151–160 of 245 posts
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It's denarii, barbar.
Sorry, Denarii. Barbar seems to refer to Denarii minted by barbarians? but the AI result didn't come up in English? Ps And don't call me Barbar.
I'll add "unable to understand context" to my list of frustrations about LLM usage.
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None of these statements are meaningful without a definition on your part of what it means to be "Ancient Roman" in a genetic sense. Do you mean, say, a handful of villagers living in the area of today's Rome on 21 April 753 BCE? I'll grant you that those were possibly a homogeneous bunch. Anything later? Definitely not. Trying to pretend that there is something like a clear genetic definition of "Roman" is... what d…
This is a silly argument. Biology is inherently messy and “ethnicity” is just a fuzzy clustering. You can make the exact same argument about “species” - because that too is a human abstraction that breaks down in biological reality because there are no clear lines.
My main argument was that the OP's supposedly clear-cut genetic category was not defined. You also seem to be saying that it's not clear-cut and defined. So why are you saying that my argument is silly, as opposed to the OP's?
> “ethnicity”
Neither the OP nor I mentioned this word, of course. You're shifting the goalposts. One could pick out a certain set of genetic markers, and one could do a clear-cut classification based on those. I'm firmly of the opinion that one should not, but in any case, that would be about genetics (as the OP and I discussed), and not about this word that you are trying to drag into this to deliberately muddy the waters.
> You can make the exact same argument about “species”
Proof by analogy is fraud, as they say. Even if the analogy holds. This one doesn't: There are fairly good ways of defining species objectively. For example, as the second sentence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species says: "It can be defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction." I'm sure that there are a few exceptions around the edges, but this is much more clear-cut than any human divisions that you're trying to drag into this.
This is strictly about linguistic similarity and not genetic similarity. On a genetic map, a PCA plot, Romans and Romanians simply don't overlap. Romanians cluster with their Balkan neighbors, (1) on account of massive Slavic migration from around the 7th century AD, and (2) on account of strong historical and genetic evidence to suggest that the Roman colonists sent to Dacia were largely recruited from neighboring B…
Rome was famously multi-ethnic. This is sort of like asking who are the "ethnic Americans". It's just the wrong question to ask.
This is strictly about linguistic similarity and not genetic similarity. On a genetic map, a PCA plot, Romans and Romanians simply don't overlap. Romanians cluster with their Balkan neighbors, (1) on account of massive Slavic migration from around the 7th century AD, and (2) on account of strong historical and genetic evidence to suggest that the Roman colonists sent to Dacia were largely recruited from neighboring B…
Rome was famously multi-ethnic. This is sort of like asking who are the "ethnic Americans". It's just the wrong question to ask.
This is strictly about linguistic similarity and not genetic similarity. On a genetic map, a PCA plot, Romans and Romanians simply don't overlap. Romanians cluster with their Balkan neighbors, (1) on account of massive Slavic migration from around the 7th century AD, and (2) on account of strong historical and genetic evidence to suggest that the Roman colonists sent to Dacia were largely recruited from neighboring B…
I still find it somewhat fascinating that the Slavs arrived in Europe during recorded history.
The names are funny just because you can imagine asking someone speaking a language derived from Vulgar Latin what language they're speaking (or writing), and them answering as a fish would when asked about the water.
> This root word also survives in the names of other Roman border regions across Europe, like Wales, Cornwall, and Wallonia. ... and the Polish term for Italy - "Włochy".
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You seem to be taking ethnicity pretty serious for a guy who says it should be avoided in serious debate. Ethnicity is entirely arbitrary, that's why it should be avoided. For example, the genetic line of what your calling the clearly Native Americans traces back to Asia. You've arbitrarily decided that their ethnicity is defined at a certain time in their lineage. Ehy aren't they Asians or even Africans? There is cu…
You seem to be taking ethnicity pretty serious for a guy who says it should be avoided in serious debate. I take language and debate serious. For example, the genetic line of what your calling the clearly Native Americans traces back to Asia. You've arbitrarily decided that their ethnicity is defined at a certain time in their lineage. Why aren't they Asians or even Africans? Yes I have arbitrarily decided, based on…
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Americans are whatever, British ethnicity is a thing though
Ethnicity is hard to define and a term that spurs a lot of debate. Therefore I think it is best avoided in serious discussion. For America (and in extension the american continent) it is quite clear who is ethnically native, actually it is probably one of the clearest examples there is partly because it is near in history. And already it gets messy when you dig deeper because of limited record keeping etc. Broadly in…
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Rome was famously multi-ethnic. This is sort of like asking who are the "ethnic Americans". It's just the wrong question to ask.
What do you mean? Native American Indians are exactly ethnic Americans. The rest are from other ethnicities. Just as there were (are) ethnic Romans.
“What then is the American, this new man? He is either an European, or the descendant of an European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.”
~J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, 1782 https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/letter_03.asp