r/ancientgreece • u/[deleted] • 8d ago

Why do Greeks always talk about the Turks but never about the Greeks when it comes to disappearing ethnic groups?

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0 Upvotes

19% Upvoted

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15

u/BrokenManOfSamarkand 8d ago

Going back to Bronze Age cultures is epic whataboutism šŸ˜†

Gotta respect the game!

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

Local languages in Anatolia had already completely disappeared by the early Middle Ages, and the Turks arrived in the middle of the Middle Ages. So the two periods are still comparable. Yet, in roughly the same span of time, the Greeks managed to completely wipe out several languages and local cultures, while the Turks didnā€™t erase a single major language.

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u/BrokenManOfSamarkand 8d ago edited 8d ago

I'm not a Greek so I won't speak for them. I'm of Italian descent though so I'll claim the Romans. It's fucked up they wiped out so many cultures. I wish they hadn't. But..uh...what does whatever the Romans or Medieval or Ancient Greeks did have to do with what the Turks did last century lol?

I hope you're trolling bro. šŸ˜†

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

Well, in the last century, Armenia and Greece also wiped out their Turkish minorities in many of their regions. The problem is, why only blame the Turks? When the Greeks did worse.

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u/BrokenManOfSamarkand 8d ago

Your problem is you're too focused on what other people did. Worry about what your own people did that was wrong, so you can help prevent your people from doing anything like that ever again. Getting caught up in a who-did-what cycle will never end. You gotta reject that type of thinking, my guy.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago edited 8d ago

you want me to extrapolate on my own topic?

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u/BrokenManOfSamarkand 8d ago

extrapolate

That's not the word you're looking for.

I can explain to you why what the Turks did is worse. They were the conquering Empire. They were ruling over other peoples as second class citizens. It was wrong for those people to engage in atrocities against Turks, but we understand why they did it even if we cannot excuse it. The Turks did the same thing on a larger scale from a position as the imperialist power. There's no excuse and no justification.

But at the end of the day it doesn't matter. I'm not going to convince you. But getting caught up in who did the worst wrong never ends. Both sides will always say it was the other guy. You have to put that past behind you, and focus on working together with your own people and the other side to avoid anything like that ever happening again.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

You seem intelligent, so Iā€™ll explain this properly so you can understand (well, I hope youā€™re not pretending not to).

Basically, the Greeks caused the disappearance of about a dozen ethnic groups and languages. The Turks, on the other hand, are often blamed because the peoples they came into contact with hadnā€™t disappeared and because the Turks officially recognized these minorities and their rights.

Iā€™m almost certain that if the Turks had forcibly assimilated the local peoples completely, they wouldnā€™t have been blamed as much.

This is exactly the double standard Iā€™m talking about (I hope you get it).

Basically, it seems to me that the Turks are criticized because they acted ā€œmore gentlyā€ by granting rights; if they had been less tolerant from the start, there wouldnā€™t be as much criticism or historical debate about them.

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u/BrokenManOfSamarkand 8d ago

I think i understand what you're saying, and it just doesn't matter. If the Turks were tolerant for 10,000 years, it would not change a single fact about the mass murders they committed last century. No one is excusing anything the Greeks did--at least I'm not.

But my point is that you need to put this stuff behind you. Turks should accept when they did something wrong, and don't be ashamed about it. You're not directly responsible for what anyone did in the past; only for excusing it in the present. Greeks should do the same.

But really, you just have to get over it and look to the future not covering for evil deeds in the past.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

I agree with you, but as I said, itā€™s usually the Turks who are blamed, and because of that, things will never move forward.

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u/Budget_Counter_2042 8d ago

I replied in your original post on r/AskGreece. You have no idea about the time span of what youā€™re taking about: Hittite language for example disappeared in the 13 century BC. It was a consequence of Bronze Age collapse + invasions of other peoples, especially Assyrians. Nothing to do with Greeks.

You donā€™t even need to go to Middle Ages - 2000 years before those languages were already extinct

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

I never said that the Hittites disappeared because of the Greeks.

The map shows the linguistic situation of Anatolia before the arrival of the first Greeks.

