping White women. The image of pure Southern womanhood was to be upheld with blood.

What's up with this? Kevin MacDonald argues that there are probably dual imperatives operating here. The first is protection of the females of the tribe from mating with outsiders. This is probably done in the furtherance of "ethnic genetic interests." That is, most tribes probably want to survive for as long as possible as an entity. The best way to do this is to keep outsiders away from your women.

At the same time, MacDonald argues that there is an opposite genetic imperative at work, that the males seek to mate with outsiders, while protecting their females from doing so. MacDonald sees this as attempting to add genetic diversity to the group to make it more fit, but I see it as more base than that.

Probably many of these mating occurred during raids in which the outsider females were raped. In many cases, they were captured as some sort of slaves, brought back to the group, and forced into marriages with males of the group.

In this way, the tribe poaches the women (probably the best, or most attractive women were favored), removes them from the competing group, and brings them into one's own group. Though White nationalists would argue that this is genetic contamination, it surely was not seen that way. The tribe simply wishes to perpetuate itself, and the genes it utilizes in that goal are not relevant.

In older times, a woman who mated out probably was carted off by invading outsiders or went off with the outsider willingly, and hence was simply lost to the group. If all the women did this, the tribe would go extinct.

Yet males could mate out and still live with the group, since they would bring any captured women back to reside with the tribe of the man who captured her.

Further, by capturing the best females of competing outsiders, you deplete them of their best resource. If you rape them and run off, you force the outsiders to bear the children of your tribe (assuming they raise the child and don't kill it), interjecting the genes of your own tribe into theirs against their will. It's a form of domination and aggression of a very base sort.

Racists typically use these facts to try to justify racism by saying that everyone is a racist and that anti-racism is abnormal. This is to be condemned. At least here in the modern West, there seem to be an awful lot of folks that are significantly free of racist feelings, so it would seem we are not genetically doomed to racism.

Modern political correctness argues that the tendencies above, ethnocentrism and protection of one's women from outsiders, are examples of the most horrible and evil racism.

The Left would simply argue that these are reactionary archaisms that must be swept away via revolution. They would probably throw in something stupid and say that these backwards tendencies are all related to economics.

But it seems so much deeper than that.

Though civilized man is capable of transcending most of his base instincts much of the time, the fact remains that at the end of the day, we are just long-legged bipedal apes.

Any sensible analysis of human behavior needs to recognize that.

The Origin of the Amerindians

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated November 27. I am republishing this post because I added a lot of new photos and text. Enjoy.

As we noted in an earlier post, the view is converging that Amerindians can be traced back to the Altai Mountains in Southwest Siberia where China, Mongolia and Russia all come together.

Yet another study found that of all Asians, the Turkic-speaking tribes of the Sayan Mountains (west of the Altai Mountains and north of northwestern Mongolia) are the closest to the Amerindians. This group includes the Shor, the Tofalar, the Altai, the Khakass , the Soyots and the Tuva. The Mongolic-speaking Buryats are also included.

The Altai live in the Sayan Uplands. The Soyots and the Buryats are from the Eastern Sayan Mountains. The Shor and the Khakass are from the northwest slopes of the Sayans. The Tofalar are from the northern slopes of the Eastern Sayans. The Tuva are also from the Sayans.

This is an ensemble of Khakass singers called the Sume-r Ensemble. They sure look like Amerindians, don't they. The Khakass, Turkic speakers of the Sayan Mountains, are related to Amerindians. The Khakass language is in good shape, with 60,000 speakers. The Khakass belong to the Central Asian Mongoloid group. They have wide faces and cheekbones are not very prominent. They are short, with dark skin, and are able to grow beards.


This is a traditional shaman woman of the Altai-Kizhi group of the Altai. Of all of the groups listed above, the Altai are one of the closest of all to the Amerindians. As you can see, this woman looks very Amerindian, all the way down to the face paint. She's even beating on a drum. I can't believe that there is something like a tepee in the background.

