shaolin monks

[PaleoPhil]

That's not what I meant. In my approach, I would use British-English spellings for people and places with British names in the UK, which I do. Don't you? Using "Genghis Khan" instead of the Mongols own favored English spellings for their own heroes and places would be the equivalent of using American-English spellings for British-English names. So you might become Tiler Durden, which I can start doing if you prefer. 

Oh, and by the way, I saw a travel documentary on Mongolia in which the host, I think he was British, coincidentally, urged viewers to use not only the Mongols' preferred English spelling of Chinggis Khaan, but also something closer to their pronunciation. Per the documentary, it's apparently deemed rather ignorant and/or insulting to some there when foreigners use the "G" sound instead of "Ch." I try not to use insulting spellings, pronunciations and names where less insulting English versions are available, though I'm not always aware of it, of course, and I'm not very good about being a stickler about it, I'm embarrassed to admit.

I figure it's not that big a deal here, because we don't have any Mongolians that I'm aware of, but I'm just explaining why I spell the name the way I do, so I won't waste any of your time spent on correcting me.

[svrn]

Persian historian Rashid al-Din recorded in his Chronicles that the legendary glittering Genghis was tall, long-bearded, red-haired, and green-eyed. This is quite common in mongolia which points to a european link. This fact makes me not surprised at all that certain UK citizens share genes with him.

I suspect he probably looked like these people but he also may have been caucasian.

BLONDE MONGOLS WERE WHITE?! nope 100% Asian/Mongoloid

[PaleoPhil]

Scientists are fairly confident that they know Chinggis' patrilineal haplogroup, and it wasn't what is generally considered Caucasian (though all Asians and Europeans share some common ancestors who came from Africa). It was the C3 haplogroup. Here is its current distribution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_C3_(Y-DNA)

No one knows for sure what he looked like, but this image is apparently widely accepted as probably roughly close to what he looked like in his mature adult days:

This one looks somewhat idealized:

And here is a portrait of one of his sons, Ögedei Khan:

[svrn]

either way im sure he ahd red hair and grey eyes since 1) every historian from the time likely to have seen him in person describes him this way and 2) there are so many mongolians with these features around today. Most likely they just have some caucasian blood.

[TylerDurden]

That's not what I meant. In my approach, I would use British-English spellings for people and places with British names in the UK, which I do. Don't you? Using "Genghis Khan" instead of the Mongols own favored English spellings for their own heroes and places would be the equivalent of using American-English spellings for British-English names. So you might become Tiler Durden, which I can start doing if you prefer. 

Not valid, this is a question of 2 different languages, not 2 different dialects. Sometimes other pronunciations of certain foreign words are more difficult to pronounce or sound ridiculous in another language when they don't share the same exact type of common phonetics/spelling, so it's best to use the foreign wording in the relevant language. The only exception might be in a foreign language  which is closely related, and then not all the time.


I do think that dialects should be kept to a single standard as that's a different issue. For example, German has numerous dialects which sound so alien they don't seem at all like "HochDeutsch", the standard German language. It would be ridiculous if Viennese authorities used "Wienerisch" dialect for their road-signs as then Tyroleans in Austria wouldn't understand them, and so on. I wouldn't mind American-English being changed to British English, for example, or Mexican Spanish to be made the same as Castilian Standard Spanish(indeed a fluent Spanish speaking English acquintance has said that he got more respect from people in Central/South America for speaking standard Spanish than the local version,  as it's considered to be more educated. In the case of American English, the spelling is too simple, for example "e" instead of "ae" or "o" instead of "oe", and distances the language from its Latin roots. For example, as a result of learning Latin at school, my English vocabulary increased  a lot precisely because so many English words had the same spelling as many Latin words.

"Tyler" isn't the standard British-English spelling at all, it is actually  "Tyler". Maybe you are thinking of Old English which is so different from modern English as to be a different language.

As regards the "insulting" claim, it's not meant to be insulting so it  isn't insulting therefore to say the English version.

[TylerDurden]

either way im sure he ahd red hair and grey eyes since 1) every historian from the time likely to have seen him in person describes him this way and 2) there are so many mongolians with these features around today. Most likely they just have some caucasian blood.

