And many 'Greeks' were also captured/immigranted Slaves, Levantines, Hittites, Sea peoples, Thracians, Dacians, etc., Domen.
Ask A Bulgarian
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gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Worry not. We live in a country which is financially stable.
We're always at the bottom.
We're always at the bottom.
Domen
Misico dux Vandalorum
Yes, I know. Hence I wrote "Byzantines" or "Eastern Romans", not Greeks.
For example in areas north of the Jirecek Line more people spoke Latin than Greek:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jireček_Line
BTW - Constantine Porphyrogennetos mentioned by name over 200 ethnic groups and tribes living in the Empire.
Of course that included not only European parts of the Byzantine Empire but also Asian and African parts.
Domen
Misico dux Vandalorum
The meaning of the word in Latvian language is pretty nice:
Proto-Slavic - slava
Noun: sla̋va f (accent paradigm a) - glory, fame
From Proto-Indo-European root noun *ḱlēw-, from the root *ḱlew- (“to hear”.
Cognate with Lithuanian šlovė̃ (“fame, honor”
Reconstruction: Balto-Slavic *ślōuʔ-
Indo-European Sanskrit śrávas- n. 'fame, honour'; Greek κλέος n. 'fame'; OIr. clú f. 'fame, rumour'
Related terms:
*sluti (“be called”
*slyšati (“to hear”
*slyti (“have a reputation”
*slušati (“to listen”
*sluxъ (“hearing; rumor”
*slovo (“word”
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Yes, I know. Hence I wrote "Byzantines" or "Eastern Romans", not Greeks.
For example in areas north of the Jirecek Line more people spoke Latin than Greek:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jireček_Line
BTW - Constantine Porphyrogennetos mentioned by name over 200 ethnic groups and tribes living in the Empire.
Of course that included not only European parts of the Byzantine Empire but also Asian and African parts.
Weird, I don't remember engaging into feudalism or getting on a heavily-armoured horse recently. Must be one of these days.
I would assume that a lot of the people working in Bansko are not Macedonian but are seasonal workers. I know a lot of the ski instructors spend their summer in Varna and their winters in Pamporovo, Borovts or Bansko.
500 years of slavery to the Turks? Were the Greeks not also ruled by the Ottomans for a comparable period of time?
I guess my question is a difficult one to answer as there are so many factors that go in to a nations culture. I notice a similar trait in Romanians working in the UK and Russians I have met. I can't figure out if it is a front they put on or they really are hard as nails. Probably a bit of both!
I would like to go back to Bulgaria in the summer and just travel around a bit. Perhaps then I would get a more balanced view of Bulgarians if I was out of the tourist traps.
H4run
Deity
I wonder which year these data were taken, there is no information so far from both of the article.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Well, let's say that the Greeks had a comfortable sea they could use plus some heritage they could be proud of. It took us approximately 200 years until we wrote our own story. So, the Greek enslavement and the Bulgarian enslavement could as well be two different universes.
About Romanian workers, keep in mind they're in a hostile (especially now) and new place, taken apart from their relatives. You'd be less open if you suddenly went to India to work as an administrator, no?
Borachio
Way past lunacy
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I have to say, Mr Domen, you're exhibiting all the symptoms of a man obsessed.
Or, possibly, you might just be an expert on the subject. Or a proselytizing zealot.
Still, have you ever thought of taking up a hobby?
Domen
Misico dux Vandalorum
This is the Latin-Greek boundary in Ancient times, before Slavic invasions.
I don't know which year but surely in the 21st century.
Is Black Sea less comfortable? Still, many Bulgarians lived in West Thrace and Macedonia.
H4run
Deity
a very rough but nevertheless interesting collection of data, I just wish they listed also the haplogroup that were generalize within the area. Borachio already addressed the funny things about German and British, same thing also shown with China and Japan, however interesting article.
Domen
Misico dux Vandalorum
This data is not about haplogroups but about autosomal DNA.
==========================
I was more surprised by this:
Domen
Misico dux Vandalorum
A 2014 study - "Ancient human genomes suggest 3 ancestral populations for present-day Europeans" - divides European genes into 3 sources of origin:
Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG)
Early European Farmers (EEF)
Ancient North Eurasians (ANE)
And today every single European population is a mix of those three components (according to authors).
Here are the proportions for some of modern populations (I highlighted Bulgarians and several other groups):
As you can see Bulgarians are actually closer to Greeks (and other South Europeans) than to other Slavic groups in this study.
Generally North Europeans (but also e.g. Croats & Ukrainians) have more of WHG, while South Europeans have more of EEF.
Link to this study: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1312/1312.6639.pdf
Link to appendices: http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/suppl/2014/04/05/001552.DC4/001552-3.pdf
===================================
===================================
WHG people were hunter-gatherers who had lived in Western Eurasia already during the Mesolithic period (or even earlier).
Early European farmers (EEF) came to Western Eurasia from the Middle East, bringing farming (Neolithic Revolution) with them.
Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG)
Early European Farmers (EEF)
Ancient North Eurasians (ANE)
And today every single European population is a mix of those three components (according to authors).
Here are the proportions for some of modern populations (I highlighted Bulgarians and several other groups):
As you can see Bulgarians are actually closer to Greeks (and other South Europeans) than to other Slavic groups in this study.
Generally North Europeans (but also e.g. Croats & Ukrainians) have more of WHG, while South Europeans have more of EEF.
Link to this study: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1312/1312.6639.pdf
Link to appendices: http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/suppl/2014/04/05/001552.DC4/001552-3.pdf
===================================
===================================
WHG people were hunter-gatherers who had lived in Western Eurasia already during the Mesolithic period (or even earlier).