Another powerful connection is that all of these groups practiced Shamanism very prominently. And we know what the aboriginal religions of the Amerindians were - forget all that "Great Creator" crap - most of that was lobbed on recently after they became Christians. The aboriginal religions of the Amerindians were animism and shamanism, combined.


Bama Kanda, a famous Buryat. I believe she is a singer. Although the Buryat look a lot more like typical Asians (note the resemblance to a Mongolian or a Korean here) several studies have now related them to the Amerindians. Strangely enough, the Buryats have an oral tradition that says that a group of them went to the Americas long ago.


From a book called The Last of the Shor Shamans. He looks quite Amerindian. It showcases a few remaining Shor elders who still practice Shamanism and looks into their worldview. The Shor language is doing ok, but it is on the decline all right. Quite a few kids are still speaking it.

The Shor are Uralics, but they have Mongoloid features. They are short, with broad, flat faces. They have light skin and light eyes and can grow a thick beard. The Shors have not done well, and alcoholism and VD are devastating them.


Galina Innokentievna Adamova, a member of the Fast Reindeer folksinging group. She looks like an Amerindian, and her costume even looks Amerindian. The Tofalar language is not doing well. It's not being spoken by kids. About 30% of the Tofalar speak the language, almost all elderly.

It's being taught for 1 hour a week in some elementary schools, and the teacher is not even fluent in Tofalar. She conducts the class in Russian. Other villages do not even have schools, and the kids are shipped away to boarding schools.

We have to conclude that once a language is no longer spoken in the home and is reduced to a subject in school, it's probably on its way out.

The Tofalar are also members of the Mongoloid Central Asian race. They are short, with high, flat faces, without prominent cheekbones.


Nikolay Sergeevich Bakanaev, an expert in Tofalar fairy tales. I can't believe how much this guy looks like an Amerindian.

The Ket and Selkup are also related to Amerindians, though they are now to the north of the Altai. However, a long time ago, the Ket and Selkup lived in the Altai, and they only moved north later on.

Katun River in the Altai Mountains, origin of the vast majority of the Amerindians. The ancestors of the Amerinds probably left this region to come to the Americas about 16-30,000 years ago.

Another paper has found that there were two waves to the Americas - the first wave, mentioned above, traced back to the Tuva of the Altai, occurred 20-30,000 years ago, not 16,000 years ago as suggested in the paper above. This group moved first to the Chukotka Peninsula, and then into the Americas. They constitute the Amerind speakers of North, Central and South America.

A Tuvan family, ancestors of the vast majority of Amerindians. Tuvans, who live in the Altai Mountains where Russia, China and Mongolia all come together, have one of highest rates of syphilis in the world, attributed to an old shamanistic tradition that encouraged promiscuity among females. The more sex partners a woman had before marriage, the more fertile she would be. It's obviously not scientifically based.


A Selkup woman. Galina Vladimirovna Kusamina (nee Tamelkina), age 47. Photographed at the Farkovo settlement. The Selkups are not doing well. There is high unemployment, an extremely high rate of alcoholism, and they are victims of racial discrimination. The Selkup are members of the Uralic Race. The origins of the Uralics are pretty obscure. Their language is Samoyedic. Samoyedic is very distantly related to Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian.

Some say that this race is neither Mongoloid nor Caucasoid. Genetically, they do seem to fall in with the Asians. They are short and have short skulls. Asian traits are diminished, and their skin is fairer than in surrounding groups. These people, along with the Ket, are also ancestors of the Amerindians.

This paper also found evidence for a second wave of Siberians to the Americas. This wave came out of the Lower Amur River region near Sakhalin Island, where Russia, China and Korea all together. This wave gave rise to the Na-Dene speakers and the surrounding populations of Amerinds.

The Lower Amur River region, where the ancestors of the Na-Dene came from. The Amur is said to be one of the world's 10 great rivers.

