The Origin of the German, Huns and Bulgar people

[unmerged(271387)]

Today I listened to a new theory of a friend of mine who is into history. He told me that the Germanic people and the Bulgars ( as in the Bulgarians before comiong to the present day region of Bulgaria) all share the common ancestry of the Huns, and as such the Bulgarians and the Germanic races share common ancestry. But before that I had heard that the Germanic people came from Scandinavia ( to put it really simply ).
What is actually the reality, or what we know as reality about these people ?

 

[Loke]

Germanic people was already in Europe when huns arrived.

 

[Calad]

Well it is speculated that Goths are from Sweden or atleast lived there. Today there are many Gothic names in Sweden like Götland, island of Gotland and Göteborg.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

Aren't today's Bulgarians mainly Turks who speak a Slavic language?

 

[AndreiTLC]

Aren't today's Bulgarians mainly Turks who speak a Slavic language?

God no.Today s bulgarians,are a mix of slavic and thracian populations.

Medieval bulgarians,were an turk speaking tribe,wich didn t have a stable population.There were asians,turkish and white people in those tribes.

Huns where the same,but I believe they were mostly asian people.

 

[Fishman786]

Germans seem to have originated in Germany and southern Scandinavia, and have been there at least since Roman times. They also began to move eastward during the 2nd and 3rd centuries (IIRC) across Poland, the Carpathian basin and the Ukraine.

Huns? Nobody knows where the Huns come from. Or really much about them at all. Generally they're believed to have migrated from the steppes, but nobody is sure where in the steppe the originated from. The traditional theory has been that they're part of the population of the Xiongnu Empire (a proto-Mongolian tribal confederation) that migrated west after the empire was destroyed. Other theories are that they come from the western steppes originally like the Magyars etc or that they come from the very distant lands of eastern Siberia near the Lena river, to name just the two most geographically-distant locations. They are a bit of an 'Atlantis' people really.

Bulgarians are rather odd. Modern Bulgaria is a blend of Slavic, Ottoman Turkish and Greek influences, much like the other Balkan countries. But the people who the country is named for, the Bulgars, were originally none of those things. The Bulgars were steppe nomads from Ukraine and southern Russia, a region that was called 'Old Great Bulgaria', and may have had their origins as one of the Hun tribes. The Bulgars migrated in two directions. One group of them took the traditional route to the southwest into Europe, where they created a Bulgar Khanate, the First Bulgarian Empire. This Khanate became a Christian Kingdom and was heavily-Slavicised, and eventually was conquered by the Byzantine Empire. Incidentally, the First Bulgarian Empire was where the Cyrillic script was invented. The second group of Bulgars did something very odd for steppe nomads, and migrated north into the fringes of the Taiga, where they created the country of Volga Bulgaria. The Volga Bulgars were converted to Islam by Muslim merchants and missionaries, and remained a semi-influential force in Russia and the western steppes until their conquest by the Mongols.

 

[medopu]

Aren't today's Bulgarians mainly Turks who speak a Slavic language?

wow, that is a massive provocation :rofl: Come next time, when RedRalphWiggum also explain how greeks and romanians are slavs who speak Romanian and greek languages. X-D

 

[enigmamcmxc]

The traditional theory has been that they're part of the population of the Xiongnu Empire (a proto-Mongolian tribal confederation) that migrated west after the empire was destroyed.

The "Huns" of Chinese legend. I read a while back that the Xiongnu and the Huns (as in the ones who invaded Europe) have no similar archeological evidence (pottery, city layouts etc), thus consensus has started to move towards them being different peoples.

 

[Fishman786]

The "Huns" of Chinese legend. I read a while back that the Xiongnu and the Huns (as in the ones who invaded Europe) have no similar archeological evidence (pottery, city layouts etc), thus consensus has started to move towards them being different peoples.

Oddly enough, 'White Huns' also arrived in Persia about a century after the regular Huns came to the Eurasian steppes. And these supposed 'Huns' are even more mysterious than the western Huns, to the point that we don't even know if they deserve the name 'Hun' at all. European Huns, whilst mysterious in their own right, were clearly nomads, whilst the 'White Huns' were probably a settled people.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

God no.Today s bulgarians,are a mix of slavic and thracian populations.

Medieval bulgarians,were an turk speaking tribe,wich didn t have a stable population.There were asians,turkish and white people in those tribes.

Huns where the same,but I believe they were mostly asian people.

Huh, I thought I had read they were heavily intermixed with Turks to the degree where the majority had Turkish blood.

 

[enigmamcmxc]

Oddly enough, 'White Huns' also arrived in Persia about a century after the regular Huns came to the Eurasian steppes. And these supposed 'Huns' are even more mysterious than the western Huns, to the point that we don't even know if they deserve the name 'Hun' at all. European Huns, whilst mysterious in their own right, were clearly nomads, whilst the 'White Huns' were probably a settled people.

