This study may also apply to Ethiopia.
(ScienceDaily) — Central Asian ethnic groups are more defined by societal rules than ancestry. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Genetics found that overall there are more genetic differences within ethnic groups than between them, indicating that separate ‘ethnic groups’ exist in the mind more than the blood.
Evelyne Heyer, from the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, France, led an international team of researchers who studied mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome data from several populations of two major language ethnic groups of Central Asia, the Turkic and Indo-Iranian groups.
She said: “Our results indicate that, for at least two of the Turkic groups in Central Asia, ethnicity is a constructed social system maintaining genetic boundaries with other groups, rather than being the outcome of common genetic ancestry.”
The boundaries used by individuals to distinguish themselves from members of other ethnic groups are generally cultural, linguistic, economic, religious and political. Heyer and her colleagues confirm the absence of common ancestry in a specific ethnic group; there were on average more differences between members of the same ethnic group than there were between groups.
Speaking about these findings, Heyer said: “Analysis of genetic data, such as in this study, is an important tool for investigating ethnological issues.”
9 thoughts on “No such thing as ethnic groups, researchers say”
I hope the looters and killers who use ethnicity for their evil deeds and goals reads this and understands it.
How can one uses his “geniousity” for intriguing, looting and killing rather than uniting the people and do a sustainable development useful for all.
this is what OLF has been telling you people for years! Oromo is not an ethnic group, gosa blah blah
Oromo is a nation!
I agree with the above article. Let me justify it using a genealogic data I have had done recently.
I am a pure Ethiopian and there is no question about that, if there is who questions my identity-it is only the Woyanese. I wanted to take part in Dr Spencer’s genealogic research. After few searches on the Internet, I applied for a test kit from the family tree genealogical research in Houston, Texas. I was sent a test kit to swap it on my check and to send it for analysis.
After I posted it for analysis, it took a very long four weeks to get the result. As they do not have any clue ‘who I am’, I was very apprehensive and excited to find out what they are going to discover.
When I received the result I couldn’t believe where they grouped me under. To begin with, the report started by stating that I belong to the group of humans of non-African origin. What they meant was my Y chromosome is very different to the Y chromosome of people who are African natives. To be specific I was grouped under Haplogroup G. This group is predominatently found in the Caucus region, in the area around Armenia, Georgia and Turkey. However, this haplogroup is also found in other parts of Europe, it can be also be found in Ethiopia and southern Europe.
This single result shows even the Woyanes juntas DNA is not different and would not show any similarities among themselves. If it is the looting and the killing that makes them to belong to the same ethnic group, let it be for just only for them. The truth is they cannot substantiate their ethnic based politics. They cannot change and escape from their imprinted DNA.
How are they going to label me now, as Oromo or Amhara or Tigray or Georgian? Or what? I leave the answer for the short sighted and racist Woyanese to answer. But the truth is I am An Ethiopia. An Ethiopian as any Ethiopian can be.
The researchers’ conclusion is erroneous because ethinicity does NOT only constructed by socialsystem maintaining genetic boundaries with other groups but by other factors including ansecterial blood root. As a resultthe primodial root of any nations are to be found in kinship, i.e, blood relationship. As a nation – Ethiopia, which include many ethnic groups, had manifested in this way of blood relationship from fathers to childrens. This, a nation Ethiopia had grown by a process of differentation and opposition. It is nature and nurture.
IT IS NOT EITHER OR, BUT BOTH.
I agree with the conclusion of the study showed up in ScienceDaily. What seems to be exclusively in theirs is also in us, and what seems to be exclusively in us is also in theirs–we just don’t know it. So, why are Woyanies confusing the world and the Ethiopians, in particular? The problem we have is the serious obsession in naming and expressing. If we keep on telling a certain group of people that their enemies are the other group of people, then we are making them believe more of their distinctions than their oneness, or similarities. So, Woyanies and the likes of them are in the business of deceiving millions by using expressions that leads to more and more of separation, which might even lead to secession. We have no choice except to go along with it as we are trying to be one and a complete whole. Having said that, we shall not need to submit to tyranny. Ya, we can do better than that. Didn’t we learn enough from our own country’s political journey of the near past? If more people pour out the latest thoughts available, with respecto to the subject matter of ethnicity, I will read it.
Thanks all.
The Weyane mafia gangsters come with all sorts of means to prolong their life in power. We need to be aware of this fact and fight back their propaganda. We Ethiopian are much closer than the Mafia rule is trying to devide us. United we stand divided we fall.
According to Human Genetics studies,it is known for a long time now that Ethiopia is a hot-spot of genetic diversity.
The heterogeneity is manifested not in terms of one ethnic group versus another but it is expressed rather intra-ethnically i.e within the confines of each group.In other words,people within one ethnic group are found out to be more genetically diverse amongst themselves than people of other ethnic group.To give an example,Amharas may exhibit more genetic similarity with Oromos or Tigraynas than fellow Amharans.
As a result,this renders ethnicity a CONSTRUCTED entity which is based on linguistic or socio-cultural determinants rather than a biological identity.
Human Genetics can therefore inform us a lot about the vexed question of ethnicity in our country and region.
A large scale DNA fingerprinting of the population with a view to highlight the patterns of migration,interbreeding or intermarriages and the development various languages following such patterns may shed significant light on the politics of ethnicity in Ethiopia.
When the light of science shines on those dingy and dark areas of our thinking,it can decisively dispel conflict born out of ignorance.
For Woyane thugs, ethnicity is a matter of blood only. Pschological make up and way of life of the person have no place.An Amhara who is born and grew up in Oromia region is denied of his rights in that region.A person who is born in American is American, where ever his parents come from.For woyanes this person should go back to his/her parents’ country to claim any rights.This is absolutely funny.
I have never thought that ethnicity is gentic based. It is very interesting to find even a friction of my body is genetically related to other group group of my ethnic group.