Early European farmers (EEF) came to Western Eurasia from the Middle East, bringing farming (Neolithic Revolution) with them.
cybrxkhan
Asian Xwedodah
@Domen: Thanks for the lots of information, as always. it is interesting to see the Bulgarians have a larger Greek element than I thought. That said, as I mentioned, I'm not as interested in genetics, I'm only interested in actual appearance, regardless of genetics, which is why I'm more interested in tolni's subjective opinion.
The artist, Crakedtoothgrin, who made the portraits generally devotes hundreds of hours of research, which isn't limited to only online searches of relevant pictures, but also contacting academics, looking up relevant academic articles (particulalry in archaeology, of course), even in one case buying materials to craft one of the turbans himself to see how they worked. So, at the least, the clothing and hairstyles are usually spot on.
Now, as for the appearance per se, the common complaints about Crakd's portraits are that the eyes are too small or the skin is too dark. The former is generally due to compression - that is, Crak'd makes a large render of the face that is based on hundreds of pictures of real-life people, but then has to re-size them to fit that tiny part of the screen, causing the eyes to look tiny; had he made the eyes any larger, you'd basically end up with caricaturized, anime eyes. The dark skin is generally because Crak'd renders his portraits with indoor lighting (i.e. dark room, not a lot of light), and, combined with the compression, makes the portraits look darker than they were originally.
So, tl;dr: the guy who made these portraits definitely knows what he's doing, and usually if there's something that seems off it's as designed.
Hmm. It's possible, and not that hard to do per se, but unfortunately not really within the scope of my mod.
Thinking it over I suppose I'll just have to rely on the Russian faces as a base, then, since it'll cover the majority of the game period the best. One thing I could do is have the earlier Bulgarians have steppe clothes, and then switch to the Byzantine clothing in the middle and late eras of the game. Thanks for the input, anyways!
Those Byzantine portraits don't look (usually) particularly Greek either
Closer to Achameneid Persian, possibly.
The artist, Crakedtoothgrin, who made the portraits generally devotes hundreds of hours of research, which isn't limited to only online searches of relevant pictures, but also contacting academics, looking up relevant academic articles (particulalry in archaeology, of course), even in one case buying materials to craft one of the turbans himself to see how they worked. So, at the least, the clothing and hairstyles are usually spot on.
Now, as for the appearance per se, the common complaints about Crakd's portraits are that the eyes are too small or the skin is too dark. The former is generally due to compression - that is, Crak'd makes a large render of the face that is based on hundreds of pictures of real-life people, but then has to re-size them to fit that tiny part of the screen, causing the eyes to look tiny; had he made the eyes any larger, you'd basically end up with caricaturized, anime eyes. The dark skin is generally because Crak'd renders his portraits with indoor lighting (i.e. dark room, not a lot of light), and, combined with the compression, makes the portraits look darker than they were originally.
So, tl;dr: the guy who made these portraits definitely knows what he's doing, and usually if there's something that seems off it's as designed.
Hmm. It's possible, and not that hard to do per se, but unfortunately not really within the scope of my mod.
Thinking it over I suppose I'll just have to rely on the Russian faces as a base, then, since it'll cover the majority of the game period the best. One thing I could do is have the earlier Bulgarians have steppe clothes, and then switch to the Byzantine clothing in the middle and late eras of the game. Thanks for the input, anyways!
Domen
Misico dux Vandalorum
I would call it "generic Old Balkanian" or "generic Southern European", rather than specifically Greek.
Of course large part of it comes from assimilated by them (Slavicized / Bulgarianized) Greeks.
This element is by no means limited to Greeks, of course. And "original Russians" (or Belarusians / Ukrainians in this study) also have this element - not from Greeks, but from Neolithic farmers (i.e. from the same ancestral source as Greeks). However, among Bulgarians this element is more frequent than among Northern Europeans such as Belarusians, which indicates that Bulgarians are not "pure Russians" but "Russians who mixed with Southern Europeans / Greeks".
What determines appearance is usually genetics - and plastic surgeries, in some cases.
Of course this EEF/WHG/ANE data is very general, clearly not specific enough to tell us about subtle differences in appearance.
But, anyway - when it comes to my opinion - I do not think that Bulgarians en masse look like Russians today.
But original Bulgars and Slavs who colonized the Balkans could indeed look closer to Russians / North Slavs.
Only later they assimilated / absorbed local Byzantine citizens and became more Southern European / Greek looking.
==========================================
Edit:
For example Ashkenazi Jews do not (or do they?) look exactly like Maltese & Sicilian people, despite very similar proportions of EEF/ANE/WHG:
Ashkenazi Jews have 93,1% of EEF (Neolithic farmers from the Middle East) component and Maltese people have 93,2% of this component:
Maltese people (in 93,2% descendants of Neolithic farmers from the Middle East, who expanded into Western Eurasia from there):
Spoiler :
I take your point. Obviously a majority of the unskilled workers have to graft very hard for a living and often pick up the kind of work us lazy Brits aren't interested in. I'm more than happy for EU migrants to exercise their right to work in the UK and I'm certainly not knocking them.
An interesting idea. I guess a long period of communist rule didn't help matters much either.
I can only really talk about my experiences in one little corner of Bulgaria. Although I enjoyed my time there I never really felt as ease. There just seems to be a tension about that particular place. A lot of that might be down to my own insecurities and paranoias but I have travelled fairly widely and never really experienced that anywhere else.
That is one reason I would like to go back and see more of the country and see it in a different season. I could tell by the way every building was heated like a sauna that the Bulgarians of Macedonia are not keen on the cold. I honestly felt like I was melting when I wasn't outside.
I would like to do a road trip and visit Viliko Tarnovo and Plovdiv as well as go back to the Pirin mountains in the spring/summer. What places of interest would you recommend Tolni?
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