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Talk:Ethnic groups in Europe/Archive 2

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Latest comment: 15 years ago by Mathsci in topic Turkic peoples
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What is this article about?

Latest comment: 16 years ago28 comments8 people in discussion
  • According to JRWalco: "This article never claimed to be about Europeans as an ethnic group. It is about A COLLECTION of groups that are European."
  • According to KarenAER (1): "But you still seem to be unable to comprehend the difference between "Europe's ethnic groups" (which you fabricated that I had agreed that they would constitude this article's scope) and "Europeans as an ethnic group(s)" (my quoted argument.)"
  • According to KarenAER (2): "Caucasian: "1 relating to a broad division of humankind covering peoples from Europe, western Asia, and parts of India and North Africa. 2 white-skinned; of European origin. 3 relating to the region of the Caucasus in SE Europe." [4]

So this article is about one particular definition, namely the second one. Other articles, meanwhile, is about other definitions too. Why is it so hard to understand? " Ramdrake and I have been engaged in various disagreements with both JRWalco and KarenAER. I think we are going nowhere and one reason I think is that JRWalco and KarenAER seem to have different ideas about what this article is about. I think if we are to make any progress we need to first sort out any disagreement between JRWalco and KarenAER. The JRWalco and KarenAER (1) quotes above seem to me to be diametrically opposed. I suggest that Ramdrake and I and others step back for a while and see if JRWalco and karenAER can come to an agreement. Is this article about a collection of Europe's different ethnic groups, or is it about Europeans as an ethnic group? JRWalco and KarenAer, please discuss. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Some things are said too quickly and inappropriately simply as a means of retorting to quickly appearing arguments. Articles already exist on the demography of present-day Europe. This is my position as to what I think this article should be:
This article should address the uncontroversial fact that there are ethnic groups that are native/indigenous to Europe.
Wherever I use the expression "European people" I mean people that are from European ethnic groups and not "A European ethnic group" (although Europeans may someday become an ethnic group they can't presently be called that based on the definition of what an ethnic group is).
The groups in question are ones that appeared, formed, existed, and continue to exist in Europe. This is exactly the same as any other concept of a native people and should reflect the same kind of a time range so be reasonable. In other words I know that all humans are from Africa and that there are now communities from other countries in Europe so this article should not include them because they fail to qualify under the basic understanding of the words native/indigenous.
This article should survey broad ideas relating to the ethnic groups in question. In other words -European culture a concept that should also be uncontroversial. As far as skin, eye, hair go these are obviously things that are often associated with Europeans, and these have sparked concepts and ideas that shaped the current situation in Europe. Genetics is to me also pretty obvious seeing as that has become an uncontroversial means of classifying human ancestral groups.
As has been discussed in one of the above discussions this article should not be based on self-identification. In other words, it should reflect the most common world opinion of who these native Europeans are. I live in New York, a highly multicultural city, and when I say "European people" it is understood that I am not referring to Nigerians (no offense to Nigerians). If a group considers itself European but is not by others then this should be mentioned.
I believe what I've stated is reasonable and relevant to this concept. JRWalko 23:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Before anyone else comments, I would like to know whether KarenAER agrees with all of this, some of this, none of this, or agrees with it but believes that key points are missing. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:06, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with JRWalko completely. This article should ne be about ethnic groups that are native/indigenous to Europe. So this article should be about Native Europeans such as Native Americans. As I said:
This article is about ethnicity. And if you aren't ignorant about ethnicity, you'd know that one of the definitions of ethnicity is based on descent. This article is about that kind of definition of ethnicity. This is the standard with X people articles in Wiki. Observe the English people. Now if that article was about English ethnicity, why would 25 million Americans be listed on the info box at the top right? Clearly X people articles in Wiki is about ethnic X. Thats why Xers are disamb pages. So is European. Observe more X People pages. KarenAER 00:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Okay, we can all agree that this article is about ethnicity in some relation to Europe. I think we disagree about the nature of ethnicity and its relation to Europe. The two of you have stated your positions. I would like to state mine, and I would like all three of us to wait and give others an opportunity to state theirs - at that point perhaps we can more clearly identify points of contention and decide how to proceed. KarenAER states that one of the definitions of ethnicity is based on descent. I know that this is one of the definitions; it is Weber's definition, although he adds continuity in custom, language, religion, and values as well. It certainly has a place in the article. I think there is aother view or set of views that belongs in the article. Ronald Cohen, in a review of anthropological and sociological studies of ethnic groups since Weber, observed that while many ethnic groupos claimed common descent and cultural coninuity subjectively, objectively there was often empirical evidence that countered such claims [1]. Harold Isaacs has identified other diacritics of ethnicity, among them physical appearance, name, language, history, and religion [2]. Thus, Joan Vincent observed that ethnic boundaries often have a mercurial character [3]. Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness" [4]. He confirms Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity ... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization [5]. This is why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity, and other times it is not. Which diacritic of ethnicity is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic bondaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation. This means that an article of ethnicity in Europe has to include case-studies of ethnic groups defined by different diacritics, historical studies of ethnic identities being scaled up or down, and a discussion of the political contexts. In fact there are a great many books and articles we can draw on for such case studies, which will result in a well-referenced encyclopedia article. I have already mentioned two, one by Cole and Wolf, one by Karakasidou, but I am sure we can find others. Slrubenstein | Talk 03:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm still confused about this ethnic identity of Europeans, as KarenAER puts it, it is about Native Europeans, like Native Americans. And if there is such a thing, then the title of this article needs to reflect that ethnicity, and should be changed, as there are many countries in Europe. Many of which have their own articles already. Greeks, Irish, German, Spanish people, Italian people, French people, I can list many more, even Vikings exist on Wikipedia. Please explain more, who are the "Native Europeans"? Thanks. - Jeeny Talk 03:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
For starters, I need to see some RS treat people in Europe as a lumped ethnic group as this article does, as that is needed in order to provide definition and scope to this article. Right now we have an unsourced definition, some OR, and the physical appearance and genetics section of contested relevance to an article about an 'ethnicity'. What we need are RS that treat this as a topic, and treat Europeans as an actual ethnic group, rather than simply discussing people who live in Europe. If this cannot be established, then this article probably should be deleted, as per WP:OR we aren't supposed to define new topics or create "novel narratives." The Behnam 04:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


I'd like to comment on Karen's statement above. She seems to be contradicting herself and JRWalco. Firstly JRWalco states "Wherever I use the expression "European people" I mean people that are from European ethnic groups and not "A European ethnic group"". This seems perfectly reasonable to me, presumably he means groups such as Sami people, Hungarian people and Basque people, none of which can be claimed as groups related to each other, but all of which are undoubtedly European ethnic groups. Karen then states that she completely agrees with JRWalko, but goes no to say "This article is about ethnicity.....This is the standard with X people articles in Wiki. Observe the English people." But the English people article is about the English ethnic group and nation, this group is indisputably an ethnic group and nation. On the other hand Karen has already accepted that European people do not form an ethnic group.[1] From my reading of this JRWalco is saying that this article should be about the ethnic groups of Europe and how they share some cultural and social markers, but Karen seems to be saying that European people is an equivalent concept to English people in contradiction to herself and to JRWalco.
I'd like to additionally address JRWalko's claim about genetics. There is absolutely no reason why we cannot have some genetics in this article, but it will confirm that ethnic groups are social constructs, there is no evidence of distinct genetic discontinuity between the ethnic groups of Europe. There certainly have been reports of genetic structure in the European population, but these do not identify most ethnic groups as being genetically distinct. For example it is apparent from the work of Bauchet et al. (see this article) that Finns belong to a distinct genetic "cluster" (that probably Karelians and Estonians belong to), but that people from Ireland to Poland also belong to a single cluster, but it is clearly absurd to claim that the Irish ethnic group is in any way related to the polish ethnic group. This work also shows that Ashkenazi Jews belong to the same cluster as Greeks and Armenians and people from the south of Italy. The only ethnic groups that could possibly be considered genetically "distinct" are Finns, Basque people and Spanish people. Maybe this is a function of sampling (the research group didn't sample many ethnic groups and tended to sample by state rather that geography), who knows, but Europeans do have some genetic substructure, and this structure does not generally mirror ethnic identity. All the best. Alun 05:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

A google of "European people" shows links mainly to the European people's Party (a block of parties in the European Parliament) and to Wikipedia.[2]. Also there is a map of native ethnic minorities of Europe that may be of some use here Cheers, Alun 05:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Another quick comment. Karen claims that one way to look at ethnic groups is that they have a common descent. slr states that often ethnic groups have a heterogeneous origin. I think this is why the definition at the top of the ethnic group article states "An ethnic group or ethnicity is a population of human beings whose members identify with each other, either on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry[1], or recognition by others as a distinct group[2], or by common cultural, linguistic, religious, or territorial traits." The presumption of a common ancestry or descent is not necessarily a de facto common ancestry or descent. This is evident in the case of English people, who clearly have heterogeneous origins, from Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Ancient Britons (which comprised of several ethnic groups) etc. And yet the origin myth is that the English are the descendants of "Anglo-Saxons" who "invaded" in the 5th-6th century. Stating that ethnic groups presume that their descent is common, is not the same as saying that an ethnic group is a group with an actual common descent. Alun 08:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
My first suggestion (confirmed from reading the preceding comments, but which I had in mind way before that) is that this articles should in fact be named European peoples; plural. While there is truly an emerging pan-European identity and somewhere down the road the Europeans might be considered a single ethnic group, this emerging identity hasn't consolidated yet, so what we have as a verifiable, encyclopaedic topic is a collection of ethnic groups, with dissimilar cultures and moderately different aspects, whose two common characteristics are 1)that they have shared the same continent (albeit for variable amounts of time) and 2)are part of the same large "racial grouping", whites (albeit according to many POVs they are far from alone in this racial grouping). I wouldn't object to an article describing the various European cultures and ethnic groups, but would certainly find it OR to read about an article which describes the Europeans as a single ethnic entity. I would also object to the Europeans being described as a single racial entity, for the reason that they are arguably not the only ones sharing this particular racial identity, according to many definitions. I also think that wanting to exclude from the definition groups such as the Ashkenazi, and Eastern European Muslims based on the fact that one has been in Europe "a mere 2000 years" and that the others do not share the dominant religion grouping of Europe (Christianity - those thinking of Christianity as a single, unified religion may lack familiarity with the tenets of the various denominations of which it is composed) is inappropriate and looks like arbitrary exclusion on the face of it. But as a historical and geographical grouping, "European peoples" would be an appropriate encyclopaedic subject.--Ramdrake 10:40, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is pretty much a consensus that this article should be retitled "European peoples" and be about European ethnic groups, emphasis on the plural - only KarenAER persists with the claim that there is a single European ethnicity and she has yet (after many days of debate) to provide any reliable scholarly source. I think there are two bones of contention between me and perhaps others, and JRWalko: (1) his view of genetics and its bearing on ethnic identity, which many people would consider controversial, and (2) what words like "indigenous" or "native" mean. If JRWalko can agree that this article will (1) make scientific claims only when they are backed up by reliable scientific sources, and (2) that the article rerepresent all major views, including scholarly views, concerning claims to indigeneity, as well as any debate over whether indigeneity must be a component of European ethnicity, as long as they are appropriately sourced, I think we can move on. What do others thing? Slrubenstein | Talk 11:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I havent made any such claim. If you can not comprehend my arguments, ask for clarification. Otherwise, stop misrepresenting my views as you've done before (ex: [3] ) KarenAER 21:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Karen, if you think I do not comprehend your argument, then clarify it. Why do you not clarify it right now if you think I am misrepresenting it? Slrubenstein | Talk 10:53, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect Karen you clearly sate above that "This article is about ethnicity.....This is the standard with X people articles in Wiki. Observe the English people." But how can European people be compared with English people in any rational way, without concluding that you are making a claim for "European people" being an ethnic group. You don't make any attempt to clarify what you mean in your response to slr. He is only making the point that I make above, which you have also refused to address. Simply claiming that people are not understanding you does not help. If you feel that your position has been misunderstood then I can't understand why you have made no attempt to explain it. You simply demand that someone ask for clarification, but surely if you feel that your position has been misrepresented then you should take this opportunity to explain what you mean. It really is unclear what your point of view is. You really do seem tot be contradicting yourself here. All the best. Alun 02:46, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I would agree with presenting differing views on who is or isn't to be considered a "European people", as long as each view is backed with a verifiable, reliable source (much preferably scholarly, but popular views can also be presented, as long as they are cited and their attribution is clear).--Ramdrake 11:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