That's a lot of Huns! It seems any nomadic culture living around or coming from the Steppe gets labeled as Huns.

 

[Andrelvis]

Huh, I thought I had read they were heavily intermixed with Turks to the degree where the majority had Turkish blood.

There is no such thing as "Turkish blood", Ralph. Being Turkish is a cultural thing ("Turkish blood" exists only in imagination). In fact, people in Turkey are mostly not descended from ancient Turks, but from Hittites, Greeks and other Indo-European peoples living in Anatolia and Asia Minor. That's why people from Turkey look similar to Greeks.

 

[RedRalphWiggum]

There is no such thing as "Turkish blood", Ralph. Being Turkish is a cultural thing ("Turkish blood" exists only in imagination). In fact, people in Turkey are mostly not descended from ancient Turks, but from Hittites, Greeks and other Indo-European peoples living in Anatolia and Asia Minor. That's why people from Turkey look similar to Greeks.

Oh look, I know all that, I wasn't being particularly careful with my terminology. What I meant was there there was very little genetic variation between them and most Turks (at least that's what I think I mean, I'm clearly not that well up on the jargon here). Or maybe that genetically they were closer to the average Turk than the average Slav?

I know all this stuff is largely arbitrarily constructed.

 

[Arilou]

Well it is speculated that Goths are from Sweden or atleast lived there. Today there are many Gothic names in Sweden like Götland, island of Gotland and Göteborg.

Probably not. Gothic is fairly distantly related (as far as germanic languages go) from the scandinavian languages. The names are likely simple paralell developments (it probably in the great tradition of ethnonyms just means "Men")

 

[Andrelvis]

Oh look, I know all that, I wasn't being particularly careful with my terminology. What I meant was there there was very little genetic variation between them and most Turks (at least that's what I think I mean, I'm clearly not that well up on the jargon here). Or maybe that genetically they were closer to the average Turk than the average Slav?

I know all this stuff is largely arbitrarily constructed.

I think (but am not sure) that Balkanic peoples as a whole are quite genetically similar, and are also related to Anatolian peoples. I don't think Bulgarians have a significantly different genetic make-up from Serbians or Greeks. By contrast, Poles look significantly different from Serbians, even though they are both Slavic peoples. The Slavic migrations had a deep impact in culture and social organization, but it seems they didn't change much regarding genetics. Bulgarians probably look similar to the average Turks not because of anything that happened in the Middle Ages period, but due to population patterns far preceding the arrival of either Turkic or Slavic peoples in the Balko-Anatolian region.

 

[Kovax]

As far as I've read, the Huns were primarily an alliance or forced merger of eastern steppe tribes, which drove out other nomadic groups ahead of its steady advance westward. Some of those displaced groups in turn displaced others, which may have led to situations like the so-called "White Huns".

The Germanic tribes were already well established in Roman times, and the area had been (sparsely?) settled for millennia before that. I don't know of any actual evidence that they migrated there in any reasonably recent timeframe, and they may have already been present from the preceding ice age. There were probably numerous smaller incursions of Scandinavian and other groups, which would have had a modest influence on their makeup, but not a fundamental change.

Turkey saw several major migrations and conquests during the thousand or so years before the "classical" period, so the ethnic makeup there was already somewhat of a mix. Subsequent events added settlers and conquerors from both east and west to the ethnic blend. The Bulgars were probably another group that migrated from the East, and mixed with the local Slavic population, with Turkic and other influences and incursions to further stir the pot.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

That's a lot of Huns! It seems any nomadic culture living around or coming from the Steppe gets labeled as Huns.

The White Huns/Hephthalites actually referred to themselves as Huns, possibly to invoke fear in their enemies. Personally, I'm in favour of the Iranian/Tocharian theory of origin.

 

[unmerged(271387)]

Thank you everyone.

 

[Avernite]

The Germanic tribes were already well established in Roman times, and the area had been (sparsely?) settled for millennia before that. I don't know of any actual evidence that they migrated there in any reasonably recent timeframe, and they may have already been present from the preceding ice age. There were probably numerous smaller incursions of Scandinavian and other groups, which would have had a modest influence on their makeup, but not a fundamental change.

IIRC placenames suggest the Germanic people were living in southern Sweden first; that is, that's the place where nearly all place/river/landmark names are firmly Germanic, while everywhere else there's some prior namings shining through. I do not know if that means the Germanic people were the first settlers after the ice age, or if southern Sweden just was so sparsely populated that no names were saved.

 

[chepaeff]

The second group of Bulgars did something very odd for steppe nomads, and migrated north into the fringes of the Taiga, where they created the country of Volga Bulgaria.

Its not taiga :angry: