What is the percentage of the pure Greeks?

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Ioannis Tsimiskis

Greater than yours:
1. We speak Greek, in the country where this language was formed, and not a pseudo - Bulgarian idiom like your language.
2. We keep till today very ancient customs (like the burial and funeral ones) while you don't seem to have any (but stolen from other Slavs).
3. 98% we have the same religion, when your percentage is unidentified.
4. We are not a mixture of Bulgarians pretending to be ancient Greeks, Gypsies and Albanians.
5. We don't substitute our food (which you hardly can have) with ancient (stolen) glory.

5. We do not substitute food

Odile

Wow is there some sort of ethnic cleansing being planned?!

Elaine

Pure? There are no "pure" races and nations. And we've all seen where such theories lead...

zigzag

I dont understand your question...If you want to say that greeks is not a pure race, find me others who are pure...In all countries are mixted, dont forget that out country has been invaded many times by different people, so if there is something mixted, it would be natural

Myrina

A great one.
Mixed marriages took place in the past only between Christians, never between Christian Greeks and Ottoman Turks. Therefore, mixed marriages between Greeks and Arvanites, who were Christian, have happened.
There is the example of the Greeks of Pontos: those who used to live in Sinopi, Trapezounta, Amisos, Kerasounta, Argiroupolis. Even Fallmerayer claimed that Pontian Greeks were pure descendants of Ancient Greeks and never mixed up with the Muslims (Turks or of other origin) of that area. Even today when you look at people living in villages of Pontos you see Greek features in their faces.

Just remember one thing: Ellines einai oi tis ellinikis paideias metehontes. Therefore: even in mixed marriages in the past, their children were Greek because they took part in Greek culture and education, just like Ancient Greeks used to do!

Charles_N

No we re all mixed and we like it coz this means other nations fancy us loads ;-) :-P
anyways seriously now : there are too theories one belongs to Cavalli Sforza and others which talks about a continuity of greeks through the ancient times and Jakob Fallmerayer's which opposes that and talks about a slav-albanian mix and blah blah...somebody talks about rosenberger below..do we now have to accept nazi-theories or what?get serious man...
some thoughts
1.a nation is characterised by culture language geographical space so let somebody who speaks greek be greek the turkish-speaker to be turk etc
2.why do the greeks only have to be soooooooooo mixed - and why do u have a problem with that? - while all the nations around greece were enslaved from the Ottomans for much more time than today's Greece,are the Greeks the only ones who're mixed?BU ha ha ha..good joke
3.will u haters of greece finally deside where do the greeks come from?some of u talk about ethiopia and stuff like that(lol well maybe but then we re all from africa due to the evolution theory) some others about slav/albanian origins some others about middle east maybe in one-two yrs u ll find a new theory about greeks comin from japan
4.i ve got a theory myself...same fields produce same..fruits etc...a human which will get born in greece (geographic) in the ancient years or in 2010 will have 90% possibilities to be brown/black haired and 10% to be blonde coz of the light conditions etc and will have more chances to have slightly darker skin than northern europeans and whiter than middle east etc so even if there's no continuity between ancients and modern u ll probably see similar by their appearance people in the same place in different eras..(excluding emmigants children etc)
5.i wish everybody was multinational and not pure we already mourned for millions of victims in this planet coz of those purity stupidities and fanatic theories
6.I don't have to belong to a nation to feel proud about myself and i wish some of u were feeling the same and don't seek for ancient bright anchestors coz u re doing nothing more than drinkin coffee watching tv and playing playstation ancient glory won't feed any of u so calm down...all countries today have scientists and stuff a nationality won't make u special neither more clever
7.Aegean belongs to it's fish! ;-)

Trek T

Last time I checked, every Greek is pure Greek.
As in... every Greek (as in citizen of Greece) has Greek citizenship.
If they did not have Greek citizenship, they would not be Greeks.

Therefore your question has a large hole.
What exactly are you referring to?

cpinatsi

1. There is no way to answer such a question or to know sth. like this for a people with such a long history. There are no racially pure people, apart from some forgotten tribes lost in the jungle for centuries, perhaps. But even those do not exist any more. Besides, even ancient Greeks incorporated pre-existing people called pre-Hellenes, Minoans, etc, so what exactly is "pure Greek"?
2. Racial purity is an issue only for nazis.
3. Greek population has had many mixes mostly during Byzantium, with Arvanites, even Slavs, and tehy were incorporated into Greek culture in a way that they have no idea - most of them - of their origin lost in centuries. Also Latins (French, Venetians) settled in some areas in the Middle Ages, They are as Greek as anyone else.
4. Mixes with Turks have not happened almost at all, due to the religious difference, despite the long occupation of Greece by the Ottoman Empire. Some Turks who look Greek may actually be of Greek descendance, since some Greek populations were islamised after 1071 in the depths of Asia Minor, of course they are Turks now, but genetically they may be Greek. But even they may have been hellenised local populations who had become "Greeks" after the conquests of Alexander, but they were not genetically Greek anyway.
5. If you know Greeks well enough, you will find out that after all the above, the resulting majority of Greeks have become definitely distinctive than other people in terms of appearance. I think it is in the big almond shaped eyes and generally elegant (thin) facial features. Turks look different, Italians look difefrent, Spanish look different. Maybe not to a complete foreign, but I can tell teh difference. I even met a Greek American once, abroad, and was so sure she was Greek that I spoke Greek to her, and she was amazed that I understood she was Greek, but she was a typical Greek face.
6. There are some Greeks that have the distinct ancient Greek face. You would bet their face is the same as some ancient sculptures.
7. There are exceptions for all the above.