My view is that genetics don't determine ethnicity but nevertheless ethnicities are characterized by their genetics. I think it's obvious that there is an overwhelmingly strong correlation between ancestry and culture and language. Keep in mind everything we talk about is meant to be true "on average" or be statistically significant in at least 90% of cases as these are the most common rules of statistics. So being an R1b doesn't make you Irish but the Irish tend to be R1b. So when you have stats that show ethnic comparisons they are relevant because one (the reader) can draw conclusions about the relationship of ethnic groups. To be native to Europe depends on the time frame you're talking about. For an ethnic group however this would (as I expressed above) entail being created and persisting to occupy the continent of Europe. In other words where is that groups "homeland"? As far as the other two point go I'd go to look at it case by case. Some things are not scientific claims, they are scientific facts. I shouldn't have to provide a source for a fact like: Britons are a European ethnic group. That is obvious and I'd have to visit a library's Kindergarten section just to find a book that would state something that obvious. We should discuss things case by case. I support some and I oppose others. The last of Slrubenstein's statements (major views, etc); it should express all MAJOR views and it needs to stated who thinks what (I mean mostly nations: Do Britons consider Scots European? etc). As to the indigeneity as a component of being European I would say also case by case. Greek Cypriots come to mind. Historically religion also determined this which was the reason why Turks were not considered European despite having territories there while the Armenians were despite not having any European territory. These would have to be marked somehow since it's not our place to determine these things. JRWalko 22:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Above, JRWalko wrote, "think it's obvious that there is an overwhelmingly strong correlation between ancestry and culture and language." This is simply not true in any general or absolute sense. There may be places and times where this seems to be the case, but when you look at all the data it isn't so, indeed, that these three variables are not reducible one to the other and are independent is one of the principle discoveries of modern anthropology. Source? It was so well-established before WWII that you would have to go back to that time. Franz Boas's Race, Language and Culture is the major statement - really collection of statements, as it is an edited volume of studies on just this question - on the topic. Kroeber's Anthropology too. Now, this does not mean that people cannot claim a correlation between ancestry culture and language, but in virtually every case anthropologists have debunked those claims. that does not mean that the claim has to be excluded from Wikipedia, but it canot be presented as a scientific claim, it has to be presented as an ideological or political (or whatever) claim. As suggested in Cohen and Vincent's definition of ethnicity, people will make this kind of claim under certain political conditions; under other conditions they will not. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
This point is very well made by SLR, indeed I have only read a little about anthropology myself (and that about Molecular anthropology), but it is clear to me that anthropologists disposed with this fallacy a very long time ago. Thanks for making this point so clearly SLR. Alun 11:07, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I mean a statistical correlation. In other words if you sample the world population (I'm making these numbers up now) say you get 3% who list German as their native language. I think that you will find that overwhelmingly those 3% also list themselves as belonging to the German culture and being of German descent. You're welcome to prove me wrong on this one but I don't think you'd find these variables to be independent of each other in any significant way. You just won't find 3% of people who speak German, then a separate 3% who have German ancestry, and then a separate 3% who identify with the German culture. I think this is essentialy true of most ethnic groups, certainly overwhelmingly in Europe. This would only not be true in the case of languages of European colonies but I think a thing it's apparent that the common language of the native people of a French colony and French people (as in the native inhabitants of France) does not in any way mean they're the same ethnic group. JRWalko 00:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
You are mixing different things up. It is obviously true that most citizens of the state, Germany, speak German. But not all German citizens have the same ancestry. Moreover, their national identity is as I am sure you know a relatively recent invention, that dates back no earlier than Napolean and really not earlier than Bismark - prior to that time, most germans did not belong to the same cultural or ethnic group. Now, as you know, most germans speak dialects of German and many speakefrs of dialects of german share very little ancestry with Germans, I am referring primarily to Ashkenazik Jews whose language, Yiddish, as a dialect of German. I admit that there are probably some small Islands in the South Pacific where all members of the same society speak the same language and are all closely related. But once you move to contintents, the statistical correlation starts to fall apart.Your example of France is a good one - England serves well too: most speakers of French and English have different cultures and different ancestry. To go back to the South Pacific island exception: I have no doubt that you can find exceptions to the anthropological fact that language, culture, and race are independent variables with independent histories (esp. that explain their distribution) - but they are exceptions. Slrubenstein | Talk 01:05, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Heh, I'm really enjoying this discussion since critical thinking should always be encouraged. We're having a discussion about semantics and those discussions tend to be problematic because of dual meanings. I'm having trouble resolving the meaning of the terms "ethnic whatever" and "a person of whatever ethnicity". I'd appreciate a clarification if there is one so I can use the proper term that I mean. Secondly I know that the German identity formed recently but I don't fully grasp how Germans don't necessarily have a common ancestry? Wouldn't you say that most Germans believe their descent to be from Germanic people? I'm not aware of a German idea along the lines of "Americans" where ancestry is assumed to be undefined. With respect to Jews I would really like to not have a discussion about this now because this is impossible to determine due to inclusiveness and so on. I think their case is unique as far as this discussion goes. JRWalko 03:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I am glad you are enjoying it - I know both of us want to see this article improved. First, about ethnicity: social scientists do not have one definition of it, because there is on uniformity or constancy by which people identify themselves in ways that can be called "ethnic." I tried to explain it above: what people mean by their ethnic group - what defines its boundaries, what are its criteria for inclusion/exclusion - is sometimes paradoxical in that people generally claim a great deal of continuity in whatever constitutes their ethnicity, yet historians and anthropologists time and time again discover objectively discontinuity and change. Clearly this means that there is some value to the belief in stability or continuity for most people, even when they and their world are changing. Most social scientists would agree that at different times and places people claim different things as the basis for their ethnic identity: similar appearance, common ancestry, language, religion. This does not mean that an ethnic group has all these things in common, it means members of an ethnic group generally believe they all have one of these things in common. Given your own interests I highly recommend Cole and Wolf's The Hidden frontier - obviously you care about this and find it interesting, I am sure that even if you do not agree with all the book's conclusions you will be glad you read it. It is a classic case-study concerning ethnic boundaries and identity in Europe. Now as far as Germans go, perhaps most Germans believe they are all closely related - I do not know, but let's say they do. Just because they believe it does not mean it is true. As our knowledge of genetics has increased we have learned that most claims about relatedness among human groups are at best arbitrary. I will give you a very simple example. Within all cells (with the exception of blood cells0 there are two kinds of DNA: DNA in the nucleus, and DNA in little things called mitochondria, in the cytoplasm. Scientists believe that long before we became humans, mitochondria may have been symbiotic parasites (there once having been independent would explain their having their own DNA). In any event now they are part of us and play a crucial role in metabolism and we really couldn't live without them. It is the nuclear DNA that affects of physiology; mitochondrial DNA does not express itself. This is crucial because it means natural selection acts on nuclear DNA but not Mt.DNA. This means that our nuclear DNA changes at a faster rate than our MtDNA. Moreover, we get our MtDNA from our mothers. Consequence: in every generation, a child's nuclear DNA is different from his parents. Over many generations however the MtDNA in a female line can be relatively unchanged. This means that individuals with the same or very similar MtDNA have a common female ancestor, and that ancestor could have lived thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ago. Perhaps you have read about "Mitochondrial Eve" - some scientists use this data to claim that all humans are decended from one ancestor x number of years ago (I forget how many but it is a lot). By looking at variations in MtDNA caused by random mutations (MtDNA does change over generations - just far more slowly than nuclear DNA), scientists have grouped people into groups that are descended from specific anonymous females who lived sometime after "Eve." You can send a sample of your DNA to some lab, they will analyze it, and assign you to one of these groups. Now, this is about as strong evidence as we can get for grouping people togethe who have a common ancestor. NOW for the flip side: imagine yourself as patriarch. You have children,they have children, they have children - 20,000 years from now the number of people descended from you will be enourmous, God willing. But now look at it from the other direction: of course you have a great great great great great great great great great grandfather, and LOTS of other people are descended from him. But do you know how many great great great great great great great great great grandparents you have? Check my math but I think it is over 2,000! See my point? MtDNA isolates one common ancestor for LOTS of people. But this woman is only one of thousands, tens of thousands, of other ancestors any person has from the same generation as their MtDNA ancestor! Certain facts of nature and advances in technology allows you us to say "all these people have one ancestor in common." But so far the same facts of nature and technology make it utterly impossible to know about all the other ancestors. And while millions of people today may have one woman ancestor in common from 100,000 or 50,000 years ago, there is simply no reason to think that all their other ancestors are in common. indeed, it is much more likely that they have many many many ancestors not in common. Conversely, let's say you and I pahy for the lab analysis and discover that we can be traced to two distinct MtDNA ancestors. Okay, so that one ancestor of ours is actually two different people, we do not share her. But does this mean you and I are not related? No. Because we have thousands of other ancesotrs and there is no reason why we can't have some other ancestor in common. Genetics just does not enable us to trace it. However, the heterogeneity of genes in any human being has led scientists to calculate that there is more genetic variation within so-called races (and certainly, ethnic groups) than between races. How can this be? Obviously a white person with blue eyes and straight blond hair has different genes from a black man with black eyes and black curly hair. But these biological markers for race (or ethnicity) are the expressions of only a handful of the genes in our DNA. Blood type too is genetic, but we do not group people by race or ethnicity according to blood type. A black and white man may have the same blood type, and two white men may have different blood types - when it comes to the gene for blood types, people of different races can be more alike than people of the same race. And blood type is but one other genetically determined trait, there are many others. When people claim that their racial identity is based on physical (i.e. genetic) similarities with members of the same race, they are selecting only a small set of genes by which to make this claim, and are ignoring all the other genes. I am trying to show you why from the point of view of inherited genes the question of how closely related people are, or how different they are, is far more complex than most people's notions of descent and ancestry. So how closely related are Germans? Honestly, we would need to look at actual research, I haven't. But I know that since Roman times central Europe has been a landscape for the massive movements of diverse peoples, who sometimes avoided one another and other times intermarried. There is absolutely no reason why people living in Bavaria and people living in Spain or Italy cannot have a common ancestor a thoursand or two thousand years ago - or indeed many ancestors in common. From what we know of genetics, it is pretty likely. I am sure too that there is one person that most Germans are decended from. But if Germans choose to consider that person "their ancestor" and ignore the ancestor they have in common with people in France or in Poland, they are making a cultural and political choice and fronm the point of view of genetic science it might as well be arbitrary. I hope this helps somewhat. Slrubenstein | Talk 04:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Everyone has 2,048 great great great great great great great great great grandparents... That's 12 generations conting you (it takes to the middle of the 17th century if you were born around 1970/80). If you double the number of generations (to 24, early 14th century), you have 8,388,608 ancestors just in that generation. If you double that to 48 generations (around the 7th century), you have 140,737,488,355,328 ancestors in that generation alone - much more than the world population today... Remeber the number doubles at each generation! The Ogre 15:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm sure most editors knew what I'm about to say, but that's also more than the number of people who've lived on this planet since the beginning of mankind. This just goes to prove that some of your ancestors had to have been related, (i.e. the same people may appear more than once in your genealogical tree).--Ramdrake 15:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I wanted to point out only the fact that geneticists can make a strong case that people who inhabit a region share one distant ancester does not in any way mean they are more closely related to one another than they are to neighboring groups. That is all.... Slrubenstein | Talk 16:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm very familiar with methods of DNA analysis but thank you for the explanation for the benefit of others reading this discussion. To me ethnicity must carry a type of belief of common descent. Here I mean ethnicity not in terms of say "speakers of Polish are Poles" but rather in this sense of the word - (from MW dictionary) "of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background". It's clear that though the Irish and the Poles are both Catholic they are not the same ethnic group. Though the Britons and the Jamaicans both speak English they are not the same ethnic group. Though someone may be a German citizen they may not be a German (though there is such a definition I absolutely disagree with the idea that legal citizenship has anything to do with ethnicity). On the other hand, with regards to ancestry, I think any time someone is of mainly French ancestry they would be French. I think ancestry is a prerequisite for any subsequent claim on ethnicity. In other words though an African may be a German because he speaks German, embraces German culture and so on, he could not be an ethnic German because A) His ancestry is too far diverged from that of all the other Germans (yes I know about admixture and all that) and B) His "culture" can't seriously be considered the same because his ancestors did not share the significant cultural experiences of German (and pre-"German state") people. This case is evident if you look at Tatars who have inhabited Poland for hundreds of years and despite sometimes self-identifying as Poles the majority of Poles would not recognize them as such. To get back to what is relevant to this article I don't believe one can be an ethnic German without being of near German ancestry. Though the peoples have mixed they have not mixed THAT much. What could possibly be the ancestral diversity of a nation like the Germans? So you'll have many people from France, many from Poland, many from Denmark, and outside of that you're really going to start to get to into some really insignificant numbers. I doubt that people who would be considered Spaniards in 1000AD account for some greatly significant percentage of modern day Germans for example despite the historical relations of the two countries and migration. Still I'd find that a lot more reasonable than a claim that Iranians make up a significant percentage because let's face it for a Muslim to move to Europe in historical times would've been highly problematic. I had a Czech ancestor but that doesn't exactly make me Czech when 95% of my other ancestors were not that and I've never even been to Czech Republic. So my view boils down to the belief that an ethnic group will have significant common ancestry (at least to a reasonable degree). Not all Italians are Etruscans but I'm pretty sure a good deal of them have their ancestry come from the Italian peninsula. JRWalko 14:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

It may be your personal opinion that common descent is a requirement for ethnicity, but that is not the consensus among social scientists because they have documented cases where this is not true. It is true that often times a belief in common descent is an important diachritic of ethnicity, but again, anthropologists and historians have found so many cases that they cannot even be described as exceptions. NOR if forbidden, and NPOV further forbids us from inserting our own views into articles. Reliable verifiable sources make it clear that a belief in common descent is one of several possible diachritics of ethnicity. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction

Latest comment: 16 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion

The section "Identity and Culture" seems to contradict itself. "European is particularly common as an ethnic descriptor for those populations. A good example of this is the European American, to identify a person from the United States with European ancestry..... In the United States, it is rare to call people of European ancestry "European." Such people are sometimes called "white," but more generally are labelled by the nation their ancestors are from (e.g., English Americans)." So what is common? On the one hand we get a statement that European is particularly common, with the US given as an example, then a few sentences later we are told that is is rare to describe a person as European in the USA. This should be clarified. Alun 05:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

It needs clarification. It's meant to mean that people don't state that they are European because they have a more specific term for their group (ex. Dutch) but when someone says "Europeans don't agree with US foreign policy" they mean the Brits, French and so on. Keep in mind in many countries the terms white and European are synonymous (Australia, Canada, Norway,...) while in others they are not. JRWalko 00:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
So what you're saying is that European=whites is a minority view, correct? Australia, Canada and Norway are just a few counties in the whole wide world. - Jeeny Talk 04:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
A list of the countries within Europe (I haven't encluded all, but most):
  • Eastern Europe
    • Belarus
    • Bulgaria
    • Czech Republic
    • Hungary
    • Moldova
    • Poland
    • Romania
    • Russia
    • Slovakia
    • (Turkey)????
    • Ukraine
  • Northern Europe
    • Findland
    • Denmark
    • Estonia
    • Findland
    • Iceland
    • Ireland
    • Isle of Man
    • Latvia
    • Lithuania
    • Norway
    • Sweden
    • UK
  • Southern Europe
    • Albania
    • Andorra
    • Bosnia
    • Croatia
    • Gibraltar
    • Greece
    • Italy
      • Italian people
    • Macedonia
    • Malta
    • Portugal
    • Serbia
    • Slovenia
    • Spain
      • Spanish people
    • Vatican City
  • Western Europe
    • Austria
    • Belgium
    • France
    • Germany
    • Liechtenstein
    • Luxembourg
    • Monaco
    • Netherlands
    • Switzerland

Those part of EU, but not in geography are: Azores, the Canary Islands, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Madeira, Martinique and Réunion. - Jeeny Talk 04:17, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

