President of Turkey says Muslims Discovered America

[boozehound]

not what this guy means, but there were probably muslims in Columbus's fleet. People forget that the various kingdoms that made up spain were pretty religiously diverse, with lots of jews and muslims. Now, the converso laws of the 1490s made people hide their faith, but certainly lots of jews escaped to the new world (lots of articles about this in the early settlement of new mexico as well as parts of peru).

[NumberSix]

It's not clear to what extent these Germanic tribes, other conquerors, and settlers, replaced the Britons. Numbersix is going to say hardly at all; the British are all descended from ice age settlers, because of his UKIP/BNP anti-immigration agenda. If he cites anyone, it will probably Stephen Oppenheimer, a British pediatrician, who wrote a popular book about the subject.

You do make a legit point. Some people like the BNP do in fact try to use the information we are discussing for pretty shady reasons. They are a former nazi/white supremacist group. I think it's unfair to assume that my personal interest in the subject is the same as their interest which is motivated by a political agenda.

Here's what people like the BNP never understand though. What makes being related to Germanic people "pro-immigration" and being related to Spanish people "anti-immigration"? Does that make any sense? What's the difference?

[nightprowler10]

Who are you and what have you done with NumberSix?

[Inactive]

You do make a legit point. Some people like the BNP do in fact try to use the information we are discussing for pretty shady reasons. They are a former nazi/white supremacist group. I think it's unfair to assume that my personal interest in the subject is the same as their interest which is motivated by a political agenda.

I'm sorry if my suspicions regarding your motives were unfair.

Here's what people like the BNP never understand though. What makes being related to Germanic people "pro-immigration" and being related to Spanish people "anti-immigration"? Does that make any sense? What's the difference?

I think it's just the common neo-Nazi, racial essentialist idea, that every people has a single ursprungsland which they should all stay in. As if ethnic groups popped out of the ground in locations corresponding to the borders of modern countries, and never crossed those boundaries until today.

The pro-immigration left likes to emphasize the way in which the nation, and people were created by numerous migrations, and cultural exchanges, making them a multicultural patchwork. The idea is that the nation has changed continually, so changes brought on by immigration today are really nothing new. There is no "pure", or authentic, native people to preserve, and immigrants only enrich the existing diversity of the nation.

The anti-immigration right likes to claim that their ancestors have lived in Britain since the ice age, that any past immigration was insignificant, and that the people and culture are entirely autochthonous. The idea is that they evolved on British soil. Thus, the influx of foreign people is a new, and destructive phenomenon, which threatens their race, which had remained pure for tens of thousands of years.

Both sides are dishonest, and twist information to fit their agendas.

[kentatm]

since it looks like nobody read the article, here is what the Turkish president's claim is based off of

A tiny minority of Muslim scholars have recently suggested a prior Muslim presence in the Americas, although no pre-Columbian ruin of an Islamic structure has ever been found.

In a controversial article published in 1996, historian Youssef Mroueh refers to a diary entry from Columbus that mentions a mosque in Cuba. But the passage is widely understood to be a metaphorical reference to the shape of the landscape.

[nightprowler10]

While it wouldn't be shocking since Muslims were known to be explorers/traders at one point, this is all just a bunch of hooey.

[Dresta]

.

It's not clear to what extent these Germanic tribes, other conquerors, and settlers, replaced the Britons. Numbersix is going to say hardly at all; the British are all descended from ice age settlers, because of his UKIP/BNP anti-immigration agenda. If he cites anyone, it will probably Stephen Oppenheimer, a British pediatrician, who wrote a popular book about the subject.

Erm... don't lump UKIP and BNP together please, as the former are not 'anti-immigration' only anti-EU and are opposed unfettered immigration rather than immigration per se, as any sensible person is. The BNP on the other hand is just a bunch of angry and racist assholes.

Here's Farage saying the government should help Syrian refugees by allowing them entry to the UK: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...k-9029113.html

They are the only party with any political influence that doesn't plain ignore the effect economic migration has had on the working classes in the UK, and that you can't afford to have a welfare state and free healthcare and then allow citizens to pour in from all over the shop taking advantage of it. I know people from Slovakia (who studied there) and in the summer would come over to London, accumulate money (with minimum wage being 3-4 times higher in England), and take the money home.