The Na-Dene migration occurred about 6-7,000 years ago. Some peoples who live in the Lower Amur region include the Negidal, the Ulchi , and Orok and the Udeghe. This paper found that the Negidal and the Ulchi were the progenitors of the Na-Dene.

Click to enlarge. The Lower Amur region of Russia can be seen to the left of Sakhalin Island. On this map, tribes residing in the Lower Amur region include the Negidal, the Ulchi, the Nivkhi, the Oroch, the Udeghe and the Nanai.


D. I. Nadeina, a Negidal elder who has been working with linguists in Vladimirovka village, north of Japan near Sakhalin Island. The Negidal language was devastated by the post-Stalin USSR which sent the kids off to boarding schools.

10-30% of the Negidal have a command of the language, but only 10% are speakers, all older adults. Younger adults can understand Negidal but not speak it. Kids speak only Russian. There are only 500 of them left. The language is not written and there is no instruction in it. You can see that she looks Japanese, but anthropologically, thees people are called Paleo-Siberians, members of a group called Baikals. These people are the ancestors of the Na-Dene and surrounding tribes of Amerindians.


Ulchi children in native dress. They look pretty Japanese to me, but the picture does not have good resolution. The Ulchi are ancestors of the Na-Dene Amerindians.


Ulchi women being baptized into Christianity. At first glance I thought that they looked Japanese, but now I am going to say Korean. Anthropologically, they are just said to be Mongoloids of no pure type. Part of them belong to a type called Sakhalin-Amur . These types are short, with a broad, flat face and relatively dark skin. The men may have thick beards.

The Ulchi live, like the Negidal, in the Khabarovsk Krai District of Russia along the lower Amur River north of Japan and northeast of Manchuria, west of Sakhalin Island. The capital of the area is Bogorodskove, about 470 miles north of Japan.

30-40% of the Ulchi have command of the language. Older speakers know it well, the middle-aged less well, adolescents and young adults understand it passively. People under age 20 are not able to speak the language. There is a script and it is taught in schools. The language is used in the home. They are known to hunt seals.

Researching classic genetic markers reveals an interesting story. M130 goes out of Africa, to India and SE Asia (these are the Negritos), then up the coast to North America and the Na-Dene. Originally, M130 is obviously Australoid-Negrito but they go to NE Asian at some point (probably about 9,000 years ago).

Theirs must have been a coastal migration. The remains are in Northwest Canada, Oregon and the Northern California coast, but most of them are probably underwater. They must have gone inland at some point to become the Navajo - Apache. This is the same Lower Amur line that went to the Na-Dene in the paper above.

We know that the original lines in the Lower Amur region came from SE Asia. This mirrors the theories about the Ainu Jomon culture originating in Thailand 16,000 years ago. This correlation is based on a comparison of skulls from Thailand 16,000 years ago with the Jomonese who showed up in Japan shortly after and with the present day Ainu. All three seem to line up.

The tribes of the Lower Amur seem to have a similar provenance to the Ainu.

Ainu men with full beards. As you can see, they do look somewhat Caucasian. However, analysis of their skulls shows that they are Australoid. Their genes are Asian, showing relations to the Andaman Islanders (!) and Tibetans. The Andaman Islanders are the remains of the very first men out of Africa. If the Ainu are related to them, this shows that the Ainu are very ancient indeed.

The tribes of the lower Amur region probably derive from the Ainu. Genetics shows that this line came from SE Asia. A good theory is that the Jomon Culture, which showed up in Japan 16,000 years, is derived from a culture that existed in Thailand at the same time. The archaic Thai left Thailand and came up to Japan, possibly by boats. The skulls of the archaic Thai, the Jomonese and the Ainu all line up.

So the ancestors of the Ainu lived in Thailand 16,000 years ago and earlier and left to come up to Japan to become the Jomonese. It seems that the Ainu were on the move at this time. The Ainu also seem to be connected to the Murrayans, who arrived in Australia, possibly from either Thailand or Japan between 15-20,000 years ago. There is also evidence that they stopped by the Philippines on their way to Australia from wherever.

This is probably the same group as the proto-Australoids, the second group to come to the Philippines. So the Ainu are probably the ancient Thai from 16,000 years ago, the Jomonese from the same time, the Murrayans who arrived in Australia 15-20,000 years ago, the proto-Australoids who came to the Philippines around the same time and the proto-SE Siberians, who probably showed up there around 16,000 years ago.

The earliest Amerindians from 9,000-12,5000 years ago also look like Ainu. It seems that from 9,000-16,000 years ago in Asia, the proto-Ainu were really on the move.

Traditional, older anthropology has held that when the Ainu came to Japan, possibly 16,000 years ago, Japan was already inhabited. It is thought that Japan was inhabited by Negrito types prior to 16,000 years ago.

The Ainu replaced these Japanese Negritos, probably by killing them off. These people were called by the Ainu the pit-dwellers or koro-pok-guru (men with sunken places). These koro-pok-guru were said to be so small as to be considered dwarfs. The only logical interpretation is that these people were Negritos.

An Ainu man with full beard. The Ainu came to Japan from the Kuril Islands to the north, possibly 16,000 years ago. They were hunter-gatherers and liked to eat meat. They were deerskin leggings and salmon skin boots. Their religion was animism. They were said to be very dirty people who seldom washed for some reason. A man who lived with them 100 years ago for six weeks said they never bathed in that time and never washed any utensils.

They worshiped the bear. Every year they had a Bear Festival and their highest compliment was to compare a man to a bear. The Ainu are pretty unique in this regard, as worship of bears is not common. On the other hand, the Ainu hunted bears, wore their skins and ate their meet. They were said to be a peaceful, kind people and did not practice capital punishment - although someone guilty of murder was mutilated, they were allowed to live.

Along the same lines, another paper found that Amerindians trace back to Mongolia, Manchuria and far southeastern Siberia (the Lower Amur River). The Altai and Buryat populations (just north of Mongolia) were included in the founders. This paper said that Amerindians came 22-29,000 years ago. There are very early sites in Beringia dating back 30,000 years, but they are controversial.

Beringia is now inhabited by Eskimos or Inuit. They are quite close genetically to Asians and they are not really Amerindians. They came quite late. Notice the resemblance to, say, Japanese.

This study found a single 30,000 year old gene in Amerindians. Based on this gene and an earlier study of classic genetic markers that suggested a time of entry at 32,000 years, this study postulated that Amerindians arrived in the Americas 30,000 years ago.

This study (broken link) found a single wave of entry 23-27,000 years ago populating the Americas.

It is now commonly agreed that the first Amerindians were Australoids. These are the Paleo-Indians. They are represented today in the Fuegians.

The Ona of Argentina are thought to be a remaining example of the Paleoindians whose skulls most resemble Australoids.

The skulls of the extinct tribe the Pericu also show similar affinities, as do very old skulls from the Americas about 12-13,000 years ago such as "Luiza" from Brazil and another from Mexico City. These skulls, and the Fuegians, line up with Melanesians, Negritos, Papuans and the Ainu.

Probably around 9,000 years ago there is yet another transition, this time to a more Polynesian type, though affinities with the Ainu remain. The famous Kennewick Man is illustrative of this type. White nationalists love to claim Kennewick man in order to prove that Whites beat Indians to the Americas and therefore this is our land and the Indians are trespassers (I kid you not!).

It is true that Kennewick does look somewhat Caucasian, but so do the Ainus. Kennewick man was not White or Caucasian. This paper definitively measures Kennewick Man's skull and shows his nearest relations. One thing we should point out here is the Kennewick Man is a member of a race that no longer exists.

He had 64% affinity to Polynesians and 24% affinity to Ainu. There are also affinities to Southern Japan (Okinawans), the Moriori (a Maori Polynesian split-off from the Chatham Islands off the coast of New Guinea) and Easter Island (Polynesians). The Ainu are thought to have originated in the South Asia - South Pacific region.