JRWalko sya, "when someone says "Europeans don't agree with US foreign policy" they mean the Brits, French and so on." In this example, Europeans are responding to the policy of a state (The US, whose foreign policy is determined by representatives of people of many races and ethnic groups) and "Europeans" refers to the representatives or citizents of European states, and race and ethnicity have nothing to do with it. We have gone over this before and we are still geting nowhere. KarenRAE clearly thinks "European" in this article has something to do with ethnicity, and KarenRAE says she agrees entirely with JRWalko, and I thought we all agreed that this article would have something to do with ethnicity ... but suddenly we are back to states, polities and their citizens. I wonder - and I say this with respect and in good faith and not to be insulting - if JRWalko isn't confused. Clearly, he is focused on "European" being more inclusive than French, Slovenian, Russian, etc. I think we al understand that the word "European" is more inclusive than something else (and less inclusive than "human being" or "world"). The quetion is, more inclusive than what? Specific territorial states, or specific ethnic groups. I argue strongly that it cannot be both. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:49, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I think that we should present several reasonable interpretations of who are European people, and some history. Where in history do we draw the line on migrations? For example, I think that the Moorish incursions into Iberia are pertinent as a latter day migration of a non-European ethnic group which influenced the ethnicity of the region, as are the Roman and Carthaginian influences there. The Britons who were early inhabitants of the British Isles now share the region with ethnic Germans (Saxons) and French/Scandinavians (Normans). These migrations are pertinent. How about more recent migrations? How about Gypsies, Jews, Turks, Mongols, etc. Is migration on foot and more pertinent than migration by Air Bus? --Kevin Murray 15:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Kevin brings up some very important points. I add only one thing: the Saxons who moved to the british Isles did not consider themselves ethnic Germans, or at least we have no evidence that they did. This is not a semantic point, I think it is very serious: we cannot project contemporary ethnic categories back in tiem without evidence that those categories existed back in time; to do so would be anachronistic, which is always bad history. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:58, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Also as an answer to the other discussion we're having on ancestry: Every kind of a group in the world is established in some form in Europe, whether it be a place of worship or a neighborhood. Some have been there for hundreds of years. I have always argued my point along the lines of my perceived relationship between nationality/ethnicity/ancestry/culture. As I mentioned previously I would most welcome a case by case discussion. I am not a fan of political correctness and thus I do not mask my views for fear of being called a racists or the like (which I do not consider myself). I would never consider Mongols to be European. That's completely ridiculous to me. I also don't see citizenship as a determinant of the concept that we're talking about. I thought that the disambiguation page was meant to handle the difference between "inhabitants of Europe" and "people of European ethnicities" and that this article was meant to discuss "what are European ethnicities?". As I've also said before I am not aware of European nations being similar to the "American nation" which is radically different. JRWalko 17:13, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Gallery

Latest comment: 16 years ago45 comments9 people in discussion

The gallery is cheap. Instead of putting people like Newton, Thomas Edison, Bach, Leonardo da Vinci, Alfred Nobel, Copernicus, we get unknown singers and stupid politicians? That's so silly. And the pics will be in the ethnicity box Template:European_people, just like other X people articles. KarenAER 21:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

  • This gallery was hijacked by MW, but several of us worked today to restore balance. The purpose of using notable but not famous people is (a) the images are available already at Wp, (b) the heritage is verifiable in the WP articles, and (c) we avoid celebrities overwhelming the purpose of the gallery. I would like to see fewer politicians but there are a limited number of suitable images at WP. --Kevin Murray 21:38, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


Do you not get it? The pics will be in the ethnicity box just like every other X people article. And there are tonnes of historical figures at WP Commons. And heritage of historical figures are verifiable. That invalidates a and b. And are Newton, Thomas Edison, Bach, Leonardo da Vinci, Alfred Nobel, Copernicus celebrities???!!??!?questionmark??? KarenAER 21:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I tried a few of these and was reverted based on B&W pictures, not current, etc. But if you can gain consensus for inclusion of these types with good meaningful pictures, I won't fight it. But get some backing before you tear up what others have cooperated on. --Kevin Murray 21:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The current gallery was a result of the work and cooperation today among, Murray, Ogre and Wobble, and represents the further cooperation with others last week to bring balance including reducing the amount of politicians and major celebrities, providing verifiable ancestories, etc. Please try to work together on this. Each photo has been pretty thoroughly discussed and the result represents a balance of nationalities and ethnicities -- men and women, old and young, blondes and darker. These are not arbitrary picks based on popularity. --Kevin Murray 21:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
This gallery is quite frankly stupid. I made my arguments. And there is no blonds in the gallery if you dont count the sweaty head of Kournikova. Most of them look ugly anyway and have no significance. They will be forgotten after a couple decades unlike the ones like Copernicus. And many Europeans dont accept Turks as European. So his existance in the gallery is not NPOV.
I'm proposing 8 people in the gallery. All these images are from Wiki Commons:
  • [4] (scientist) M (Italian)
  • [5] (musician) M (German)
  • [6] (royalty) F (English)
  • [7] (warrior) F (French)
  • [8] (philosopher) M (Dane)
  • [9] (scientist) M Pole
  • [10] (poet) Russian M
  • [11] actress F American KarenAER 22:30, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Don't you think this would convey an inappropriate message such as Europeans are nothing but historically famous people? I think this should be more oriented toward the relatively lesser-known people, and those for which we have an actual photograph rather than just an embellished painting.--Ramdrake 22:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
This is the standart with X people pages. Look at some examples English people, Han Chinese, Italian people, French people. Most people, fortunately, lacks your racism paranoia...KarenAER 23:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
That's like saying we should remove Einstein from Jews because it might seem like Jews are smart people. Or Maria Curie from Poles because that might mean all Poles are chemist/physicists. I don't think anyone would draw those conclusions. Nevertheless I remain neutral on gallery concepts. JRWalko 23:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Like I said, I don't oppose the inclusion of historically famous people, just their possible overrepresentation. Compare with the gallery in Black people, for example.--Ramdrake 23:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Then go and fix Black people. I dont care. KarenAER 23:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
  • While I commend Karen for her cooperation, I'm a bit reluctant on many of the examples, but not in whole rejecting her concept. --Kevin Murray 22:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
It is my understanding based on convention that European people are citizens of Europe. Just as American people are citizens of America. So I inserted some photos of European citizens. The original Americans are now referred to as "Native Americans". For example George Bush is an American, but he is not a Native American. In any gallery about Americans, he would be acceptable. It is these same standards that I applied to this gallery. A suggestion then is to name this article "Native Europeans". Muntuwandi 23:03, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
MW, I really love so much of what you bring to the table, but sometimes you are so full of shit! Really, why do you debase the finer parts of your contribution with this crusade. --Kevin Murray 23:06, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Your understanding is, as usual, wrong. Again: English people, Han Chinese, Italian people, French people. X people pages does not list citizenship numbers in ethnicity boxes. They list ethnicity by descent numbers. Citizenship information is at the article Demography of Europe KarenAER 23:09, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
The article on Naomi Campbell describes her as an English person. Muntuwandi 23:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
That's because she's good looking and we're all racist bigots here. JRWalko 23:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't get. Muntuwandi 23:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
She may be an English citizen, but she is not of an ethnicity indigenous to the British Isles, or Europe. --Kevin Murray 23:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
This is my point in general when referring to people using political entities such as Europe or America, citizenry is all that is required. To differentiate between citizens and aboriginals, terms like native, indigenous or aboriginal are applied. Like Australians and Indigenous Australians. However this terminology is normally used for populations that have been displaced and are in a minority. But when people say Australians, they mean citizens of Australia regardless of whether their background is European or indigenous. Muntuwandi 23:19, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
MW, you are just pissing all-over your own boots. This article is not about citizenship. You just keep cutting your own credibility. --Kevin Murray 23:27, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Therein lies the problem, the title of the article does not suggest that this article is not referring to citizenship. Once I heard a black guy telling a white south African(Afrikaner), that because he was white, he was not African. To my surprise the White South African turned red, fuming absolutely mad at the suggestion that he was not African. I think it is impolite to suggest that citizens of European countries are not European people. Muntuwandi 23:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I really dont believe this story since whites are fleeing South Africa [12] And can you not read the writing in italic at top? KarenAER 23:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes the english speaking south africans are fleeing south africa, not the Afrikaners. They consider themselves the only true "white african tribe".

While some joined a "white flight" from the country, many Afrikaners argue that they are a true white African tribe and far more committed to Africa than English speakers who are seen as hankering after life in Europe.
I feel really sorry for English-speaking South Africans. They are the one group in this country that has absolutely no identity. They get pop music from England and plays from Broadway; they've never formed a strong African identity.We for you South Afirca

Muntuwandi 00:21, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

@Karen. Mark Shuttleworth has described himself as the "first African in space" has he not?[13] Alun 03:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

@ Kevin, Karen and Muntuwandi: Just a point here, no one is an English citizen. England is not a state and there is no such thing as an English passport. The English are an ethnic group and nation, they do not have a government or a parliament, or such a thing as English citizenship. English people are British citizens, that is they are citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, just like Welsh and Scots and Northern Irish people. It states clearly on my passport that I am a citizen of the UK. Being English is about ethnic identity, and of course Naomi Campbell, Nasser Hussain, Monty Panesar, Phil DeFreitas, Sol Campbell, Paul Boateng, Oona King, Lenny Henry, Michelle Gayle (see Hattie Tavernier) etc. are all English. Colin Jackson is Welsh and Phil Lynott is Irish. Ethnicity is about identity, if a person belongs to an ethnic group it is because they identify with that group, and the other members of that group identify with them, skin colour is irrelevant. I refer you to above, Mark Shuttleworth is often described as the first African in space, but he would not normally be considered Black. Alun 02:58, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Above, KarenAER writes, "And many Europeans dont accept Turks as European. So his existance in the gallery is not NPOV." This shows her miscomprehension of NPOV. NPOV does not mean "we only represent the majority view." Indeed, that is by definition a violation of NPOV. NPOV in this case means we must represent multiple points of view. People have differing notions of "European" so 'any gallery of Europeans cannot claim to be of Euriopeans, but rather images of different people that sifferent people claim are Europeans. That is the only way to comply with NPOV here. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Pfft. Dont lecture on things you have no idea about. First of all articles may not contain tiny-minority views at all. See: WP:NPOV#Undue_weight. Secondly, if you are going to put non-Europeans in the gallery, you have to specify not everyone might consider them European. OR you may put them in a seperate gallery. Hence the reader will understand the controversy. That's NPOV. Not what your doing. KarenAER 16:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Pfft yourself; i never lecture on things I know nothing about. And mind your manners - you are not with your friends at the food-court in your local mall, you are with adults. In my comment above I did not say we should add non-Europeans to the gallery, I said we need to acknowledge multiple points of view concerning what is a "European." If there are reliable sources that document a European identity among Turks, then that is a valid POV. You wrote that "many Europeans do not accept Turks as European." Well, if you provide a verifiable source we can include that in the article too. But you cannot exclude all points of view different from that: to do so would be to violate NPOV. Maybe instead of wasting time practicing the newest verwion of adolescent sarcasm, you should read our NPOV and V policies more carefully and try, at least try, to grasp the spirit of the policies as well as the letters. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I know this is not a food court. But, you, should know that this is not a suburban barbeque with your friends where you can keep on lecturing/patronizing and rambling. So mind your manners as well. And your style. You are making the page hard to read and for others to understand the linearity (do you know what this means?) of the responses by constantly not spacing your posts one space further to the right than the entry you are responding to.
As for your cliche NPOV violation accusations, can you not read? I didnt say Turkey should be excluded. I said: "if you are going to put non-Europeans in the gallery, you have to specify not everyone might consider them European. OR you may put them in a seperate gallery" Now read that again and again until you understand or ask for clarification since I have no idea where you are coming from when you said "But you cannot exclude all points of view different from that..." That wasnt my suggestion. I only suggested excluding them IF their Europeanness were a small minority POV. This is in line with NPOV. If you dont know that, read NPOV.
As for Turkey, it is listed in West Asia, not Europe, according to UN Geoscheme, which is the standart in Wiki. See: United Nations geoscheme and educate yourself on basic geography.
But if you insist on another source:
"Not counting the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants whose very clandestinity places them outside the statistics, there are currently more than three million immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and naturalised citizens and political refugees from Turkey in Western Europe. This is the largest non-European immigrant group in the Union." [14].
So, I'm going to remove the Turk until someone finds a source about them being European. If such a source is found, then we will have to agree on something. Either putting him in a seperate gallery or somehow notifying readers that his Europeanness is controversial. Get it? KarenAER 20:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Do not remove the Turk, and the maps of light hair do not fit the article. They are not sourced properly for THIS article. No stop it. - Jeeny Talk 20:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Your personal opinions are irrelevant. Find sources for your positions (ie: A RS that says Turks are Europeans). The map is properly sourced. I'll report you for vandalism if you keep removing them. KarenAER 20:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, I would think that 1)the fact that part of the territory is located in Europe and 2)it is a member of the European Union should be big arguments.--Ramdrake 20:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
MWAHAHA. Educate yourself please. Turkey is not a member of the European Union. And should we say Spain is an African country because she has territory there? Only 3% of Turkey is in Europe. KarenAER 20:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, if you want the fine print, Turkey is an associate member since 1963, and has applied for full membership. The fact that the 3% you speak of includes among other things the country's capital should also be mentioned. Istanbul (Constantinople) is at the vey least secularly European.--Ramdrake 20:59, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Again, educate yourself. You are clearly ignorant about this but I'm surprised you are incapable of a simple google search too. Istanbul is not Turkey's capital. Turkey's capital is Ankara, which is in Asia. And Turkey's EU membership is opposed by large segments of European public, reaching 81% of the population in Austria. KarenAER 21:11, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Missed on this one as you're right, the capital is Ankara. However, Istanbul is Turkey's largest city, its cultural and financial metropolis. As far as Turkey's membership being opposed, that's a fact, but didn't you advocate earlier that we should give preponderance to how nationals see themselves (as per WP:NCI), and in this case it is quite clear that Turkey sees itself politically and economically as part of Europe.--Ramdrake 21:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
No it is not quite clear to me. Israel is part of Eurovision and UEFA but it is not a European country. So find a RS which says Turks are European. Not your interpretation. KarenAER 21:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Citizens of European countries are European, they are not non-europeans. It is not possible to have a non-european-european. Muntuwandi 18:51, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I support a separation similar to topics dealing with European countries. These are commonly accepted as European countries...These are considered European for cultural, etc, reason...However I am still neutral on the gallery because I can just see how people will add controversial people all the time without any agreement. JRWalko 00:43, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I would agree that the gallery will require some monitoring to maintain the balanced photos agreed to by consensus, but every paragraph of any contentious topic requires the same effort. --Kevin Murray 15:45, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Problems with the current gallery:
1)People from the British isles are over represented.
2)There is a pic of Sami. Sami's pop number are max 100,000.
3)There is a pic of Chechen. Chechen's pop number is max 2 mil.
4)Yet, despite pictures of these people, there are no: Poles (pop:40 mil), Dutch (16 mil), Scandinavian(20 mil). Noone from Balkans. Noone from outside Europe but of European ancestry. So the gallery is unrepresentitive.
5)Too many politicans.
6)These people are, for the most part, historically insignificant.
So the current gallery is simply of pretty low quality. And I'm wondering what kinda consensus Murray is speaking of? Who agreed on this? KarenAER 20:46, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
You claim that 1) there should not be a picture of Sami people (why does their population number matter, they are an important indigenous group) and 2) that no Scandinavians are represented. Well Lapland is in Scandinavia. Alun 09:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

the gallery doesn't belong here, per {{cleanup-gallery}}. Such galleries are welcome at commons:; people interested in compiling galleries will find a more satisfying environment for working on galleries there. I've moved the gallery to commons:Europeans, please continue working on it there. --dab (𒁳) 07:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

