Scientists reveal Jewish history's forgotten Turkish roots

[MikeWB]

Scientists reveal Jewish history's forgotten Turkish roots
Israeli-born geneticist believes the Turkish villages of Iskenaz, Eskenaz and Ashanaz were part of the original homeland for Ashkenazic Jews

    David Keys Archaeology Correspondent
    @davidmkeys
    Tuesday 19 April 2016 23:15 BST

New research suggests that the majority of the world's modern Jewish population is descended mainly from people from ancient Turkey, rather than predominantly from elsewhere in the Middle East.

The new research suggests that most of the Jewish population of northern and eastern Europe – normally known as Ashkenazic Jews – are the descendants of Greeks, Iranians and others who colonized what is now northern Turkey more than 2000 years ago and were then converted to Judaism, probably in the first few centuries AD by Jews from Persia. At that stage, the Persian Empire was home to the world's largest Jewish communities.

According to research carried out by the geneticist, Dr Eran Elhaik of the University of Sheffield, over 90 per cent of Ashkenazic ancestors come from that converted partially Greek-originating ancient community in north-east Turkey.
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His research is based on genetic, historical and place-name evidence. For his geographic genetic research, Dr Elhaik used a Geographic Population Structure computer modelling system to convert Ashkenazic Jewish DNA data into geographical information.

Dr Elhaik, an Israeli-born geneticist who gained his doctorate in molecular evolution from the University of Houston, believes that three still-surviving Turkish villages – Iskenaz, Eskenaz and Ashanaz – on the western part of an ancient Silk Road route were part of the original Ashkenazic homeland. He believes that the word Ashkenaz originally comes from Ashguza - the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian name for the Iron Age Eurasian steppeland people, the Scythians.

Referring to the names of the three Turkish villages, Dr Elhaik points out that "north-east Turkey is the only place in the world where these place-names exist".
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Ulta-orthodox Ashkenazic Jews during a protest in Jerusalem last year (Getty Images)

From the 690s AD onwards, anti-Jewish persecution by the Christian Byzantine Empire seems to have played a part in forcing large numbers of Jews to flee across the Black Sea to a more friendly state – the Turkic-ruled Khazar Empire with its large Slav and other populations.

Some analyses of Yiddish suggests that it was originally a Slavic language, and Dr Elhaik and others believe that it was developed, probably in the 8th and 9th centuries AD, by Jewish merchants trading along some of the more northerly Silk Roads linking China and Europe.

By the 730s, the Khazar Empire had begun to convert to Judaism – and more people converted to the faith.
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But when the Khazar Empire declined in or around the 11th century, some of the Jewish population almost certainly migrated west into Central Europe. There, as Yiddish-speaking Jewish merchants came into contact with central  European, often German-speaking, peoples, they began to replace the Slav words in Yiddish with large numbers of German and German-derived words, while retaining some of its Slav-originating grammar. Many Hebrew words also appear to have been added by that stage.
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The genetic modelling used in the research was based on DNA data from 367 Jews of northern and eastern European origin and more than 600 non-Jewish people mainly from Europe and western Asia.

Dr Elhaik says it is the largest genomic study ever carried out on Ashkenazic Jews. His research will be published in the UK-based scientific journal, Genome Biology and Evolution.

Further research is planned to try to measure the precise size of the Semitic genetic input into Jewish and non-Jewish genomes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/scientists-reveal-jewish-historys-forgotten-turkish-roots-a6992076.html

[MikeWB]

DNA sat nav uncovers ancient Ashkenaz and Yiddish origins


UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD—The origin of Yiddish, the millennium old language of Ashkenazic Jews, is something which linguists have questioned for decades.

Now, a pioneering tool - the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) - which converts DNA data into its ancestral coordinates, has helped scientists pinpoint that the DNA of Yiddish speakers could have originated from four ancient villages in north-eastern Turkey.

The research, led by Dr Eran Elhaik from the University of Sheffield, suggests the Yiddish language was invented by Iranian and Ashkenazic Jews as they traded on the Silk Road.

The ancient villages, identified by the GPS tool, are clustered close to the crossroads of the Silk Roads and are named Iskenaz, Eskenaz, Ashanaz, and Ashkuz - names which may derive from the word "Ashkenaz."

"Language, geography and genetics are all connected," said Dr Eran Elhaik from the University's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences.

"Using the GPS tool to analyse the DNA of sole Yiddish and non-Yiddish speakers, we were able to predict the possible ancestral location where Yiddish originated over 1,000 years ago - a question which linguists have debated over for many years."

He added: "North east Turkey is the only place in the world where these place names exist - which strongly implies that Yiddish was established around the first millennium at a time when Jewish traders who were plying the Silk Road moved goods from Asia to Europe wanted to keep their monopoly on trade.

"They did this by inventing Yiddish - a secret language that very few can speak or understand other than Jews. Our findings are in agreement with an alternative theory that suggests Yiddish has Iranian, Turkish, and Slavic origins and explains why Yiddish contains 251 words for the terms 'buy' and 'sell'. This is what we can expect from a language of experienced merchants."

Yiddish, which incorporates German, Slavic and Hebrew, and is written in Aramaic letters, is commonly thought to be an old German dialect.

However, an alternative theory proposed by Professor Paul Wexler from the University of Tel Aviv and also an author on the study, suggests that Yiddish is a Slavic language that used to have both Slavic grammar and words but in time shed its Slavic lexicon and replaced it with common and unfamiliar German words.

The findings of the study, published today (Wednesday 20 April 2016) in Genome Biology and Evolution, led researchers to believe that towards the end of the first millennium, Ashkenazic Jews may have relocated to Khazaria before moving into Europe half a millennium later after the fall of the Khazarian Empire, and during a time when the international trading networks collapsed.

As Yiddish became the primary language of Ashkenazic Jews, the language began to acquire new words from other cultures while retaining its Slavic grammar.

Dr Elhaik said: "Yiddish is such a wonderful and complex language, which was inappropriately called "bad German" by both its native and non-native speakers because the language consists of made-up German words and a non-German grammar.

"Yiddish is truly a combination of familiar and adapted German words using Slavic grammar. In a sense the language uses the same premise as Yoda from the Star Wars movies. For example, Yoda's language consists of common and made-up English words like 'Wookie' or 'Jedi' but the grammar is different - the words are used in a different order to what we are familiar with."

He added: "Utilizing the GPS ancestry technology and applying it to the DNA of sole Yiddish speakers and non-Yiddish speakers allowed us to find the ancestral origins of their DNA. The GPS tool indicates where ancient Ashkenaz could have existed over 1,500 years ago."

Professor Paul Wexler, from the University of Tel Aviv, said: "The linguistic data used are from Yiddish, which we assume was invented in Western Asia as a Slavic language with a largely German-like lexicon and a significant Iranian component on all levels of the language.

"The genetic data presented here appear to corroborate the linguistic hypothesis."

http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/spring-2016/article/dna-sat-nav-uncovers-ancient-ashkenaz-and-yiddish-origins

[yankeedoodle]

Better turn IS loose on Turkey, then, so the fucking jews can continue their search for their fucking roots. 

This is just so much more shit-stirring nonsense.

FOR FUCK SAKE, did it take the fucking jews until 2016 to stumble upon not one, not two, but three - YES, THREE - fucking villages in Turkey with these names:  Iskenaz, Eskenaz and Ashanaz?

But, this keeps the jews busy, doesn't it?  Great careers for their "intellectuals," as well as their publishers, booksellers, etc., etc.