Kennewick Man is also somewhat close to Papua New Guinea (Australoids), the Marquesas Islands (Polynesians) and the Society Islands (Polynesians). He has no affinities to Caucasians at all, unless you consider Ainus White, which they are not.

It is mysterious why the Ainus appear Caucasoid, but one theory is that when you mix an Australoid with a Mongoloid, you end up with a phenotype that can appear somewhat Caucasoid.

Kem Sokha, a Cambodian politician. If you look at him closely, you can see he looks almost Caucasian. This is probably due to a Mongoloid-Australoid mix, in my opinion.


Another photo of Kem Sokha. Forgetting about his eyes for a moment, he looks even more Caucasian in this pic.

The more modern Amerindian types, who resemble Mongoloids and not Australoids, seem to appear about 6-7,000 years ago.

This paper indicates that there were possibly many survivors of the Paleo-Indians into more modern times, and that they did not all transition over around 6,000 years ago. They found "Archaic Colombian" skulls until 3,000 years ago that line up with Australoids.

A Shoshone woman, typical of the southwestern Amerindian. Their skins can be quite dark.


A Yanonami child from the Amazon. This type typically has a very Mongoloid or Asian appearance. They could easily pass for, say, Filipinos.


This is an Inca. This type is distributed up and down the western part of South America from Chile through Peru to Ecuador and Colombia. A different phenotype.


An Apache warrior, Chief Victorio or Apache Wolf. Though these are Na-Dene speakers, this phenotype is common in the West. Prognathism may be present, along with sharply defined, angular features. Can be quite tall.


A Mexican Indian. Short and often has fairly dark skin. This is the phenotype from which many of the Hispanics in the US of Mexican origin are derived.


Floyd Red Crow Westerman, a well-known Sioux Indian from the Plains. This is a typical Plains Indian phenotype. Strangely enough, they can have a Caucasian appearance. Skin can be quite light also. Can be quite large and well-built.

References

Lell, JT, Sukernik, RI, Starikovskaya, YB, Su, B, Jin, L, et al. 2002. The Dual Origin and Siberian Affinities of Native American Y Chromosomes. American Journal of Human Genetics, 70(1), 192-206.

Neel, J.V., Biggar, R.J., Sukernik, R.I. 1994. Virologic And Genetic Studies Relate Amerind Origins To The Indigenous People Of The Mongolia/Manchuria/Southeastern Siberia Region Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAC), Genetics, Vol 91: pp. 10737-10741.

Underhill, Peter A., Jin, Li, Zemans, Rachel, Oefner, Peter J. and Cavalli-Sforza, L. Luca. 1996. A Pre-Columbian Y Chromosome-Specific Transition And Its Implications For Human Evolutionary History Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAC), Genetics, Vol 93, pp. 196-200.

Powell, Joseph F. and Rose, Jerome C. 2004. Chapter 2, Report on the Osteological Assessment of the "Kennewick Man" Skeleton (CENWW.97.Kennewick), in McManamon, F.P. Kennewick Man. Washington, DC: US Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Archeology Program.

Neves, Walter A., Hubbe, Mark, Correal, Gonzalo. 2007. Human Skeletal Remains From Sabana De Bogotá, Colombia: A Case Of Paleoamerican Morphology Late Survival In South America? American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol 133:4:1080-1098.

Zakharov, Ilia A. et al. 2004. Mitochondrial DNA Variation In The Aboriginal Populations Of The Altai-Baikal Region: Implications For The Genetic History Of North Asia And America. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1011:21-35

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Some Remarks on the Minority Languages Question

The recent posts on minority languages have elicited some interesting comments. Commenting on The Record of Communist Language Policy, silver, a Serb, notes:

In Eastern Europe, a similar thing occurred with the fall of the Communist regimes. In general, nationalist regimes took their place and quickly began attacking minorities and minority tongues. This has been most pronounced in the former Yugoslavia.