  • DAB, while I agree that the gallery should eventually end up at commons, please leave it here while it is in development. When it stabilizes, I'd be happy to work with it at Commons. --Kevin Murray 14:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The gallery again

Latest comment: 16 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

What is the Turk doing in the gallery? He is from the non-European (geographical) part of Turkey. The Chechen and the Georgian are also debatable. MoritzB 15:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Under the broader definitions of European, these examples are valid. I think that the text should make clear that there are different definitions of the term. Thanks. --Kevin Murray 15:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Under what broader definitions the Turkish guy is European? MoritzB 16:55, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Asia Minor is pretty much the antithesis of Europe. There is no way Turkey can be considered situated in Europe. Per {{cleanup-gallery}}, we don't want a gallery here anyway, move it to commons:European people. --dab (𒁳) 19:23, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure I would agree, considering Turkey is a transcontinental country, that its largest city is situated in good part in Europe, and that it has applied for membership in the Eruopean Union (and is already an associate member), but I certainly won't go to war over this; however, I would appreciate if you could consider these facts.--Ramdrake 20:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
The person is from Trabzond which is outside Europe.MoritzB 02:58, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Further research beyond {{cleanup-gallery}}, does not show that galleries are prohibited, discouraged or specifically preferred at Commons. In fact I dispute the validity of that tag as not demonstrating any true consensus position, just the opinion of the tag's creators. Please consider the ongoing efforts at Wikipedia:Galleries where there is an attempt to consolidate a policy guideline on galleries. Putting galleries at commons is an option and the examples given show situations of collages at Commons which appear on the pages at WP, not just the link style used by DAB. However, I think that we should stand-down on the gallery process until there is a solid decision on which peoples are properly included and the the format of this article stabilizes. Regardless of the delay, I still advocate some balanced visual presentation directly viewable here. --Kevin Murray 09:09, 2 September 2007 (UTC)


Languages map

Latest comment: 15 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion

This map is misleading in this context. It sits within the secton on ethnic groups, yet it does not illustrate ethnicity or culture, but language, which is not at all the same. For example: The island of Ireland is depicted as largely Germanic-speaking - fair enough as most are primarily English speakers, but genetically and culturally cetainly *not* Germanic, Anglo-Saxon, or the like. This is very mis-leading to the casual reader. I suggest this map be used elsewhere or otherwise removed from the article. If a valid map depicted ethnicities is inserted: great. Shoreranger (talk) 19:12, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. This articles obviously confuses language groups and ethnicity and needs serious revisions. People speaking the same category of language may or may not be part of the same "ethnic group." Languages and ethnicity are not the same. Of course they can overlap, but that does not make them the same thing. Would you equate the Romanians and the Portuguese whilst separating Slovenes and Austrians? That's just silly. Codik 12:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the map. There is already an article, linked in this article, that addresses European languages and includes this map. That is the proper place for it. Shoreranger (talk) 14:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
The map is not irrelevant and cannot be misread or misunderstood, considering its caption. It is a helpful and useful addition to the article. I am unaware of any way of producing a map showing the current distribution of ethnic groups in europe, since no precise definition exists, so no precise statistics exist and therefore there is no hope to illustrate them graphically. Language is one aspect of ethnic groups: like officially declared religion, it is one of a very small number of scientifically measurable statistics where there is an obvious correlation. The objections above seem naive. Mathsci (talk) 21:39, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree! There is no confusion here. The Ogre (talk) 23:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Please could User:Shoreranger counter the above arguments before reverting? This map has been in place for some time (following Dbachmann's creation of the new version of the page). --Mathsci (talk) 12:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Shoreranger on this one. His objections are not naive. The map is completely misleading to the casual reader. In fact, I fell prey myself: after viewing the map for a while and noticing many inaccuracies (such as the aforementioned missing Gaelic elements, the extent of Germans into Switzerland, Austria and Italy, and many others I wont get into) I realized it's actually about linguistic groups, not ethnic groups: the subject of this article. I came to Talk to comment on this and found this existing thread. The map does not work here because:

  • it suggests overlap between language and ethnicity is the major factor in defining an ethnic group
  • it IS confusing
  • it already exists in the languages article.

Since an accurate map is impossible, I suggest that no map is better than a misleading one. Dionix (talk) 18:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


The idea of "ethnicity" as a distinct think from cultural aspects is a very misleading and ethnologically wrong notion. What defines the "etnicities" IS specifically the language. No people in the world is unified by its genetics, nor is genetically homogenous. What make a nation homogenous, what makes a people to exist IS the CULTURE, and NOT the genetics. The main unifiying criterium of culture (alongside with religion) is the LANGUAGE. So I think this language map is having rightly all it place on this article, since "ethnics" groups in Europe are usually define on this scientifically mesurable element. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.59.166 (talk) 09:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

68 Million French ???

Latest comment: 15 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hello. I was reading this page and I began to question whether up to 70 million people are of French descent in Framce. While there are no official statistics from ISTAT, estimates state that one quarter to one third of France is of non-French origin. There are millions of people in France who have Italian origins who are also indigenous to Provence, Rhone-Alps and Corsica rather than immigrants. Including Walloons, I would so there are no more than 50 million persons of direct French origin in Europe. Please is there any other opinions or statements??

That's the story of France. There are no "ethnic French", whatever that means, but many different regions and influences. Codik 12:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Under ethnic groups of Europe, why are Italians, Sardinians, and Friulians not added together. What make them so different from the French where they are added with Walloons and Romands; does not make sense.
I like (sarcasm) how we can also consider the Swiss to be under Germanic Europe, when Swiss persons can also be of Italian and French descent as well. In all reality, they form a confederacy of ethnic groups rather than a single ethnic group (see Wikipedia; Swiss people). Why are we so willing to consider the Swiss an ethnic group instead of the French. The French are as much of an ethnic group as Spaniards, Italians and the Dutch. - Galati


french "ethnicity", as well as any éethnicity" in Europe is defined by the language. It is the same for all European nation, such as Germans (Germans+ Austrians, Etc), all of them have not necessary the same origins. As long as their mother language is french the people are ethnically french. that's why the number is 68million (France 62millions+ French speaking switzerland about 2million+ French Belgium 4millions) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.59.166 (talk) 09:44, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Turkic peoples

Latest comment: 15 years ago57 comments12 people in discussion

It always disappoints me to see editors battling it out at an article, but not working things out at talk. As soon as it's clear that there are multiple reverts going on, please immediately take things to the discussion page. --Elonka 05:01, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

It disappoints me that you did not look at the diffs properly before making this kind of statement. As explained below, this was just an act of vandalism to the first two lines of the 12 lines on Turkic peoples. The editor was invited by three different editors to justify himself on this talk page, contrary to what you have suggested above. Mathsci (talk) 07:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
When I saw the edit war going on, I almost did the same thing and create a "Turkic" talk section. I read through some of the previous discussions about whether Turkic people were considered a European ethnic group, but it didn't seem like there was consensus as well as it seemed like it was just everyone's opinions. Bottom line: someone needs to find a source or two that would include this ethnic group, as it doesn't matter what anyone thinks. I don't know enough about the subject to even have an opinion; however, my opinion wouldn't matter if there were no sources to back it up. Kman543210 (talk) 05:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely correct. --Elonka 05:22, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec) User:Dbachmann created this page (from the problematic article European people), but did not supply a comprehemsive list of sources. One standard place to look is the CIA factbook. Turkey is a transcontinental country, geographically partially in Europe. It is made up of 80% turks, 20% kurds. Is it original research to proceed from there? Mathsci (talk) 05:32, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Both Elonka and Kman543210 seem not to have noticed something quite important. A careful examination of the diffs shows that this editor removed the header Turkic people and then Turks, but left 10 other Turkic ethnic groups. The editor's subsequent attempts to justify his edit are therefore rendered completely inconsistent. I can't see what this was other than cackhanded vandalism.
It seems that ethnic groups present in transcontinental European countries are for the purposes of this article classified as European ethnic groups. As in the case of Georgia, footnotes can give more detailed explanations where there is any ambiguity. Mathsci (talk) 06:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
See WP:VANDAL#NOT. --Elonka 07:03, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
This is not a social or geographic issue, but rather one of history and ancestry. Included are only groups originating and indigenous to Europe. The Turk peoples have no commonality with Europe apart from currently occupying a portion of East Thrace as part of the Republic of Turkey. Koalorka (talk) 20:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

can we be reasonable about this? Turkey is a transcontinental country, hence the Turks living in Turkish Thrace are Europeans. We can give all sorts of qualifications to that, no problem, just try to find some compromise solution acceptable to everyone. dab (𒁳) 21:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You are speaking in terms of geography. This is an article about ethnic origins. The Turks, though a small percentage of them has been implanted onto the European continent through Ottoman colonialism, are not a European ethnic group. Koalorka (talk) 22:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

the truth of the matter is that only people from that region of thrace should be included as a european ethnic group being the vast majority of turkey is not in europe they all cant be european ethnic groups--Wikiscribe (talk) 22:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The only Turks in East Thrace that could be considered European are those of Greek, Macedonian or Bulgarian decent that have been Islamicized over the centuries and adopted Turkish nationality. Koalorka (talk) 22:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Populations of 4 provinces in European Turkey (=Turkish Thrace) in 2000 census according to Turkish Statistical Institute (cited in article)

12-14 million seems correct as a rough estimate 8 years later. Perhaps User:Dbachmann has other sources. I have no idea where the Turkish diaspora estimate comes from. It could be removed or modified if there is some ambiguity in what meaning it might have. Mathsci (talk) 22:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I forgot the European part of Çanakkale Province. Mathsci (talk) 23:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Again, this is not an issue of nationality or geography. The Turks are derived from a Central Asian ancestry and are not indigenous to Europe. I cannot make that any more clear. Those in East Thrace could be considered European, if this were an article on geography, but it is not and pertains to those groups of people that had their origins in Europe. The Turks and Turkic people do not. It's really quite simple. Koalorka (talk) 22:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
And Russians are in part descendants of Mongols, and Spaniards have some North African blood too. We could use this argument ad infinitum and probably discount many more European ethnic groups. The truth of the matter is, Istanbul, the largest population center in Eastern Thrace, has a long history first as Byzantium and then as Constantinople and very much traces its root deep into ancient European culture (the Greek and Roman Empires, specifically). To deny its Europeanness doesn't really make sense.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Again, you are speaking about a confused geography and culture. This article is about INDIGENOUS European groups. Turks, despite occupying some historically European lands, do not qualify at all. Your comment about the Russians and Spaniards is also very inaccurate. For a greater understanding of the subject, please see HERE. Read carefully, then allow me to correct this article. Koalorka (talk) 23:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
WP articles are not permitted as sources for editing other WP articles. Please cite a book or a scholarly article. Mathsci (talk) 23:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I did not use it as a source. It was used to brief some of the confused editors on the scope of this particular page. Now, please cite a book or scholarly source stating Turks originated in Europe, otherwise, the information will be removed. Koalorka (talk) 23:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, this article is about "European Ethnic Groups", my take is it talks about ethnic groups with long-standing residence in Europe. Your definition of "indigenous" seems to me to be much more restrictive, and unsupported by independent, reliable sources.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Not long-standing residence. But groups that came into existence and came to be known what they are today from Europe. The Turks just happen to have colonized East Thrace from Greece through bloody conquest 500 years ago. This does not make them European ethnically. It's very simple. Any further questions, if no, I'll proceed to remove the false information. Koalorka (talk) 23:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
You must provide sources for your statements from books or scholarly articles if you wish to make changes. Please provide sources for the statements you have made. Mathsci (talk) 23:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Funny, but I'd say 500 years is very long-standing residence.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

some of the turkish ethnic groups should not be here such as the Kazakhs they are not european and the article states that they are from central asia--Wikiscribe (talk) 23:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