8. Overall, the ancient genes do exist, I believe. As for blond tall Germanic types, well Greeks never were like that. If you read ancient litterature, people of rare beauty as described as blonde, which shows that people admired this feature so it was not very common. If you see the statues, many of which still conserve colour, the hair is painted brown.
9. What is this bs about Italians being blonde? I've been to Italy many times, I have relatives there and friends. they are all brunettes. BTW, in Southern Italy many are of greek ancestry, as Greeks had colonised Southern Italy and they remained pure Greek until the 12th century. And still there are villages where they speak a greek dialect.

Zoi ((Ζωή))

If you believe what Wikipedia says, most of the Greeks are descendants of ancient Greeks.
If you ask my opinion, we are PURE DESCENDANTS of the Byzantines, with everything that this means. And yes, we know that the term 'Byzantine' is made up by the historicers, we teach it in Greece at the 2d Grade of the Middle School (they called themselves Romii or Romani, Politeia Romaiwn was what they called their State). Greece is a PURELY Western Country, too bad that this fact annoys some people and they try to find ways to humiliate Greek folk, when Greeks don't disturbe them.

This is what Wikipedia says about purity, as you asked:
Genetic origins
Modern studies have constructed Greek genetic trees revealing a strong degree of homogeneity between Greeks from different geographical locations.
Recent genetic analysis of Greek populations have provided evidence of statistically SIGNIFICANT CONTINUITY between ancient and modern Greeks (low admixture attributed to genetic isolation due to physical barriers).
Modern scholars and scientists have supported the notion that there is a racial connection to the ancient Greeks. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza, have found evidence of a genetic connection between the ancient and modern Greeks.
SOME authors in the West and TURKEY [85] have posited that the Greeks of today are not culturally or demographically related to the Greeks of classical antiquity.
----
@Trotcky and everyone else: IT IS APPARENT WHO DOES DNA RESEARCHES AND IT IS NOT GREECE.
ALSO I WOULD LIKE SOMEONE TO REMIND ME WHEN IT WAS THE LAST TIME THAT A GREEK MADE A QUESTION IN ANOTHER SECTION, ASKING PEOPLE FOR ITS GENS. WAS IT IN YOUR TURKISH SECTION? GREEKS ARE NOT SEARCHING FOR DNA, THEY HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO SEARCH.

Mατθαιος

Pure doesn't exist just like perfection doesn't exist.
Greeks are Greeks no matter how mixed they are.
Stop being a troll. Just because you are from the Fyrom doesn't mean you have to try to provoke Greek people.
Peace for all countries =)

Vasiliki-Βασιλική

I think your question is not clear
and you can have 3 options
1)Racially pure
2)Nationally(Genetically) pure
3)emotonially pure

For the 1) I can tell you almost 98-100% since are very very few in Greece who are not white-caucasian.
They can be tanned or whiteskinned but they are still white
2) Is not something that you can distinguish because you should have enough samples from the first (ancient) Greeks so you can form the category they are into and then make the comparison to the modern Greeks.
But is sure that is "purest" than your country
3)Not so high.People are not pure anymore,not only in Greece but everywhere...You can only find pure people living in some far away low-inhabited places,but they became less and less as the time pass....

dan g

WTF?!?! The "ancient greek race is extinct and disolved through slavic and albanian migrations"? Not likely. There is hardly any Slavic influence in the Greek gene pool . No nationality of people is 'pure', that is an oxymoron comment that is thrown around too many times without people fully understanding what they are asking. Yes there is a continuation in the modern Greek gene pool with that found in the ancient Greek gene pool. Greeks are part of the Balkan gene pool. From all the people in the world that is who Greeks cluster closer to. You won't find any none Caucasian genetic markers in the makeup of the Greeks. What this means is Greeks both modern and ancient have intermixed mostly with Caucasian populations then any other group of people through out their history.

Artemis

In our house it's 25%.

AVGVSTVS

It does not matter if you are racially "pure Greek". What matters is if you feel Greek, think like a Greek, adopt Greek history view and you are ready to fight for Greece. Period!

asimenia

Artemis - same here 25% in our house! Unless you include 'Danny Zuko' the goldfish!