I'm not aware of Serbian nationalists attempting to suppress Hungarian or Albanian. Even throughout the supposedly nationalist Milosevic era I think Hungarians were able to graduate university in Hungarian (and, of course, Albanian in Kosovo). I'm pretty sure Albanian has fared better in Macedonia under independence than during Yugoslavia; little-known Vlach certainly has.

A new poster, A Jew Coming to Get You, who will be tolerated as long as he behaves, notes:

A relevant book discussing Soviet nationality policy is called Affirmative Action Empire. Regarding the Chinese dialects, dialect speakers don't consider themselves members of a separate nation, hence there is no demand for linguistic autonomy. In Taiwan the issue is politicized, maybe it will become so in China if ever it becomes a Democracy.

In Tibet (and in Xinjiang) you have a colonial situation which differs substantially with the relationship between Mandarin and the smaller Chinese dialects.

It's nice to hear that Milosevic's repression did not extend to national languages. He kept the Tito position (that I had never heard of) that allowed even Hungarians and Albanians to have all of their education in their native tongue, all the way through university. Impressive! A

And in Macedonia, while there have been serious problems, the regime has tried very hard to accommodate the often-difficult demands of local Albanians. And it's nice to hear that there is support even for little-known Vlach.

I would not really call the Macedonian government an ultra-nationalist regime, though. It's well-mixed with Macedonians and Albanians. Allowing national minorities to have education their native tongue seems shocking in a US context, but it's fairly common in Europe. Some tongues even get to take university courses in their native language, though that's not very common.

That book, Affirmative Action Empire, seems very interesting. The now-dominant line that the USSR was uniformly hostile to all non-Russian tongues was shown to be a lie. Nationalism for all of the non-Russian nationalities was encouraged by Lenin to make them less hostile to a revolutionary movement led by Russians.

Until World War, Russian nationalism, and not just Great Russian chauvinism, was not only not promoted, but was actively discouraged. Each large nationality was given its own republic, and many smaller ones were given their own autonomous republics.

In many cities, the local nationality was not even the most common nationality. In Tbilisi, Armenians were a majority for many years. In Kiev and Minsk, it was Russians and Jews. Prague had a German majority. Yerevan often had a Muslim majority.

The Soviets attempted to rectify this situation in their nation by moving members of the national ethnic group into the cities to make them a majority in their own cities. Amazing. These Communists could be seen as champions of ethnic nationalism.

Alphabets, grammars, school texts, etc. were created for nearly every tongue in the USSR. These were often the first attempts at literacy for these languages. At the same time, national minorities were expected to become proficient in Russian.

Attempts by local minorities to "become Russian" were actively discouraged! Ukrainian nationalists will be loath to admit this, but for years, a Ukrainization policy was actively encouraged. It is interesting that this attempt was not very successful. Most Ukrainians were not interested. They wanted a dual Russian-Ukrainian culture rather than a Ukrainian one.

In terms of the Chinese minorities, most still live in places where they form the majority. I think they all have a right to education in their native tongue and I think most of these small languages are still in very good shape.

The case with Mandarin and the other Chinese lects is different. Although these are full languages and not dialects, the fact that they are all Chinese is probably seen as evidence that they are competing with Mandarin. Hence, it is true that they are discouraged, but they all still have many speakers.

It is certainly true that Xinjiang and Tibet are colonial situations.

The aboriginal languages of Taiwan are not in good shape at all. Most young people are speakers, but not very good speakers. They speak aboriginal languages mostly with their grandparents, who are not very proficient in Mandarin. The kids' education has been in Mandarin, and this is the language they are most able to speak. I'm afraid that in 60 years, they might be history.

There are a few classes offered in aboriginal languages, but it only boils down to 1-2 hours a week, and it's not really working. Taiwan has no mother tongue education policy and for decades, aboriginal tongues were suppressed by the Nationalists (fascists). What else is new?