All Turks are basically from central Asia, originally developing from Mongoloid stock. Naysayers, you are the ones that have introduced controversial changes, the onus of providing sources stating Turks are ethnically European is on you. Koalorka (talk) 23:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Please re-read WP:CON. Please be aware that you need to gather consensus for your changes to pass.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely. That is why I removed the Turkic people from the list. There was no consensus to insert this foreign group there. I usually find sneaky Turkish nationalists are responsible for those types of edits, pushing for acceptance of EU integration. Koalorka (talk) 00:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that I am a sneaky Turkish nationalist, basically Mongoloid from Central Asia? Was it something you found in my editing history? BTW personally I have slightly mixed feelings about Turkish integration in the EU, mainly because of problems of Islam fundamentalism, but that is not the issue here. I voted for British incorporation in Europe in the 1970's (probably long before your birth), again not the issue here, except to show that you might have made an extremely uncivil and erroneous personal attack on me. Might this help you to get certain things a little clearer in your mind? Mathsci (talk) 00:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Please be aware that most of the editors opposing the inclusion of Thracian Turks as a European ethnic group were subsequently indef-blocked. Since then, the consensus (which has stood for months) has been to include Thracian Turks. While you're free to test for a changing consensus, (there are a number of avenues for this), I reiterate that your POV goes counter to current consensus. Thus, the onus is on you to gather consensus to exclude. Also, please be civil as your comment above looks very much like an attack on Turks.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Why were they blocked? Where's the consensus? This all seems strange because the consensus itself seems like a POV push by a few. Koalorka (talk) 01:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I hope that there is no link between you and koalorka1 on Youtube and elsewhere. Mathsci (talk) 02:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I am glad to see that there is discussion going on about this issue. For best results though, I would ask that (1) Everyone focus on discussing the article content, instead of the editors; and (2) that discussions be source-based. It's not about people's opinions, it's about what the sources say. There also seems to be a bit of a disagreement about the scope of the article, as to whether it should include ethnic groups that originated in Europe, or whether it should include ethnic groups that are in Europe. It might be worth making separate sections on this, or flagging such groups accordingly (again, based on sources). I personally have no preference how it's done, but it may be a case that just changing a section header, may address the entire dispute. --Elonka 03:01, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Interestingly enough koalorka1 has just closed his account on Youtube within one hour of my post. Coincidence? koalorka1 made some of the most vile racist remarks (the N word) I have ever seen, still in google's cache. Also he had an interest in guns, was pro-german, was a member of a European patriot group and European Defence Force (even the creator) on Youtube, etc, etc. Mathsci (talk) 04:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
The question you have asked about ethnic groups that originated in Europe is impossible to answer. The section on genetic origins makes this clear, since scientists now believe that Cro-Magnon man originated in Africa. Also the continual migrations over the history of Europe do not help things. We just have to take what is recognized as Europe - bearing in mind the ambiguities over the precise borders - and record the groups present now, whatever their history. Where there is ambiguity, we write careful footnotes based on sources, such as the CIA fact book. Where two sources disagree, we record that the matter might not be clear. This is what the current article does. One real problem (not a dispute) that this discussion has highlighted is that the article in fact lacks sources for various statistics, something that can easily be remedied. An expert editor is needed to handle the border problem. Mathsci (talk) 04:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec)There are other difficulties. A large of Turkey was part of Greece in 500 or 600 BC. The city of Marseille was a colony of Phocaea in Anatolia, part of Ancient Greece, although technically Asia Minor. I have no idea about which ethnic group occupied Anatolia at that time or to what extent they continued to have a presence in the succeeding centuries. Undoubtedly this must be discussed in the scholarly literature. I can fancifully imagine that the Marseille pastis comes from somewhere in Turkey, a chic adaptation of ouzo. Anyway the largest ethnic group in Marseille seems to be the Italians, not the French. Just an example of how complicated things can be in Europe. The first evangelists in Marseille were Lazarus and Mary Magdalen who came to our shores from the Holy Land in their rudderless sailless boat. What ethnicity were they? Small pieces of their bones survive encased in gold, sometimes more bones than a human body normally contains, but I am not sure the Church has ever allowed them to be analysed scientifically. Mathsci (talk) 05:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Even though the genetic make-up of Europe is very complex and has been fluctuating over the centuries, we cannot introduce false information and use, say, simply the current demographics out of convenience. Koalorka (talk) 04:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
There is no false information at present. You simply haven't accepted that Turkish Thrace or its inhabitants are part of Europe. It's not a good idea to make claims without producing sources. Referring to "sneaky Turks" is equally unacceptable. Please find the books or scholarly documents as Elonka has suggested. FYI I found one book on ethnic groups that did not list Turks among ethnic groups of Europe. (I didn't look at the rest of the book in detail.) Your quest: find that book. Please also try to see that this is not a black and white issue: the article will record ambiguity where there is ambiguity in the literature. Mathsci (talk) 05:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Koalorka, be reasonable. Turks, whether one likes it or not, have been in Europe for the last 600+ years (PS: it's May 29th). How much time should we let pass before we grant a group "autochthony"? In the end, we're all immigrants (imagine how the native -paleolithic or neolithic, depending on the theory one adheres to- peoples must have felt after the various Indoeuropean migrations, for example ;). Btw, Mathsci, do one's activities outside Wikipedia concern us? I'm seriously asking; is there a guideline? 3rdAlcove (talk) 06:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello. I'm not sure there is a guideline. Each case is different. But I would imagine that if somebody confirms that they are a regular contributor to Stormfront, it might be perceived that they have a COI if they edit articles such as Race and crime. In this case, apart from his self-created anti-Turkish userbox already mentioned, this editor has confirmed on my talk page that he posts elsewhere as "koalorka". There are postings under exactly that pseudonym on anti-immigrant gun-related forums off-wiki (guns are User:Koalorka's hobby). These circumstances are quite rare on WP. He is the one who has made several anti-Turkish accusations on this talk page, as if it were completely acceptable. In this case, his actions seem to have been condoned by Elonka, because she has not given him a specific warning, even following his 24 hour block for revert warring with 3 different editors.This incident is the only major trouble we've had on this page since it was recreated under this name. Mathsci (talk) 11:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

re "You are speaking in terms of geography. This is an article about ethnic origins. The Turks, though a small percentage of them has been implanted onto the European continent through Ottoman colonialism, are not a European ethnic group" -- Jesus Christ, have it ever occurred to you that "Europe" is a geographical term? This isn't the Nordic race article for crying out loud. If you want to discount "implanted" populations, I am afraid we will be left with the Basques, and perhaps the Sami. If even that. We might also redirect this article to Neanderthal, since the current populations all derive from Cro Magnon imperialist expansion. So the Turks were "implanted" only recently? As in, 600 years ago? Then where to draw the line? The Hungarians clearly aren't "European" in this case. And of course, about 99% of US Americans aren't "American" at all, but recently transplanted foreigners. Seriously, I don't know why we are even discussing this. dab (𒁳) 07:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree with 3rdAlcove and Dab. If you wanna define European peoples, you do it by listing the peoples who reside in Europe in the current era, not by bringing forward the ethno-geography of the early medieval era or the mesolithic age. That's a fairly obvious point of neutrality. Regards, Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 07:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

There certainly is a distinction between (1) ethnic groups in Europe and (2) ethnic groups that underwent ethnogenesis in Europe - which is criterion the man on the street uses to distinguish between "European" and "Non-European". The problem is the article title does not distinguish between the two, and both can be construed as "European ethnic groups". Simply put: this dispute is the result of a "loaded" title. —Aryaman (talk) 10:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
The neologism "ethnogenesis" is probably outside the vocabulary of the man on the street :) Mathsci (talk) 11:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Right...which is why he gets broadsided in a forum like the present when he tries to defend his belief in a difference between "people from Europe" and "people in Europe". No, he hasn't studied ethnology/ethnography, and usually cannot articulate his position. Which makes it all the easier to dismiss him as an uneducated closet racist crackpot-in-the-making. Alas, that doesn't change the fact that the distinction I mentioned above does exist, and is at the root of the problem with this entry. —Aryaman (talk) 12:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
We must agree to differ there. This talk page is not a forum as you suggest. I have no idea what ethnogenesis means in the context of migrations such as the Norman invasion or whether it is in fact used by historians in that context. There is the notion of integration and assimilation of immigrants (like me in France); personally the only part of myself I have reinvented but alas not perfected is my accent. I self-identify as British, only as English during the Rugby World Cup, if things are going favourably for us - Perfidious Albion. However, it is far from innocent to write, "There was no consensus to insert this foreign group there. I usually find sneaky Turkish nationalists are responsible for those types of edits, pushing for acceptance of EU integration." The use of words like "foreign" and "sneaky Turkish nationalists" is a clear articulation of a certain extreme point of view. Mathsci (talk) 13:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Agree to differ on what? I'm trying to shine a little light onto the reasons for this dispute and suggest an improvement, and you actually feel it necessary to remind me that Wikipedia is not a forum? And what the hell do the Normans have to do with it? The point of my comment is this: "European ethnic groups" is a "loaded", i.e. a "poorly defined" and "inherently contentious" title. Ethnic groups in modern Europe would be more like it, considering the present scope. Keep the title as is, and you can count on periodic and entirely avoidable flare-ups just like the present. Change it, and you circumvent all such flummery from the start. And "indigenous" is a piss-poor excuse for an improvement in this area - regardless of whether it can be sourced or not - for the reasons mentioned above and then some. Right now, the article is a grab-bag of all sorts of things clustered around the key-words "ethnicity" and "Europe" - for which we undoubtedly have the mergists among us to thank. There is no risk of a PoV-fork, as we are dealing with entirely different topics here. IMO, this article needs to be hacked into tiny little pieces and cast into the raging sea of diasambiguation. —Aryaman (talk) 13:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with your second interpretation and agree with what many other editors have said, and I have already said: that the article takes the geographical continent of Europe and lists the current ethnic groups. Prior to the Normans, there were Angles, Saxons and Vikings in Britain. Historically these different ethnic groups were then intermingled after the Norman conquest. Likewise the population of Sicily is marked by similar but probably more complicated changes. It is precisely because of this historical complexity, already outlined for Marseille, that I assume the modern day geographical definition has been adopted. Although I'm not very keen on your suggestion for a change in title, I think you have a valid point that the limited scope of the article - as you quite rightly say ethnic groups in modern Europe - could be spelt out a little more explicitly in the lede, perhaps by the insertion of an adjective like "modern-day" or an adverb like "currently". It seems obvious that a discussion of say Picts, Vikings, Ostrogoths or Saxons - all historically valid European ethnic groups - is completely beyond the scope of the current article. Mathsci (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Re: "The article takes the geographical continent of Europe and lists the current ethnic groups." Yes, the article does do that...and a whole lot more: it tries to discuss the "physical appearance and genetic origins" of Europeans, various "European diasporas" that have occurred in recent history, both out of and into Europe, it broaches the topic of "European identity and culture", and to top things off, the "European Religion". And even if it limited itself to the scope as you just defined it, the title would still be inappropriate. I'm not quite sure how one can agree that the actual scope is indeed "ethnic groups in modern Europe" on the one hand, yet continue to think that this is best listed under "European ethnic groups" on the other. 'Tweaking' the lead is not going to fix the problem: it is inherent in the title itself. Terms like "European culture", "European ethnicity", "European religion", etc., may help sell party programmes and travel brochures, but they are hardly terms with which meaningful academic discussion can take place. Regardless, the spirit of the age is on your side, I suppose: rather than eliminate this kind of inherently POV jargon from our vocabulary once stripped from the domain of the radical right, the left has simply gobbled it up as its own intellectual property, complete with the right to define its components at will. But, I digress. If you demand to keep the title, then at least compose the remainder of the article with the bravado it deserves. Onward! (FYI: Prior to 1066, the Angles, Saxons and Danish Vikings were kissing cousins speaking mutually intelligible Germanic dialects, and the Normans were themselves descended from migrating Danes - not exactly the 'melting pot' scenario it's often cracked up to be.) —Aryaman (talk) 15:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Mathsci, you know well what the scope of this article is, do not evade that. You are aware of the existence of a European demographics page which is basically a list of ethnicities inhabiting the geographic entity that is Europe, what you proposed here. Why create a duplicate of that page? This page is CLEARLY dedicated to identifiable ethnic groups originating in Europe. Koalorka (talk) 15:29, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe that Varoon Arya's suggestion has some merit: a minor tweak to the title, such as Contemporary European Ethnic Groups should take care of the situation. It's obvious here we're not talking about Celts, Picts or Angles, so I don't see a problem with making that explicit.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Would that then include foreign non-European populations currently residing in Europe? Indonesians, Somalis, South Asians etc? Koalorka (talk) 16:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
It depends on the scholarly literature and other reliable sources. We need to stop pretending that we Wikipedia editors have the power to decide who is and is not European. It is our job to report on what other people say and if there are debates try to explicate them. Are Jews a Europopean ethnic group? Not for us to decide. Some say yes, and some say no, and scholars (historians, anthropologists, sociologists) are generally not concerned with deciding who is right but are rather interested in what is going on that makes it possible for some people to say yes and others to say no. The sooner we start rewriting this article to explain all this to people, and stop arguing among ourselves who is a European, the sooner we will ... well, be writing an encyclopedia article instead of an ersatz blog. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:43, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

COMMENT. The editor User:Koalorka, since his arrival last year on WP, has consistently dedicated his edits unrelated to weaponry to removing Turkey from articles on Europe (once on Europe itself) or removing references to Turkey as a partially European country. He has made approximately 180 edits of this kind in Turkey-related articles/templates/categories. He has also been cautioned on WP:AN/I for taunting Turkish editors and has been blocked for antisemitic comments while editing the talk page of Stormfront. We have just witnessed one further example of his systematic campaign of vandalism and disruption. As Slrubenstein has said here and below, this disruption has nevertheless raised some general points that have helped improve the article. Mathsci (talk) 08:34, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, you actually had time to count all 180 edits? I personally don't see what the problem is with just adding the ethnic groups of Turkey that may be considered part of Europe and putting an asterisk that some don't view them as part of Europe (if both views have sources). Kman543210 (talk) 08:46, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. Similar ambiguities and differing interpretations are already carefully explained in footnotes. But the best idea is to look at the book cited in the bibliography on Turkish ethnic groups to see what they say and/or elsewhere in the academic literature, as Slrubenstein has already suggested.
BTW I not only counted the edits, I read them all and created a subpage on them, with annotated diffs (not 100% accurate) :) User:Mathsci/subpage. Since an editor on this page accused me elsewhere on WP of being "close to edit warring", I just wanted to find out exactly what was going on, just in case the situation recurs here or elsewhere. This was in fact the second time the editor removed the material on Turkic groups without discussion. As you might imagine, I must have been quite upset by the editor's accusation to have gone to the length of preparing the subpage. Mathsci (talk) 18:14, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I've read all of the above, but I find absolutely no good arguments as to why ethnic groups that are almost exclusivly located in geographic Asia, do not have their origin in Europe and that are clearly both culturally and genetically separate from European ethnic groups, should be included as a "European ethnic group". I simply cannot understand the agenda of some people on Wikipedia to at all cost try to force Turkey and Kazakhstan etc into Europe. Why are you doing this? What is you agenda? Why are you not in a similar maner trying to arbitrarily force certain ethnic groups/countries into Asian definitions? Please try to see how unreasonable it is to define Turks as ethnic Europeans. With your own logic, the French would need to be included as an ethnic South-American people and as an ethnic Asian people - at the same time - among others. The Spanish would have to be included among ethnic African peoples and so forth. Almost all Turkish people do not live in geographical Europe, so they should not be included there: they are an Asian people and all should be happy with that. If there is some marginal Turkish people, that actually mainly live in Europe, say in southern Russia or the Caucasus, they should be included. But other Turkish ethnicities (eg Turks, Kazakhs) should be left out. Khoios (talk) 15:04, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no agenda for the main space article, apart from representing as closely as possible what can be found in recognized sources, with any ambiguities carefully explained (with citations) in the text or in footnotes. Mathsci (talk) 16:43, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Tone of the discussions

Latest comment: 15 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Someone asked what the policy was on this, and I'd like to be clear, that talkpages are supposed to be used to discuss article content and not editors. See also no personal attacks. Some of the above comments have very little to do with the content of the European ethnic groups article, they are just ruminations about the character and off-wiki activities of one of the editors. But on Wikipedia, it is not that important what someone says off-wiki, it matters how they behave on-wiki. As long as someone is able to express their opinions in a civil way, they are welcome here. If there are concerns that someone is using multiple Wikipedia accounts in an inappropriate way, file a sockpuppet report.