Min Tous Kiklous Terates

dear asker...are we talking DNA or PHYSIOGNOMY? if we are talking physiognomy..then its easier to assess through tallying and questioner.. .but if we talking of dna...firstly you have to find a ancient greek and get thier dna..and test every one in the world. BUT if we use big words like trotsky and quote a miniscul of history or even greek history for that reason..then we might as well just belive in the simpsons.ARE the greeks pure? i dont think so ARE the turks pure i dont think so...are albanians pure i dont think so..maybe the french?...if you want even percentages it is difficult to assess.even if it is a long resource full operation going from countryt o country town by town to get statistics.on pure greeks ..in fact that goes for all the worlds countries and ethnicicity..all of them have mixed marragies and in some way or form we are all related to a certain point..dna or other wise..even our skin colour has no boundouries.you can take a white man and over centuries if his family decendants like in the same enviroment unchanged they will eventualy blend in the darker poulation..the same goes for a dark persons visa verser.and its been proven it happens. off course we can speculate or even state a figure to quell the wolfs at our doors.but what you should be asking is how many people claim to be greek by birth .i mean the greek goverment according to greek orthodox relegion can only reckonize up to five generations of direct line of blood to claim or accept that that person is GREEK. so what happens to the sixth generation? greek.are they less of a greek beacuse a relegion says so ? the dna in the sixth generation will still be of that line of blood..but WHAT you feel you are !is PARAMOUNT HERE...if you are born in a foreing country other than your fathers country.we can say its your privilage to either accept that country as your enthnocicity.or not or just adapte it but still feel your roots from where you come from.but YOUR physiognomy will stay the same. so what isPURE when it comes to nationalitys,you can only exponge what you have absorbed all your life of your enviroment.I my self is a second generation greek in a foreing country but i still extrude greek ,becuse thats what was absorb in to me when iwas child,not only that but from my own feelings and judgment .i could easly denounce my fathers country and adopt my birth country..now dna speaking i still got my fathers dna..does that still make me a greek? even though i have denounced my fathers country? i mean what is right? i say the only thing that makes you what you are is what is in your HEART...But just a point of intrest the only place you may find A PURE RACE..will be found on a remote as possible island...the only POPULUCE islands in the world that have 99% pure race ARE THE TONGONS and THE SAMOIANS..

Just Another Macedonian

What pure Greeks? That doesn't exist. They are mixed.

Trotsky vs Kerensky-дахэ дэи

0%, I'm afraid. In no time in the future you shall see arts and sciences flourishing as they did in the ancient times in the land of "Hellens", whose existence came to an end in the course of history. I strongly suggest you not to take sources like Wikipedia into account, since, anyone, including me, can edit articles on Wikipedia. I only use it to give people some introductory information. Though most people here think they are in the position to mock the DNA researches done by the citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, Greeks do not hesitate to assume sponsorship and pay incredible amounts of money for researches with, shall we say, desirable results.

"...Conquest and reconquest of Greece, the manifold migrations of the northern regions during the middle ages, must have completely obliterated the pure Hellenic race, and the so-called Hellenes of today are infact a mixed breed of Albanian, Slavonic and Latin origin...Conquered again and again, Hellenism, vanquished in arms, ever retaliated by a bloodless victory over its conquerors..." (W.A Phillips, "The War of Greek Independence")

p.s.

"Some Turks who look Greek may actually be of Greek descendance..."

I'd be immeasurably grateful if someone could care to give me accurate descriptions and information on the looks of Turks and Greeks. I am dying to spot Turks of Greek descent whilst journeying on the roads of Anatolia, do they have high cheek bones, long noses, clear-cut profiles with sandals on their feet?

Edit: Zoi, I think the interpretations of the answers left here by Greeks about their supposed Hellenic origins is open to question. If you are claiming there is not a single Greek out there who is obsessed with his/her supposed roots reaching thousands of years ago, I think you, as a Greek, have lamentably grabbed the Hellenic spirit from a frightfully irrelevant angle.

Also, I don't understand why you keep addressing me as Trotcky, we're not using the Cyrillic script here, why don't you put an "s" instead of a "c"? (Though there is no "c" there in any case. I guess "Trotchky" would be the best alternative if there is something to be said on that)

Keyser

by pure greeks i assume u mean 'ancient greeks'?

well from what iv read,next to none.the ancient greek race is extinct and disolved through slavic and albanian migrations,as well as the greeks moving away and interbreeeding with italians ect.

alot of WESTERN antropologists hold the present day christian population of greece as completly racially alien to the ancients.even hitler and nazi germany who admired ancient greece as the first 'aryan civilisation' disregarded modern greeks as decendents from the ancients, describing todays greeks as 'a hopelessly lost and mixed people'.

nazi racial intellectuals such as alfed rosenberg on visiting greece during the occupation, set foot on greek soil expecting to find northern european type greeks,naturally blonde similar to germans.

alas...he found none.

maxiumus

the Greeks are not a pure race they had lots of Invasions in the past from other Countries

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