Author: Saipul » Thu Mar 11, 2010 11:43 pm
The word "Aryan" refers to the hypothesized ancient ethnic group that most scientists today refer to as Indo-European. Being Aryan in the scientific sense has nothing to do with being white or looking like a European, because the Aryans did not actually originate in Europe but in the fertile river valleys of the Eurasian steppe (what is today western Russia). Most Europeans today are a mix of Aryans and ancient European peoples. Aryans also went south into what is today Turkey and northern Syria and southeast toward Persia, Central Asia, and northern India. Hinduism, for example, is basically a modern form of the ancient Indo-European religion. They essentially moved across much of the world either conquering or assimilating native peoples. That is why Indo-European languages are so widespread.
In a technical sense, Kurds are Aryan. Kurdish is an Indo-European (Aryan) language, unlike Arabic or Hebrew, which are Semitic languages, or Turkish, which is from the Turkic language family. Other Aryan peoples in the Middle East include the Hittites, Medes, Armenians, and Persians.
Kurds are genetically most similar to the other Indo-European groups in the region, including Persians and Armenians. However, as BC2000 has noted, there is also a strong genetic relationship with Jews. I personally believe that this is probably a result of the various Jewish exiles / forced migrations that occurred around 800-500BC, first with the Assyrian conquest of northern Israel, then with the Babylonian conquest of Judah. I think that while many Jews did maintain their identity, many others also intermarried and became part of the local population. Remember that 10 of Israel's 12 tribes disappeared.
So basically, Kurds are a mixture of many different groups, and I think we all know that. There is obviously ancient Aryan blood, which probably forms the majority, as well as Jewish blood (from ancient interbreeding) and Arabic blood (from more modern interbreeding). There's Turkish blood too of course, because they ruled Kurdistan for a long time and they had many thousands of soldiers.
Sitting around talking about being "Aryan" really is racist, though. Iranians like to do it because they have nothing else to take pride in. Their country is the second most energy rich nation on the planet, but they're poor as dirt because they are ruled by a bunch of ignorant mullahs. And Iranians are just as genetically mixed as everyone else in the region.
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- but those whom i know 99% angels!