I do realize that the concept of ethnic groups is a very hot topic which gets emotions involved, but could I please ask everyone to stick to discussing the article. Also, instead of everyone debating their own opinion on what does and doesn't constitute a European ethnic group, it would be far more helpful to supply sources. See also Wikipedia:No original research. Surely in the ranks of academia, this concept has already been debated and written about. Or in other words, unless we already have a source that a group is a European ethnic group, it shouldn't even be included in this article. Per Wikipedia:Verifiability, any unsourced information can be removed from any article, and then it is the responsibility of those who wish to add it back, to provide a source. If we have conflicting sources, then we can debate consensus on the talkpage as to how much weight to give to different sources, per WP:UNDUE. But right now we have several people arguing strictly from personal knowledge and opinion, without any sources, and further, attacking other people for arguing from their personal unsourced opinions. C'mon folks, we can do better. If there is something in the article which anyone feels is false, add a {{fact}} tag to it. If no one provides a source in a reasonable amount of time, remove the statement. If anyone tries to add it back without a solid source, they will be warned, and in extreme cases, blocked. --Elonka 15:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

In an ideal world, editing might be done like this. However, in this case your remarks fail to recognize that
  • this page has been almost entirely the work of just one editor and that sources have been gradually added afterwards
  • the disruptive newly arrived editor, reported and cautioned for similar behaviour on WP:AN/I one month ago, has spent the last 8 months making similar unjustified and unsourced removals and deletions to Turkey-related articles/templates/categories all over the WP.
Before embarking on "ex cathedra" pronouncements to other editors, please could you try in future to spend some time making sure you know what is actually going on. Otherwise you risk needlessly causing offence to established good-faith editors. Mathsci (talk) 08:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, as I see it, there is more than one editor being disruptive here. I would remind everyone that this article falls within the scope of certain Arbitration Committee decisions. For those who aren't sure what ArbCom restrictions are, I'll explain, without going into too much detail. Basically, ArbCom, on the behalf of the Wikipedia community, has identified that there are certain "hot spots" of ethnic conflict on Wikipedia. As such, ArbCom has ruled that some topic areas can be put under tighter restrictions than other parts of Wikipedia. These restrictions can do such things as tighten up civility controls, put editors on 1RR (one revert) restrictions, allow administrators to place topic bans on certain editors, and so forth. This particular article, European ethnic groups, falls within the scope of multiple such hot spot areas, so we can look at which restrictions apply to which areas, and this depends on which topic area/case we're talking about. One applicable case is called Digwuren, which deals with the topic area of Eastern Europe. Though since the most recent dispute on this article has to do with Turkey, I'll quote the restrictions from what is called the "AA-2" case, or Armenia-Azerbaijan 2, which deals with conflicts around "Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and related ethnic/historical issues." The restrictions, as of January 2008, state:
Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working in the area of conflict if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. The sanctions imposed may include blocks of up to one year in length; bans from editing any page or set of pages within the area of conflict; bans on any editing related to the topic or its closely related topics; restrictions on reverts or other specified behaviors; or any other measures which the imposing administrator believes are reasonably necessary to ensure the smooth functioning of the project.
Prior to any sanctions being imposed, the editor in question shall be given a warning with a link to this decision; and, where appropriate, should be counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve his or her editing in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines.
In determining whether to impose sanctions on a given user and which sanctions to impose, administrators should use their judgment and balance the need to assume good faith and avoid biting genuinely inexperienced editors, and the desire to allow responsible contributors maximum freedom to edit, with the need to reduce edit-warring and misuse of Wikipedia as a battleground, so as to create an acceptable collaborative editing environment even on our most contentious articles. Editors wishing to edit in these areas are advised to edit carefully, to adopt Wikipedia's communal approaches (including appropriate conduct, dispute resolution, neutral point of view, no original research and verifiability) in their editing, and to amend behaviors that are deemed to be of concern by administrators. An editor unable or unwilling to do so may wish to restrict their editing to other topics, in order to avoid sanctions.
So, as an uninvolved administrator, I am hereby notifying everyone about these restrictions. At the moment, things appear to be fairly calm, so everyone has more or less amnesty, but if there are further problems, I will not hesitate to send official "restriction" notifications to individual editors, and then if problems continue, there may be further restrictions ranging from topic bans to blocks. Specific things that I would like to focus on:
  • Civility. I want everyone here to treat each other with respect (most of you have been doing quite well in this regard, but this is just a general reminder). Also, this means I want people to stop throwing the word vandalism around, unless referring to blatant vandalism as defined in WP:VANDAL. Ideally, just stop using the term altogether on the talkpage. As a rule of thumb, if there's disagreement about what is or isn't vandalism, it probably isn't vandalism.
  • Please keep talkpage discussions focused on article content, and not the contributors involved.
  • Sources. Please ensure that any further additions to the article, are linked to reliable sources
  • Limit reverts. Except in cases of obvious vandalism, no one should be reverting this article more than once a day
Sticking to the above items (which most editors on this page already do) will help to reduce disruption, and ultimately should make everyone's editing much more pleasant. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask here, or on my talkpage.
Thanks, --Elonka 14:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Having added three four sources, four five ten bibliographical references, and asked dab about sources (he is now supplying sources and has told us where to find extra ones), I was trying to find out whether the Gajal or Gadhjal people should be added as an ethnic group. I have found it hard to find a non-wikipedia reference in the English language (the refs elsewhere seem to be in Bulgarian but it seems the numbers are 20,000 or more). Can anyone be of any help there, for example if they happen to read Bulgarian? This ethnic group is not mentioned in Levinson's handbook and I cannot judge how that handbook is regarded by scholars (I'll look for a book review in the academic literature). Incidentally I applaud dab's recent scholarly additions to the mainspace page - the most content that has been added since he created the page under its current name. He is an excellent example to us all. In the two histories, I can find no evidence of disruption on the mainspace article or this talk page prior to Elonka's very recent arrival and actions behind the scenes. Mathsci (talk) 16:10, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Ethnogenesis and indigeneity

Latest comment: 15 years ago12 comments5 people in discussion

The discussion on Turkic people was valuable for raising complex issues, but also counterproductive because we need to address those issues without getting bogged down on specifics about Tuks, Turkics, and Turkey.

As I read through the morass of argument, it seems to me that the really problematic word is "indigenous." Whenever the debate gets especially heated, it seems like people start adding the word "indigenous" before 'ethnic group" as if this solves the problems. in fact, i think "indigenous" itself is a loaded and not very helpful word, at least not in and of itself.

Above, Varoon Arya made an important point:

There certainly is a distinction between (1) ethnic groups in Europe and (2) ethnic groups that underwent ethnogenesis in Europe - which is criterion the man on the street uses to distinguish between "European" and "Non-European". The problem is the article title does not distinguish between the two, and both can be construed as "European ethnic groups". Simply put: this dispute is the result of a "loaded" title.

I am not sure I agree, but I DO see this as a constructive comment that ought to be taken seriously and built on.

By the way here as in all things we should stick close to NOR and V and try to represent notable views in verifiable sources. Our account of ethnic groups, and of debates over ethnicity, should be based in serious academic debates. I think we might as well admit out the outset (if now can be called an outset) that this means we will be using concepts not familiar to "the man on the street" but hell this is an encyclopedia and it is often our job to provide accessible accounts of complex concepts. We aren't going to cut whole swaths of the articles on quantum mechanics or the theory of relativity because they are counterintuitive or hard to grasp by "the man on the street" and we should hold this article to the same standard. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:39, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Good. I think the first thing that should be done (if, that is, we have in fact decided that the title of this article should be either "Ethnic groups in modern Europe" or "Contemporary ethnic groups in Europe"; I prefer the former, as it helps to cut short such unproductive and OR-prone discussion such as "...but the Illyrians ARE a contemporary ethnic group!") is for everyone involved to take a look at something like David Levinson's Ethnic groups worldwide (1998). The introduction to the section on Europe is viewable on-line, and gives a good, reputable overview of exactly this subject. Other editors may suggest other, equally reputable and equally accessible standard reference works for the purpose of group orientation. After that, the contributing editors need to agree upon acceptable terminology (Levinson's appears to be based on a good deal of research and is quite useful, to boot). This can then be used to draft an acceptable outline for the article, into which the bare facts can then be inserted. (Naturally, the superfluous stuff needs to be split off - and there will, if done correctly, be a good deal of it.) Then, barring any huge oversights, we can begin with copy-editing. How does that sound? —Aryaman (talk) 18:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

i think thats a great idea, renameing the article as you have suggested would cure alot of the problems people have had with including non native european ethnic groups than maybe there could be a splinter article stateing more indigenous european ethnic groups only--Wikiscribe (talk) 19:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikiscribe, either you have a penchant for sarcasm, or you misread my intention with the proposed title change. Either way, the idea is to limit this article to ethnic groups in modern Europe, regardless of whether they are considered "native", "non-native", "indigenous", "non-indigenous" or whatever. After this article has been cleaned up and put back on the right track, we could explore the possibility of creating an article on ethnic groups which underwent ethnogenesis in Europe. Ethnogenesis is a relatively new addition to the scholastic vocabulary, but seems to be gaining ground steadily. With that said, let's focus on the topic at hand, yes? And while you're at it, why not read the suggested literature above? :) —Aryaman (talk) 19:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

These issues can and should be discussed here side by side. Two issues need to be looked into:

  • which groups do we have on the territory of Europe. This is a straightforward headcount. This includes Kalmyks, Chuvash, Tatars and what have you. Kalmyks are clearly an "ethnic group in Europe", since Kalmykia is west of the Caspian Sea and thus clearly part of (the eastern fringe of) Europe.
  • which peoples are considered "native" to Europe. This is much more loaded, and built on notions of race. It is true that the Kalmyks, as a Mongolian people, are "racially" clearly Asian, not European (much more so than the Turks!). Yet the place they call home is in Eastern Europe. We can discuss the distinction of "native" Europeans and "non-native" groups that "underwent ethnogenesis elsewhere", but anything connected to this must be clearly sourced to WP:RS. These are subjective gut notions we may all share here, but which nevertheless are far from objective and as such need clear attribution.

The second point should perhaps be addressed in the "indigenous" section, which at present only talks about marginalized groups (Sami, Basques). If somebody can present a source, this would be the place to present the notion that Basque, Celtic, Latin, Greek, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Albanian and Finnic groups are considered "native", while Turkic groups (and the Kalmyks? and the Maltese?? and the Romani?? and the Hungarians???) aren't. The latter group is clearly divided from the former by virtue of arriving in Europe in the Middle Ages (after 500 AD), while the former groups have direct predecessor populations in Europe dating to at least 500 BC. So the millennium between 500 BC and 500 AD would seem to determine who is "really" European? That's a possible claim, I suppose, but a claim that needs to be established off-wiki first. dab (𒁳) 21:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm with you one the first point. Regarding the second, I'm leaning towards a split under something like European ethnogenesis (/-es) (Google Books; Google Scholar). I don't think it would be a case of WP:CFORK to create a separate article under some such title, as the two topics, though closely related, would be distinct in that the former would deal with the present situation in Europe, including coverage of the Diaspora into Europe, while the latter would deal with the historical situation and the Diaspora out of Europe. ("European Diaspora", if not already a redirect to the Jewish Diaspora, should perhaps be created to disambiguate here.) But you are certainly right that, while the head-count issue is pretty straightforward, the question of "ethnogenesis" will be a different animal altogether. Yet, it also seems to promise the most potential to become an informative and interesting article.
As for the terminology: "native" and "indigenous" are going to be very slippery to deal with. For some, it is actually part of the definition that an "indigenous" population be politically/economically/linguistically "marginalized". As for groups such as the Germanic, I think it shouldn't be difficult to show that there are two things going here on regarding their "ethnogenesis": (1) that by which they conceived of themselves as an ethnic group, i.e. their primary ethnogenesis (which never really happened to the Ancient Germanic peoples as a whole, but instead on case-by-case basis, e.g. Anglo-Saxons ethnogenesis), and (2) that by which a national ethnic group later reflected upon (and sometimes reformulated) their own ethnogenesis (the birth-place of a good deal of the nationalism of the 19th and 20th centuries). I'm just tossing out some ideas to be explored here, but I do think that we should seriously consider splitting the two early on so that work can progress with a clearly defined scope in one or both cases. —Aryaman (talk) 22:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Terms like native and indigenous are slippery indeed. I think we have to do two things. First, when relying on state or quasi-statal sources (the German census; UNESCO; the CIA handbook) we have to use their categories and provide notes explaining how they define their terms. I also believe that there is some scholarly debate out there about how people come to be considered "indigenous" or "native" and we should cover these debates insofar as they apply to specific ethnic groups in or of Europe (we should discuss the debates in a more general sense in the articles on ethnicity, race, and nation, I think). Slrubenstein | Talk 10:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
The last suggestion - assuming that it would be combined with an effort to improve articles like Definitions and identity of indigenous peoples) is probably the best way to deal with the bulk of the "native/indigenous" issue. Terms like "native European" and "indigenous European" are indeed found in the literature...typically referring to members of the plant and animal kingdoms, and thus really don't belong in a treatment of European ethnogensis at all, other than perhaps to give something like a 'layman's synonym' in the lead. —Aryaman (talk) 11:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

well, nobody suggests there is an "European ethnicity". If there ever will be one, it will emerge in the future (Pan-European nationalism). The idea of "Europeanness" is one of a "super-ethnicity", of common traits spanning a large number of ethnic groups, each indigenous to parts of Europe, none of them simply "indigenous to Europe". I don't know if we can come up with an "European ethnogenesis" article, but I suggest we expand the "Indigeneity" section in this article for now, and see what people can come up with. dab (𒁳) 12:41, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

No, there is no single "European ethnicity" as yet. But the term "European ethnicity" does play a role in the literature relating to the Diaspora out of Europe, particularly the US, but also in regards to the Diaspora into Europe. Richard Alba, Richard Dyer and others have made a case for the emergence of this so-called "European ethnicity" in the late 50's and 60's as a response to the Civil Rights movement. In Europe, the notion is mainly due to the projection of Muslim immigrants (i.e., self-identifying as sharing a "non-European ethnicity", and thus bolstering the emergence of "European ethnicity" - soundbites of Geert Wilders blaring in the background). Be that as it may, talk of "indigenous Europeans" is going to do little more than make the deficiency of the various definitions for "indigenous" apparent. We will be very close to something like what you scoffed at above, i.e. limiting "indigenous European" to the few remnants of Old European culture, as they are the only ones that really fit the definition. While it may seem like common sense to view Indo-European cultures in Europe as "indigenous", I am seriously wondering if anyone can provide a source in support of it. Gimbutas has done a good job of portraying the IE peoples as "invaders", and I haven't run across anyone contradicting her in the name of good sense. —Aryaman (talk) 13:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

dab: thanks for making the changes, which are a great improvement to the article. Is it possible to add some sources? Mathsci (talk) 08:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

it is, and you can help: all of the articles linked should contain reasonable sources we can import as required. dab (𒁳) 09:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Ethno-linguistic groups

Latest comment: 15 years ago36 comments6 people in discussion

This term needs to be used vey cautiously in the article. While language is often an important diacritic of ethnicity, there is no reason to suppose that people who speak the same language are related to one another. This means that even if we establish that people living in one part of Europe five or six thousand years ago spoke a Germanic language, does not mean that people in the same part of Europe speaking a Germanic (I do not mean to pick on Germanic, you can put in any other language group here) language are their descendents. It is certainly possible that they may be their descendents. In many parts of the world people usually marry people who speak the same language, and because of this people who speak the same language may be closely related genetically. But this is not necessarily the case and in some parts of the world, and at some times, it has demonstrably not been the case. It is just as likely that people who migrate into an area learn a new language. This is why so many people in the United States who speak English, a West Germanic language, itself Germanic which was a proto-Indo-European language, and may thus be said to be members of the Germanic or Indo-Eruopean ethno-linguistic group, are not descended from Germanic or even Indo-European people (or, if they have among their ancestors people sho lived in central Europe five thousand years ago, they ar eonly a small portion of their ancestry). There was a time - I do not have the reference in hand so I do not know if this was a german, Russian, or US census - when Jews were identified as Germanic because they spoke Yiddish. Yet no one at that time believed that these speakers of a Germanic language had, among their ancestors five thousand years prior, many who lived in Europe.