These people are hardly much help as they tend to bring high standards to even the shittiest work, making it harder for the more useless to get employment at all (and working those kind of shitty jobs showed me just how useless some people are - like children almost). So the government is now offering businesses cash incentives (quite large ones too) to take on their long-term unemployed (more than 6 months). I've done a good amount of waiting in my time and was surprised at the standards demanded even for minimum wage work.

[kurple]

[QUOTE=Trollsmasher]Ignoring natives, Leif Erikson made it there somewhere after 986 after Bjarni Herj

[GimmeThat]

I am unfamiliar with the Koran

but I don't know if it mentions that of a God in which created the universe

[gigantes]

not what this guy means, but there were probably muslims in Columbus's fleet. People forget that the various kingdoms that made up spain were pretty religiously diverse, with lots of jews and muslims. Now, the converso laws of the 1490s made people hide their faith, but certainly lots of jews escaped to the new world (lots of articles about this in the early settlement of new mexico as well as parts of peru).

really? this might clarify why a certain peruvian-jewish portion of history is rather missing.

could you point me to some of the alleged articles, pls?

[gigantes]

Let's be careful not to get people mixed up with language and culture.

The English mainly consist of the native people of the British isles. To say they are some kind of hybrid of Celtic, Germanic and Latin (?) peoples is just not true.

First, it depends what you mean by "Celtic". When people hear the term Celtic, they mainly think of Irish and Scottish people, but in modern times, it's actually been debated whether its appropriate for these people to even be labeled as Celtic. ASSUMING that by "Celtic" what you meant was native British, then that part is true.

As for Germanic peoples, the problem with that is that it is relying too much on very outdated information and techniques. It used to be that the only way we could estimate the movement of populations was through language and culture. This makes perfect sense for migration, but in the age of empire and trade, this kind of technique gets sticky. It's gets difficult to tell the difference between if linguistic and cultural influences can be attributed to migration or due to trade/interactions with other populations. Of course, these days we now have DNA which is infinitely more reliable than tracking cultural things like religion, art and language. The truth is, Germanic people's genetic contribution to the English is maybe 5%. The people of the British isles are actually most genetically related to the northern Spanish.

The Irish, Scottish, welsh and english like to think they are different peoples, and culturally they are, but genetically they're all the same.

sorry, but almost everything you just said is flawed / already debunked / highly inconclusive / pure speculation.

i won't neg you, bro... you seem honest in a sense. but it does need to be asked-- WHERE did you learn your... version of history from?

[NumberSix]

sorry, but almost everything you just said is flawed / already debunked / highly inconclusive / pure speculation.

i won't neg you, bro... you seem honest in a sense. but it does need to be asked-- WHERE did you learn your... version of history from?

I don't claim to be an expert in any way. The poster asked if the English are Germanic people and I just did some quick google research and came across that 5% figure. As another poster pointed out, there is quite a bit of political agenda so I fully concede that the information I took at face value may not be as reliable as I assumed.

It actually occurs to me as I'm writing this that it's possible I might not have even interpreted it correctly. Maybe it was saying that EACH Germanic group made a 5% contribution, where I took it to mean ALL Germanic groups combined made a total 5% contribution.

I'll have to do more research and be more careful to check how reliable the information is.

[gigantes]

I don't claim to be an expert in any way. The poster asked if the English are Germanic people and I just did some quick google research and came across that 5% figure. As another poster pointed out, there is quite a bit of political agenda so I fully concede that the information I took at face value may not be as reliable as I assumed.

It actually occurs to me as I'm writing this that it's possible I might not have even interpreted it correctly. Maybe it was saying that EACH Germanic group made a 5% contribution, where I took it to mean ALL Germanic groups combined made a total 5% contribution.

I'll have to do more research and be more careful to check how reliable the information is.

you're a good man, repped. I'm not some kind of expert either, but I'm used prolly too used to interesting topics turning sour here. my last response had some ISH pre-aggression built in to it, sorry mate.