References

Lee, Hui-chi. 2004. A Survey of Language Ability, Language Use and Language Attitudes of Young Aborigines in Taiwan. In Hoffmann, Charlotte & Jehannes Ytsma (Eds.) Trilingualism in Family, School, and Community pp.101-117. Clevedon, Buffalo: Multilingual Matters.

Genes and Language Match Well

This post will look into whether or not genes and language line up well. The question may seem academic, but it is important for linguists in the battle for whether or not there is anything to the large macro-families that the "lumpers" are creating.

It's yet another skirmish in the lumpers versus splitters battle in Historical Linguistics. Historical in the branch that deals with language families, language relationships and reconstruction of old languages that are no longer spoken.

The debate has heated up in recent years due to the prominence of lumper theories publicized by the late Joseph Greenberg and his followers and disciples, notably Merrit Ruhlen at Stanford University. Ruhlen and Greenberg use a technique called mass comparison which has come under a lot of wild and irrational abuse, but seems to be a valid scientific method in the hands of an expert.

Greenberg used to come up with the four major language families of Africa a long time ago and his classification there has remained pretty solid ever since.

He since published a book called Language in the Americas, which broke down all Amerindian languages into three large families - Amerind, Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut. I have read that book many times and I concur with its analysis. Unfortunately, a detailed examination of the evidence goes beyond the scope of this post.

Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut are not very controversial, though the position of Haida within Na-Dene is regarded as unproven. I don't have any position on Haida. If it's related, it has to be as some outlier, such that the family should be called Haida-Na-Dene.

In the same way, some wish to put the ancient Indo-European Anatolian language Hittite into a separate branch of Indo-European as Indo-Hittite. I don't have a position on that either.

Bengston promotes a family called Dene-Caucasian that involves the North Caucasian languages of the Caucasus, Basque, Na-Dene, Sino-Tibetan, Burushaski in northern Pakistan and the Ket Family in Siberia. I can't speak for the whole family, but the evidence is definitely interesting. I think that Bengston has proven a case for Ket, Basque and the Caucasian languages being related, as I read a book on that subject.

Recently, Edward Vajda conclusively proved that the Ket language is related to the Na-Dene languages.

A Ket man in Siberia. His phenotype looks a bit Japanese, no? Or am I wrong? He doesn't look like an Amerindian. The situation of the Ket is deplorable, as most live in serious poverty and do not see any hope for their improving themselves. The Ket language is also in really bad shape, as hardly anyone under 35 can speak it well, and 30% of the population regard speaking Ket as useless. I swear the USSR did a better job with minority tongues than these Putin fascists.

There is good evidence relating the Ket, along with the Selkup nearby, with Amerindians (broken link). The Selkup are a Samoyedic people who live near the Ket. There is also good evidence linking the peoples of the Altai with Amerindians. This doesn't make a lot of sense, as the Selkup and Ket now live a long ways from the Altai region, but the Ket and Selkup are thought to have lived in the Altai long ago and come north later on.

The theory linking these groups to the Amerindians supports a single migration to the Americas 16,000 years ago, but it's not at all definitive. According to this paper (broken link) linking the Ket with Amerindians, proto-Caucasians are thought to have evolved in Central Asia. I would place it more near the Caucasus.


Click to enlarge. I believe that the latest evidence is showing that all of the various Altai peoples - Northern Turkics would be the various Altai groupings - the Altai, the Tofalar, the Khakass and the Shor - are related to the Amerindians. These are often referred to as Northern Turkics. They aren't really Turks per se as in people from Turkey, but even the Turks from Turkey are thought to be partly related to those Northern Turkic tribes.

Northern Turkics are right on the border between Asians and Caucasians on gene charts and some Amerinds are not so far genetically from that border either. If you look at the Cavalli-Sforza gene chart below, you can see that next to the Eskimo-Aleuts, the Chukchi and the Northern Turkics are the people most closely related to the Amerindians.