Well, the paintings I've seen all show him to be heavily Mongoloid. Then again, the paintings of Jesus have shown a wide difference over the millenia, with Aryan likenesses of Jesus appearing in Byzantium and African ones in modern Africa, so one can't be sure.

[svrn]

paintings mean nothing. It just meant that some artist said oh hes mongolian, mongolia is in asia therefore i will paint him this way.
historians who were there have much more credebility.

[PaleoPhil]

Not valid....

Regardless, I'm going to probably keep using the Chingiss Khaan spelling, except maybe sometimes when quoting text that has the Genghis spelling or such (it will at least be in the quoted text, if not my discussion of it), so you needn't bother correcting me--just letting you know.

There is a legend of Chingiss having had red hair, promulgated by at least the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din (1247–1318), who never saw Chingiss, and the oral history of the Borjigid clan:

No accurate portraits of Genghis exist today, and any surviving depictions are considered to be artistic interpretations. Persian historian Rashid-al-Din recorded in his "Chronicles" that the legendary "glittering" ancestor of Genghis was tall, long-bearded, red-haired, and green-eyed. Rashid al-Din also described the first meeting of Genghis and Kublai Khan, when Genghis was surprised to find that Kublai had not inherited his red hair.[15] Also according to al-Din, Genghis' Borjigid clan had a legend involving their origins: it began as the result of an affair between Alan-ko and a stranger to her land, a glittering man who happened to have red hair and bluish-green eyes. Modern historian Paul Ratchnevsky has suggested in his Genghis biography that the "glittering man" may have been from the Kyrgyz people, who historically displayed these same characteristics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan

Historians have been known to get a lot of things wrong. I put more weight on the genetic evidence, though even that is not certain, and the general appearance of the people alive today who are believed to be genetic descendants of Chingiss (though they would also have inherited genes from others, so a broad overview of Chingiss' descendants would be better if we had access to such), such as apparently this fellow, who looks like a Kazakh to me:


And this boy is a Hazara, who are a people that claim to have Chingiss ancestry and scientists did find the alleged Chingiss DNA among them:

I actually think it would be pretty neat if Chingiss had had red hair and shared relatively recent (say within the last 10-20,000 years) DNA with Europeans. After noticing many similarities between the horse cultures of the Mongols and the Irish, I wondered myself whether there might be a relatively recent DNA link and looked into it, but I learned that Chingiss' believed patrilineal haplogroup is C3, which is not one of the European (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_DNA_haplogroup#European_haplogroups) or even proto-European haplogroups, AFAIK.

From this image, it doesn't look like C3 would be closely related to the "European" Y-DNA Haplogroups (R1b,   R1a, I, E1b1b, J, G, N, or T--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-DNA_haplogroups_in_European_populations), except perhaps  E1b1b (which is found mainly in North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Asia, and Europe):


I was mildly disappointed. If you come across any genetic evidence to the contrary, please do share it. Perhaps there's a link just a bit farther back then what I've found in my searches, or on Chingiss' mother's side (mitochondrial haplogroup).

[svrn]

all of the red/blonde haired blue/green/grey eyed mongolians as well as the historical record and the horse culture similarities you mentioned are enough evidence of a european connection to me. All of the caucasian red haired tattooed mummies in asia are also proof of caucasians being in the area. This tattoo/ horse/ gold jewellery type culture is quite indicative of a european connection. I believe that the nomadic scythians are a big part of this. There are many caucasoid people all over asia. There are also the ainu people of japan to consider who clearly have lots of white blood.

That khazakh has the jaw and skeletal structure of weston prices raw meat eaters. Where did you find that picture?

[TylerDurden]

It's certainly true that there were a lot of Caucasians in those areas in ancient times, given evidence of blond mummies and current DNA tests of that Chinese village showed possible Roman(well, likely Hun) DNA as comprising 50% of total DNA of the inhabitants, so GK might well have had red hair. However, I have read that the Ainu are not Caucasian in any way:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people#Origins

[PaleoPhil]

I believe that the nomadic scythians are a big part of this.