I am not denying that someone who speaks English or German today may have some many or all their ancestors five thousand years ago people who lived in present-day England or Germany.

The only point I am arguing is that we need to be careful in how we use terms like Indo-European or Germanic or any term that could be used either for a language, ethnicity, or both. And when we make claims that link a continuity of language to a continuity of ancestry, we need to have citations for reliable sources. The article opens by saying this is something anthropologists study and that is true, and there will be articles in major journals, notably Current Anthropology and American Anthropologist but also linguistic and physical anthropology journals, on precisely these topics. Many of these may not be available on-line, but we should look to them for information for building this article. As always, let's not start with something we happen to believe and hunt for a citation that supports it. let's look for the most current "scholarship on the topic, and report what they say. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

you talk about cultural continuity vs. genetic continuity. By "ancestry" you mean purely genetic ancestry, and you somehow seem to think cultural continuity is less "real". This article looks at both aspects because both aspects constitute ethnicity, and you are right, of course, that it needs to be clear which aspects it is discussing at any given point. I am not sure whether you are saying we should list the European Jews as a separate ethnicity. We could do that, I suppose, or rather we could list Ashkenazi Jews (1.5 million) and Sephardi Jews (0.5 million). I am aware, of course, that the Jews are a special case wrt "ethnicity", so we can treat them as a special case, but I don't think that means we need to re-organize the presentation of the 70 or so other groups listed. dab (𒁳) 15:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I am impressed that yo have mind-reading abilities ... I honestly do not know where I wrote anything that even implied that I think cultural continuity is less real than biological continuity. Could you please point out th place where my fingers were operating independently of my brain? Slrubenstein | Talk 16:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, the reason you are not sure whther I am saying we should list european Jews as a separate ethnicity is because I have not expressed any view whatsoever. I guess your mind-reading abilities switched off. But I will tell you what I actually do think: I think we should follow notable views in reliable sources, and if there is more than ne notable view from reliable sources, we should provide an account of both/all notable views. As always, I do not think this is for any Wikipedia editor to decide, that would violate NOR. When you write "we could do that, I suppose" are you proposing to violate NOR, or do you have a verifiable source that does this? if you do, by all means, let us include it in the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
As for the seventy or so groups that are listed, perhaps we ought to be more careful about providing the verifiable sources, and being sure whether how they define ethno-linguistic group, whether they mean people who speak a certain language, or people who self identify as members of an ethnic group, or people for whom there is genetic evidence of descent from people from the Bronze age or some other time. Unless these things are clarified, the distinction between people of European and non-European origin in the first section (with the list of 70 or so groups) is unclear, confusion, and/or misleading as well as the statement in the following section that these "indo-european groups" developed "in situ." Slrubenstein | Talk 16:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
well, I was giving you the benefit of assuming that you actually were making a suggestion in relation to this article, within WP:TALK. Your statement "there is no reason to suppose that people who speak the same language are related to one another" seems to imply that your notion of "relationship" is purely genetic, and that cultural or linguistic ties do not count as "related". I'll refrain from second-guessing what you may want, then, and wait for a concrete proposal on your part. dab (𒁳) 09:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I did mean related genetically, but this does not mean that I deprecate cultural or ethnic identifications. But right now the first two parts of the article are unclear. My proposal is a request that in any case where we make any historical claims about an ethno-linguistic group - e.g. that it is "indigenous" or formed in the Bronze Age and today has x million members, we have sources for each of these claims that defines what is meant by "ethnolinguistic group" or that makes it clear that the source provides no definition. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
you will find no claim in the article that any given culture "is 'indigenous' or formed in the Bronze Age and today has x million members". The inventory of current groups, the discussion of "indegeneity", and the inventory of historical populations is clearly separated. You do find head-counts of super-groups, like "Indo-European" Indo-Europeans (total 665 million). It is clear that there is no "Indo-European ethnicity" in Europe today, but a number of ethnicities that share Indo-European origins in the Bronze Age, but are clearly separate today. I think you should state what precisely you want a source for, since none of the sorts of claims you seem to object to are present. I do know this sort of thing is a problem on Wikipedia, and I have a long history of removing national mysticism, but there is none present here that I can see.
in so many words, feel free to clarify points if you think you can rephrase them better, and feel free to use {{fact}} where you feel a claim is dubious, but let's not play games here. If you object to the statement "The Basques are assumed to descend from the populations of the Atlantic Bronze Age directly", try to propose a better phrasing, don't play the skeptic. Go to Origin of the Basques and see what material you find there that may be useful for the purposes of this article. We could have done this easily in the time we've already invested in general musings on "cultural or ethnic identifications". dab (𒁳) 12:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
The population figures given in the first part, as far as I can tell, are derived from the population of a country and speakers of the language. This is not the same thing as an ethnic group. Jews living in Poland will speak Polish and be counted in the Polish census as Polish and show up on this table as members of the "Polish ethno-linguistic group" which is a mistake. The first part also distinguishes between the larges Ethno-linguistic groups (e.g. Latin and German) and then distinguishes other Europeans who are part of diasporic groups. The wording implies that members of the large European ethno-linguistic groups are not members of diasporic communities, when of course many are. If the wording is meant to suggest that these are overlapping rather than mutually exclusive groups, then perhaps this can be clarified. I have not made any edits myself because I was unsure what the intention was. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
the population figures are derived from the obsessively and meticulously researched infoboxes in our ethnic group articles. Thus, the English people infobox, at Template:English populations presents an estimate for 45.26 million English in the UK. That's an estimate, but it's the best we can do. The Hungarians infobox presents a detailed estimate for some 13 million Hungarians living in Europe. I am not sure what you want. It is perfectly clear that we can only ever present estimates here. Hence the repetitive "approx." in the headcounts. As for Poles, we have estimates of 38,860,000 in Poland, 1,055,700 in Germany, 900,000 in France, 400,000 in Belarus, 250,000 Lithuania, amounting to some 42 million. Does this number include the Polish Jews? It does according to the Poles article. Personally, I find the implication that Polish Jews aren't Poles somewhat disturbing, but I guess it's a matter of WP:CITE. If you are unhappy with having the Polish Jews counted as Poles, I suggest you go to Talk:Poles and complain about it. According to this, "Estimated number of Polish Jews is between 10 and 30 thousand. Not all of them are religiously Jewish, many of them are Christians, predomenantly Catholics." Slrubenstein, are we really discussing the question whether a group of 0.03 million is or is not included in the "approx. 42 million" estimate? Don't you find the question rather moot? You will also note that the long history of European Judaism finds due mention under "Religion", where, being a religion, I suggest it belongs. dab (𒁳) 06:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Some people claim that there is no Jewish ethnic group, but most scholars do not. And it doesn't matter why you would find the claim that Jewish citizens of Poland may be ethnic Jews and Polish citizens disturbing. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:10, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
indeed. As you say, it's a complicated question, and ostensibly not the focus of this article. I think it would be a good idea to contribute to the Who is a Jew? article if that's your field of interest. I apologize for the somewhat testy tone of my replies. It was due to my difficulty to make out any constructive or on-topic suggestions for the purposes of this article in your comments. As far as I can make out, your comments, in spite of being phrased very generally, concern the Jews in particular. As far as I can see, this would affect listing of Ashkenazi Jews (about 1.4 million), Mizrahi Jews and Sephardi Jews (about 0.3 million each), and perhaps Bené Roma (some 50,000) and Romaniotes (some 6,000), or roughly 2 million people in total. I have no objection to briefly mentioning the complicated case of a Jewish ethnicity, sub-ethnicity or non-ethnicity phrased according to your preference. But please be aware that this is an overview article of a population of 0.75 billion people, and we clearly cannot carve out the details on each and every sub-group here, that's simply beyond the article's scope. Thanks, --dab (𒁳) 08:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
DAB, my remarks are not focused on Jews; they merely provide one convenient example. May I suggest that your response has something to do with your taking my initial comment personally? At least, that seems to be the case in your as you describe it testy response. Let me assure you that the comment was not directed at you personally nor intended to be read as relating to you personally. It was a general comment picking up on some issues raised by another editor in a preceeding section, and meant to be of general value to any discussion about moving the article forward. Now, I know you have put a lot of work into the article. nevertheless, my comment was not directly about you or your work. If your thinking it was in any way accounted for any of the testiness of your reaction, let me just assure you: do not take it personally. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
no, I do not see anything personal here. I just found your comment less than constructive. If you're going to pick an example, perhaps we can make it not the Jews, who are, as is very well known, a sort of special case as far as ethnicity is concerned (we have a who is a Jew? article, besides the main Jew one for a reason; there isn't going to be a who is a Hungarian? article anytime soon). So. Is there any suggestion what to do next? As you may have noted, I have come up with a suggestion regarding the Jews distilled from my comments all on my own[15]. This feels a bit silly, as in a one-man editing dispute. Perhaps you could just make some coherent suggestion what you want to see changed in the article, or perhaps even edit the article yourself (it's a wiki). This will save me the effort of second-guessing what your suggestion would be applied to the article as it stands. --dab (𒁳) 12:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
"This will save me the effort of second-guessing what your suggestion would be applied to the article as it stands." You still insist on taking it personally. This is not about you. You do not own the article, and not every comment is directed at you. if you do not understand the comment or do not find it constructive, just ignore it. let other people read it and decide for themselves whether they want to engage it. The purpose of this talk page is not just to influence Deiter Bachmann. It is for general discussion among all editors. You are not the arbiter of what goes on the talk page. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I assure you I am not taking this personally, at all. "Second guessing" refers to on-wiki editorial activity, not to my private life at all, I am not sure how you can mistake one for the other. I don't know why you insist on trying to make this personal by attacking me all the time, bringing up my full name (although misspelled), etc. I have strictly commented on your comments, not your person. If you would prefer not to receive a reaction to your comments over receiving critical feedback, by all means, ignore everything I've said. Other editors do not seem to fall over themselves to reply to your comments, but I must maintain that I've never tried to prevent them from doing so. If others can be bothered to take this up, cheers to them and cheers to you. If not, this section can just sit here until it is archived, no problem. dab (𒁳) 13:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry i misspelled your name. It was unintentional but sloppy and regrettable. I did not think that anything I wrote was an attack or could be construed as an attack on you. As you say, if no one finds my comment worthwhile, it will be archived soon enough. C'es la vie. Best, Slrubenstein | Talk 14:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Slrubenstein, I've read through this thread and I would like to know what other ethnic groups may be effected by your general comments. Setting aside the issue of European Jews, which I think we all understand, could you please use another example to explain your comment a bit more clearly? Is there another methodology you propose? Do you propose to focus on genetics only in determining ethnicity? The conversation seems to have been derailed first into the specific case of Judaism and then into something about taking the thread personally, but as an interested outside reader here I'd love to hear the answers. Thanks.PelleSmith (talk) 22:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Well I do not have a criticism, but i do have a concern and question, regarding this:

Of the total population of Europe of some 730 million (as of 2005), some 85% or 630 million fall within three large ethno-linguistic super-groups, viz., Slavic, Latin (Romance) and Germanic. The largest groups that do not fall within either of these are the Greeks and the Hungarians (about 13 million each). About 20-25 million residents are members of diasporas of non-European origin.

The last sentence refers to members of diasporas of non-European origins. Does this imply that the three large ethno-linguistic groups mentioned first are of European origin? What does this mean? i assume it means that when the language developed (e.g. Slavic, latin, or germanic) it developed in Europe. But we are not just talking about a linguistic group (that would be clear enoug), we are talking about an ethnolinguistic group i.e. not just a language but the peole who speak it. What does it mean to say that they developed in Europe? Does this mean that none of them are descended from any of the 20-25 million residents who are members of a non-European diaspora? Is it not possible that many German speakers are descended from people who migrated to Europe from outside of urope? The linguistic group may have clear origins in Europe, but the people may have their origins outside of Europe. this is my main concern. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Slr, as I understand it an ethnolinguistic group is by definition a collection of people (ethnos) categorized as a group by way of linguistic similarity. I do not understand how you are arriving at the idea that this term has two parts, one being linguistic and the other being genetic (the latter being what you admit yourself that you mean by "people".) To apply ethnolinguistic categories is to rely on something entirely different from genetics, or lineages of biological descent. If the two overlap then so be it, but there is no reason at all that they should. When you say that the "linguistic group may have clear origins in Europe, but the people may have their origins outside of Europe" what you are really saying is that the "ethnoliguistic group" may have clear origins in Europe even if some of its members can trace biological descent, however many generations back, outside of Europe. When the presentation is rendered accurate in relation to the term in question then it becomes clear that this isn't really an issue. To put it another way consider that there is no such thing as an ideal typical "people" seperate from any of the ways we have at our disposal to define such a people: ethnoliguistically, biologically, religiously, etc. People do not continue, they are born and they die. Biologically speaking genes may be passed on to descendants, but any notion that a "people" lives on must be constructed in some way or another. That is simply a fact. Is genetics preferable to ethnoliguistics? I don't think so personally, since human beings very rarely truly define a "people" in the strict terms of biological descent, and some rather prominent attempts to do so have been closely associated with some of the most horrific events in world history. I also believe that linguistic continuity is strongly correlated with various other cultural continuities, something that is much more important to the history and anthropology of group identity and ethnic boundaries than biological descent is.PelleSmith (talk) 18:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
PelleSmith, I think you misunderstand me. I am making no particular claims about ethnicity. I am pointing out that the article in its current form makes certain claims about ethnicity. When the article says there are x million members of an ethnic group in Europe today that have their origins in the Bronze Age - when it refers to a population - it is the article that is implying a genetic relationship. I have no problem with saying there are a hundred million people today who speak a language that first developed a thousand years ago. But the article is not just saying that, it is saying that the people themselves are descended from people living in the past - that brings in inheritance and genetics. Do you think language and genetics go together? I do not, and if YOU think they do not then we agree. And i would then ask you to take a close look at the article, because there are parts of it that are NOT clear about this, and I have provided examples, below. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually I was addressing the exact language you used in the post right above mine. You may have made mistakes in this post, or not fully explained what you mean, but you quite clearly claimed therein that an ethnolinguistic group consists not only of a linguistic group, but also of a "people", and then went on to describe "people" in terms of biological descent. To quote: "But we are not just talking about a linguistic group (that would be clear enoug), we are talking about an ethnolinguistic group i.e. not just a language but the peole who speak it." The people who speak a language are the group, yes indeed they are. But they are only a people, in the ethnolinguistic sense, in that they speak the language in the first place. Your claim assumes that they are a "people" in a capacity seperate from their linguistic similarities. Again to quote you: "Is it not possible that many German speakers are descended from people who migrated to Europe from outside of urope? The linguistic group may have clear origins in Europe, but the people may have their origins outside of Europe." Please accept the fact that you have indeed made such a claim, and that my response shows no misunderstanding of what appeared in front of me in plain English. The article may have several difficulties, but my point was simply that this particular difficulty, that you claim stems from the use of terms like ethnolinguistic group, is not a difficulty at all. As it has been suggested below, if the entry is clear in its use of terms then the problems will be fixed. It should also, perhaps, not mix and match terms that refer to biological descent and genetic similarity with terms that refer more clearly to cultural similarity (such as "ethno-linguistic group"). BTW, a a "population" is not necessarily defined by genetic similarity or a "genetic relationship", certainly not necessarily in the social sciences. Again you are correct that it is not helpful to skip around between groupings that are genetic and groupings that are cultural, but if we have to chose one, I'd say the cultural one is much more preferable. See the response below by Aryaman about "race". Removing your genetic notion of what constitutes a "people" also eradicates the difficulties you wish to highlight. Please take more care in reading that which I am responding to before suggesting a misunderstanding.PelleSmith (talk) 19:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I said we are speaking not just of a linguistic group but of an ethnolinguistic group, meaning a group of people. And I stand by this point, and by my claim that you misunderstand me. This whole discussion began when I argued that "when we make claims that link a continuity of language to a continuity of ancestry, we need to have citations for reliable sources" - a point i still stand by. dab's response was to claim that I was saying genetic relations are more important than cultural relations. I ask anyone to reread what I wrote and point out the quote where I say that. I never say that. I never say genetic continuity is more important than linguistic continuity,k and I never say genetics is the basis, or a more important basis, for ethnicity than language or culture. i just never say it. All I do say and I guess i have to repeat it again, is that these forms of continuity are different and the article must treat them differently and if the article suggests that genetic and linguistic continuity coincide it needs a verifiable and reliable source to back that up. I provided an example above and below and I still stand by what I wrote. I have a friend who wrote a book about Greek Macedonians, arguing that although the speak Greek and identify as Macedonians, they are not for the most part decended brom King Phillip or Alexander the Great's Macedonia, are not descended from the Greeks of the age of Plato or Aeschylus. She was not saying that Greek Macedonians are not linguistically or culturally Greek, or Macedonian. She was saying that their ethnic identity was based on belief about biological descent, but was not actully based on biological descent. And she received death-threats from nationalists who insisted that there was biological continuity. Many people do believe that there is biological continuity within ethnic groups. We had this argument when this article was created, and in related articles: many people blieve this, but much scholarship challenges this. And I return to the point I made at the top of this section: we have to be careful not to confuse genetic continuity with linguistic continuity, and this is a serious concern when talking about ethnolinguistic groups because we are talking about groups of people. PellSmith, you asked me for a non-Jewish example, and I gave the example, above, from the opening of the article. It says that 630 million beling to the three large ethnolinguistic groups, and that around 25 million come from non-European diasporas. I repeat again my question: does this mean that none of the 630 million come from non-European diasporas? Do i need to spell out why I ask this? Most anthropologists believe humans evolved in Africa, which means that all - all - humans in Europe came from outside of Europe. So what distincition is made between the 25 million who are from outside of Europe and the 630 million ... is there an assumption that they have always beein in Europe? The article itself is unclear but one could read it as suggesting that the members of these ethnolinguistic communities are members of a group of humans who have been living in Europe since thse languages first formed. This reading is very close to suggesting that in addition to linguistic continuity there is genetic continuity ... if it doesn't mean that, why the special mention of people who came from outside of Europe? I am really trying to imagine what the article is saying. French belongs to other latin ethnolinguistic group. If my parents were Algerian and I was born in France, and grew up speaking French, the first section of the article suggests I belong to one of those non-European diasporic groups, not the Latin ethnolinguistic group. And this to me mixes up genetic and linguistic identity. And I think that if this is how scholars actully view it, we need verifiable sources which the article does not provide. And if there are no relevant sources, then we need to change the language so as not to mix up these two things. These previous two sentences are my main point and if you do not agree, fine, say so, but please do not tell me I am identifying ethnic groups with genetic populations because nowhere have I said that that is what I think about ethnicity. I am not talking about what I think. i am talking about what the article says. Let's focus on the article! Slrubenstein | Talk 11:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
On second thought I wont repost what I originally posted, since this is pointless. I agree with the essence of your argument, I must have originally misunderstood you, take care.PelleSmith (talk) 15:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry that I did not express myself clearly or well before. I am glad that we agree in essense. If you see areas of the article itself that raise concerns along these lines - sections or combinations of sections that could be interpreted the wrong way - i hope you, or others who have more clarity than I about this issue, would make or at least propose changes to those parts of the article. Best, Slrubenstein | Talk 19:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, what about this:

The Basques are assumed to descend from the populations of the Atlantic Bronze Age directly. The Indo-European groups of Europe (the Centum groups plus Balto-Slavic and Albanian) are assumed to have developed in situ by admixture of early Indo-European groups arriving in Europe by the Bronze Age (Corded ware, Beaker people). The Finnic peoples are indigenous to northeastern Europe.

Perhaps there is very compelling language that the Basque language developed in what is today Spain and France during the Bronze Age. But that does not mean that wll Basque-speakers are descended from people who lived in this area during the Bronze age. What does it mean to say "Finnic people" are indigenous to Finnland? Does it mean the same thingas I am inidgenous to Brooklyn as I was born there? Or does it mean that Finnish identity - primarily the Finish language - developed in Finnland. Well, okay, let's say that it did. That does not mean that people later migrated into Finnland, and learned Finnish. Are we sure that that never happened? And if people could migrate to Finnland and learn Finnish and their descendents be considered "indigenous" to Northeastern Europe, why not say someone who moved from Algeria to France and learned French - or at least that person's kids - are indigenous to Westen Europe? And if so, what does the word "indigenous" really mean? i ask these questions because the article uses the term "ethnolinguistic" which combines people with language - when in fact a language and the people who speak it can have very different histories. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Here is a good example of the problems presented by the existence both notions: 1) biological descent and 2) cultural continuity. I agree that this is a problem. I think more care and clarity would fix those problems. However, "all Basque people" is a bit of a red herring. Even if there is a strong genetic link (something I haven't a clue about) all people of an ethnic group (however you slice it) will never be descended from one isolated population existing in the Bronze age. With the "Finnic people" we also run into problems of mix and match between genetics and language. Again I agree, but again we can't have as a bench mark any designation that works for "all people" of some kind. That's an impossible bench mark. We also have to admit, that while language and genetics clearly are not equivalent, that some populations have been both genetically secluded and linguistically continuous and that the existence of others that have not does in no way challenge every instance that this has been a prevalent occurrence. That is to say, it may be that some populations have both common language and high genetic similarity. We cannot discount that. All in all more sensitivity is needed in presentation here. I think we can all agree on that.PelleSmith (talk) 20:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes I think that's right Slr. I'm also not sure that the claims about Basques are especially constructive, most people in Europe are probably directly descended from the peoples of the Atlantic Bronze Age. I suspect this is meant to mean that the Basques have not mixed a great deal with other groups since the Atlantic Bronze Age, though of course if this is supposed to be some sort of claim of "ethnic purity" then it's a fallacy. I'm also concerned with use of the word "indigenous", it's a relative term, indigenous is usually used to refer to a group of people who are resident in a region when a new group arrives, so there is a migrant group and an indigenous group, but the migrant group will quickly become culturally assimilated and will cease to be a separate group, the descendents of the original indigenous/immigrant groups will be indistinguishable from each other, both genetically and culturally. When any new group arrives this "admixed" group will represent the "indigenous population". There's a massive confusion in these articles about "ethnic groups" many editors seem to think that ethnic groups are like the atom used to be thought of; a fundamental, indivisible, immutable and eternal unit. That somehow an "ethnic group" represents a genetically homogeneous unit that can be assumed to have some sort of unbroken biological and cultural unity over many millennia, but from what anthropology (a little) and genetics (much more) I know, this assumption is simply derived from the way the modern world is packaged up into "nations", and that nations have usurped the identities of semi-mythical groups that existed in the past and have claimed a direct cultural and exclusive biological descent from these groups. There's good political reasons for doing this, but there are no good biological or anthropological reasons to assume that these constructed identities tell us anything real about the past. Alun (talk) 04:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the simplest solution here is to be explicit about the fact that the article is discussing ethnicity, i.e. languages and cultures, and not race (i.e. "phenotypical differences", etc.). That means stating "Basque language" when we mean Basque language and "Basque culture" when we mean Basque culture. Referring to "Basque people" or worse, "Basques", is in itself problematic, and requires qualification in every case. —Aryaman (talk) 12:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Arya, how would you handle the population figures in the article? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:19, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have some major issues with that list, which is one reason why I have not been active in this discussion. It is a unique and peculiar mix of linguistic and quasi-nationalistic groupings which begs the question: "What exactly is an ethnic group?" Are there "ethnic French people", for example? Quite a few people (among them a number of scholars) would cringe at the thought of using something so plump as "French ethnicity", let alone put some number behind that term. For them, there are the ethnic groups of Alsace, Auvergnat, Aquitaine, Aveyronnais, Brittany, Burgundy, Occitan, Provence. Yes, they are integrated into the modern nation of France politically and economically, yet there remain enough significant differences in language and culture to regard them as different ethnic groups. (The reason I chose France as an example here is to draw attention to groups with an ambiguous identity such as that of Alsace: it probably started out as Celtic, underwent a Germanic period, but is now under the political jurisdiction of France, and bilingual. It is not for us to decide whether this ethnic group should fit under a "Celtic" or a "Germanic" heading - it is a unique part of Alsace history, part of that ethnic identity.) IMO, such ethnic groups are the real ethnic groups of Europe, not labels like "ethnic French", which is an a priori attempt to combine ethnicity and politics. Thus, if I were in control of this article, I would break it down to real ethnic groups followed by the country or countries they are found in and their approximate populations. But - and I'm sure many of you are sighing with relief - I have no intention to push for a complete restructuring of the list. I'm growing prematurely weary of a project that ignores age-old adages like "too many cooks spoil the broth". —Aryaman (talk) 14:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I think what you are saying makes a lot of sense. (And I am thrilled someone understands that my point, opening this section, is not about jews in particular or even especially) If you are willing to start proposing specific edits I would be happy to work with you on making this article more encyclopedia. I think we both agree that it should reflect the mainstram scholarship, and that it is based on notable and varifiable views. Let's get started! I am not sighing with relief when you say you have not been active. Too many cooks may be a problem, but so is any one person claiming ownership of an article. Your remarks are the most cogent response to my comments, and I want to remind you that WP:BOLD has been a core guideline here since Wikipedia's birth! Slrubenstein | Talk 14:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
you may be surprised to hear that I, too, completely endorse Aryaman's points. Yes, this is about the difficulty of the concept of "ethnicity". Yes, this is inherently tied up with nationalisms and politics. Yes, there will never be a single "correct" way of looking at this. All of this is granted from the outset. "Ethnicity" is comparatively simple to define in tribal societies. It is practically impossible to get any clear notion of it in modern urban democracies. That's because urbanity fragments identity and you end up with subcultures replacing tribes. And yet we need an article discussing ethnicity in Europe, because there can be no doubt that there are ethnic groups in Europe. I have am not opposed at all to presenting a (referenced!) discussion of the difficulties involved. But I think, precisely because this is so difficult, that Aryaman's approach of "listing the real ethnic groups" is doomed to fail: there will never be any consensus of what is a "real" ethnicity and what isn't: you may as soon forget about that. There are undisputed cases: the Basques, the Sami and the Hungarians are without doubt classical "ethnic groups". But what about Switzerland? Are the Swiss somehow ethnicity-less? Or are there cantonal ethnicities (ethnic Bernese, ethnic Grisonian)? Or is the population of Switzerland merely a bunch of expatriate ethnic Germans, French and Italians?
This article cannot (and doesn't need to) answer this. What it can and should do is tell the reader, ok, there are 730 million people in Europe. Here is the population substructure along lines that may or may not be considered "ethnic". And lo and behold, we end up with a sensible picture of structures and sub-structures. I do not care if you draw the "ethnic" line at the level "Germanic Europe" or at the level "Alsatians", that's really up to you and not for Wikipedia to decide. What Wikipedia can do is present the structures such as they are. And as it happens, language is one of the, if not the foremost criterion of ethnic identity. You can enter pretty much any "linguistic" adjective, such as German, Italian, French, English, Romanian etc., and you will be taken to a disambiguation page presenting a link to a language, and one to an ethnic group. Indeed, most ethnic groups do not have a proper name other than that of their language (or conversely, most languages do not have a name other than that of the ethnicity speaking it). By no means do I claim language equals ethnicity. This obviously does not hold for major languages in particular, but becomes more and more accurate the fewer speakers a language has. It is still true that language is the first and most relevant indicator of ethnicity. dab (𒁳) 11:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Dab, can you explain what you mean by a population substructure? Slrubenstein | Talk 14:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

as a first pragmatic step, collecting an overview of our articles in Category:Ethnic groups in Europe, including the subgroups listed in those articles. dab (𒁳) 14:15, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Well said dab. I agree with your statement 100%. How can we possibly apply a definite parameter to the project when that parameter itself (ethnicity) is flawed, variable and open to a multitude of definitions? (and a survey of recent historical approaches shows it depends on which way the wind blows). The only way this article will succeed is if it acknowledges these limitations, and offers an overview with different points of view. Dionix (talk) 03:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ Ronald Cohen 1978 "Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology" in Annual Review of Anthropology 7: 385 Palo Alto: Stanford University Press
  2. ^ Isaacs, H. 1975 Idols of the Tribe: Group Identity and Political Change New York: Harper
  3. ^ Joan Vincent 1974 "The Structure of Ethnicity" in Human Organization 33(4): 375-379
  4. ^ Ronald Cohen 1978 "Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology" in Annual Review of Anthropology 7: 387 Palo Alto: Stanford University Press
  5. ^ Ronald Cohen 1978 "Ethnicity: Problem and Focus in Anthropology" in Annual Review of Anthropology 7: 386 Palo Alto: Stanford University Press
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