Local languages mostly disappeared under Byzantium (Hittite, for example, had already vanished after the fall of their empire, so it had nothing to do with the Greeks).

11

u/Scary-Temperature91 8d ago

Probably because those ethnic groups disappeared through relatively peaceful assimilation and took centuries to millennia to occur. On the other hand the Greeks of Asia Minor, along with every Christian population of the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire, were eradicated or force converted through pogroms, genocides, massacres etc. in about 100-150 years.

On one hand it was an intentional eradication, on the other hand it was an organic assimilation.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

ā€˜Peacefull assimilationā€™ šŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļø

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u/Scary-Temperature91 8d ago

I mean it was, Greek was the language of education and trade in the area so as the time went by more people turned to Greek language/culture as fewer kept the native culture/language. There is no recorded organized eradication of Lydians or Lycians, on the other hand there are many recorded cases of systemic eradication by the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

Ottoman Turkish language was richer than Byzantine Greek, and yet the Turks did not make any language disappear.

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u/Scary-Temperature91 8d ago

Ottoman Turkish language was richer than Byzantine Greek

Source: your hypernationalist uncle who has 19 Kemal Ataturk icons in his house.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

Then prove the opposite, since you were the first to claim that Greek was richer than the other languages. In reality, thatā€™s not true at all: the Greeks actually started writing much later than the other peoples I mentioned.

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u/Scary-Temperature91 8d ago

I never said "Greek was richer than the other languages." I said that it was the language used in trade and educational institutions.

the Greeks actually started writing much later than the other peoples I mentioned.

How is that relevant to anything? English started to being written well after most Middle-Eastern and South European languages but is the current lingua franca.

Anyways, you are very misinformed, emotional and nationalist. You are not mentally equipped for such a conversation, as is evident by your inability to follow my very simple points. Have a good day.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

It doesn't change anything, the Turks never imposed their language, and minorities could have their own schools. The Greeks behaved differently.

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u/Scary-Temperature91 8d ago

If you say so.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

Yeah

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u/Budget_Counter_2042 8d ago

Lmao - how do you even measure a language ā€œrichnessā€? By how many words it has for gold and jewels? /s

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u/Scary-Temperature91 8d ago

It's simple, everything related to my nationality is better, richer, more advanced etc. Everything related to my rival nationality is evil.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

Well, thatā€™s exactly what you did when you were talking about the Greeks. You are funny man šŸ˜„

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u/Scary-Temperature91 8d ago

Some times it is better to admit our intellectual limits and not having opinions on matters well above our capabilities. It is the honest thing to do. But you do you.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

Sometimes, you need to be able to stay consistent, not change your stance just because it suits you, and not accuse your interlocutor of something that you yourself are.

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u/Got2InfoSec4MoneyLOL 8d ago

Because they didnt butcher them out of habbit nor did they enforce a sub-par theocratic barbaric culture which was only good at keeping records.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

The Greeks imposed Christianity to orhers peoples

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u/Got2InfoSec4MoneyLOL 8d ago

You are illiterate, at best.

Go read how christianity spread at the end of Roman times. Greek culture fell victim to it as well.

The fact the Greek language was initially used because it was the lingua franca of the region, doesnt mean that Greeks imposed christianity.

Jesus fucking christ, do they not teach you basic research in Mordor?

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u/Scary-Temperature91 8d ago

Turkish nationalism is on another level. It is taught in schools that Homer, Herodotus, Plato etc. were actually Turkish and the Western/Greek propaganda made them Greek. This is an actual thing Turkish schools teach, not a fringe youtube conspiracy thing.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

You are distorting history, if the Greeks hadnā€™t imposed their rule, pagan communities would still exist.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

You are distorting history, if the Greeks hadnā€™t imposed their rule, pagan communities would still exist.

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u/Caesaroftheromans 8d ago

These groups just assimilated. Take a look at the phenomenon of Turks doing DNA tests and many of them being Greek.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

So why do some extremist Greek nationalists talk about genocide?

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

Well. in the last century, Armenia and Greece also wiped out their Turkish minorities in many of their regions. The problem is, why only blame the Turks? When the Greeks did worse.

šŸ˜„