The Scythians, Uuyghurs, and other peoples with proto-European connections were one of the reasons I thought the Mongols might also have relatively recent proto-European ancestry. I haven't found any genetic evidence of this yet, though, unfortunately. As I said, like you, I thought there might be a closer connection and haven't given up completely on the possibility. Perhaps the connection just may go back a bit farther and scientists may just not have found it yet, but the haplogroup tree doesn't look promising, surely you see that?

Believe it or not there are also Asian horse cultures, not just European. One of the hypotheses of historians is that the Scythians had a wide influence on other cultures of Asia and Europe and that this might help explain the many similarities between Scythian culture and later Asian and European cultures. It will be interesting to see what future archaelogical finds and DNA evidence will produce. I'm rooting for there being more right than wrong about what you've been saying.

That's not to say that there aren't any European genes among the Mongols. After all, they defeated and conquered some Europeans and took some of their women. It's just that so far it doesn't look like the core of the original Mongols, nor the majority of the people, is characterized by European or proto-European genes.
 

That khazakh has the jaw and skeletal structure of weston prices raw meat eaters. Where did you find that picture?

Google images. He has a hunting bird, so he probably does eat a fair amount of meat, maybe even some of it raw, though more likely boiled or roasted within the animal's hide in relatively traditional ways.

[svrn]

i dont care what wikipedia or anyone else says as far as the ainu go. When I look at pictures of these people it is so obvious to me that they have white blood that i tihnk youd have to be blind not to see it.

Also the similarity between japanese heirarchical/warrior culture and that of the europeans is striking.

Also look into the japanese/finnish connection. There are many.

[TylerDurden]

I will agree that many Orientals have pale skin that is basically white. Other than the Manchu, though, I doubt that they have more than a tiny amount of Caucasian DNA. I mean if it is possible for some Australian Aborigines to have yellowish hair, then it is possible for other ethnic groups to also develop similiar characteristics to Caucasians without necessarily interbreeding with them.

[svrn]

i dont look at skin color as an indicator of race in the least bit. The main thing I look for is skull structure which is very caucasian in the ainu. Also their facial and body hair level is something very rarely seen in asians.

i woud post some blatant pics of this if i knew how

[cherimoya_kid]

CK, your 2nd link has a paragraph which merely proves my point exactly:-

"It is incorrect to assume that the MRCA and his/her ancestors passed all their genes down to every person alive today. Because of sexual reproduction, at every generation, an ancestor only passes half of his or her genes to the next generation. The percentage of genes inherited from the MRCA becomes smaller and smaller at every successive generation, as genes inherited from contemporaries of MRCA are interchanged via sexual reproduction.[4] As the human genome consists of roughly 2 the power of 32 base pairs, the genetic contribution of a single ancestor may be flushed out of an individual's genome completely after 32 generations, or roughly 1,000 years."

As long as you'll admit that humans are the most inbred species on Earth, by far, then I think I've done my job.

[svrn]

i think it depends on what humans. The royal families I believe are the most inbred thigns on earth probably while normal humans are inbred to a much lesser extent. Our farm animals and pets id be willing to bet are a lot more inbred than regular humans.

[TylerDurden]

As long as you'll admit that humans are the most inbred species on Earth, by far, then I think I've done my job.

Only very partially. A few species seem to have some limited protection against inbreeding, but humans are like cheetahs and many other species which  frequently become infertile or develop appalling genetic diseases if they inbreed too much. Dogs are a classic case, as TOD has stated. Dogs have become so inbred that a very large number of dogs have some form of serious health-problem. I'm thinking of pugs and boxers who have breathing problems because their faces were evolutionarily designed by man to flatten, and so on..And since Man has almost killed off many species and limited their former range, there are now lots of species in very small numbers in very small areas, who are forced to inbreed a lot more than before.

If you look at the Habsburg example, you will find that there was a great deal of inbreeding, cousins marrying cousins etc. over generations(even sometimes uncles/nieces) and within only a very few centuries, the result was royal descendants with appalling inherited diseases and facial disfigurements and infertility. Then there was the example of Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs who didn't mind sibling incest. The effects of such inbreeding were dire resulting in infertility etc., so that one could see that if there was so much inbreeding a couple of hundred thousand years ago, we could not possibly have survived util now.