It also looks like the Ket and Selkup came from what is now the Northern Turkic Altai region. Anthropologically, these various groups are either Uralics or are South Siberian, Central Asian or North Asian Asiatics. This general region is where Russia, China and Mongolia all come together = the Altai.

This is the first connection of a New World language family with an Old World language family.

Here is a Nenets woman from Siberia. She definitely seems to look Northern Chinese or Korean. Or am I wrong? They have a population of 44,000, and there are 31,000 speakers of the language. It's really two languages - Forest Nenets and Tundra Nenets, but both are said to be endangered. I think at least Tundra Nenets will be around for a while though, as most kids are still learning it.

The Nenets are Samoyedics like the Selkup, discussed above. The Selkup are related to the Amerindians.

It's interesting that the Ket have also been linked genetically with the New World.

Here is a rare photo of Ed Vajda with two Ket women in Siberia described as "experts in the Ket language. I'm not good at judging ages, but these women look to be about 40-60? If so, that is good, as I thought all of the speakers were elderly, and hardly anyone spoke the language well anymore. Ket does have anywhere from 537-1,000 speakers. A related language, Yugh, is thought to have recently gone extinct. The rest of the Yenisien languages went extinct about 150-250 years ago.

These are the most vilified of the lumpers, but there are others who are following more orthodox methods of reconstruction in order to prove the existence of language families, such as the late Sergey Starostin, his son George Starostin, John Bengston, the late Vladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych (a prodigy, dead at the young age of only 32), Aharon Dolgopolsky and Vitaly Victorovich Shevoroshkin.

The Starostins, Illich-Svitych, Dolgopolsky and Shevoroshkin all worked on Nostratic, a vast family consisting, variously, of Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Kartvelian, Nivkh, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian and Eskimo-Aleut.

I would accept IE, Uralic, Altaic, Nivki, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut for sure in Nostratic. I haven't seen a lot of evidence for Afro-Asiatic and Dravidian, but I haven't looked that hard at Nostratic. The Altaic family is itself controversial, but I regard it as fact, having studied it a bit.

This large Altaic above also includes Japanese, Korean and Ainu. I agree that those three languages can be included in Altaic, though at great distance. I would toss Yukaghir in with Uralic. I would also toss Afro-Asiatic in with IE, as I read a good book on that subject.

Nostratic has a whole lot more going for it than some of these other long-range proposals, and since these guys are using classic reconstruction, it gets a lot more respect from splitters. Starostin's webpage is a great resource for looking into long-range stuff, especially Nostratic and Altaic.

Bengston, Shevoroshkin and the Starostins all worked on Dene-Caucasian. This hypothesis seems a lot more controversial.

Click to enlarge. Here is a tree of Luigi Cavalli-Sforza's human genetic families on the left and various human language families on the right, including some big families. The only one that is seriously out of place is Tibetan. This is because the Tibetans are a genetically North Chinese people who have moved down into Southern China in recent years. They cluster with South Chinese linguistically but NE Asians genetically.

All the rest lines up pretty well, including super-families like Nostratic and Eurasiatic (a Nostratic-like family created by Greenberg). The hypothesized Austric family is interesting. I'm not sure if I buy this super-family or not, but I have not really looked into it. With recent genetic evidence linking Indonesians and Vietnamese to Daic peoples of South China and SE Asia, it seems worth looking into.

References

Campbell, Lyle & Mithun, Marianne (Eds.) 1979. The Languages of Native America: An Historical and Comparative Assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Campbell, Lyle. 1988. "Review of Language in the Americas, by Joseph Greenberg." Language 64:591-615.

Campbell, Lyle. 1997. American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press.

Greenberg, Joseph. 1987. Language in the Americas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Greenberg, Joseph. 1989. "Classification of American Indian languages: a reply to Campbell." Language 65:1, 107-114.