Kurdish people

[Azamat]

[Azamat]

[aherne]

They look like Iranians (which is what they are). Definitely Middle Eastern in appearance. The great majority do not pass as European! No surprise about this...

[Azamat]

[MfA_]

[Annihilus]

A lot of them can pass as Cypriots. Some of them could be Armenian too.

About 500.000 are Armenian, or better said were because you have to christian to be Armenian.

[Azamat]

About 500.000 are Armenian, or better said were because you have to christian to be Armenian.

Prove it. Also show genetic evidence - Y-DNA, mtDNA, and autosomal DNA. Show elevated rates of the Armenian modal haplotype in samples concerning regions where you think Kurds descend from assimilated Armenians. Show markedly decreased ASI(normally 2%) and Gedrosian admixture in Kurds for regions where you think there has been extensive assimilation of or admixture with Armenians.

[Armenian Bishop]

About 500.000 are Armenian, or better said were because you have to christian to be Armenian.

There's good cause to suspect that as many as a half million Kurds can trace some ancestry to Armenians; however, I personally cannot provide a specific number of Lost Armenians absorbed and assimilated into Kurdish Heritage and Culture.

Many Kurds participated in the premeditated and well orchestrated Young Turk Crime of the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923), when they seized young Armenian women, and adolescent Armenian girls, during the time of the Armenian Genocide, and married them into their families; at the same time, there were Kurds who rescued Armenians, even Armenian infants, and then raised them as family members. Those Kurds whom preyed upon innocent Armenian victims often followed caravan trails of hundreds of thousands of destitute and dying Armenians, taken on death marches into the Syrian desert, so as to rob the bereft women, children and old men, and kidnap their young Armenian women and adolescent girls.

While Kurds forcibly assimilated Armenians into their culture and heritage, Turks as well, weren't blameless in this matter, young Armenian women and adolescent Armenian girls were herded into slave markets, where they were sold into Turkish families and forcibly assimilated into their newfound Turkish Culture and Heritage. Benevolent Turks, as well as Kurds, did take pity upon so many bereft and death bound Armenians, to the point of rescuing some of them from certain death, in such cases, it wasn't uncommon for those Armenians to also be assimilated into Turkish, as well as Kurdish Families.

Armenian Identity isn't hinged upon their Christian Faith: Prior to Christianity, Armenia was not a Christian based Society, yet it was distinctly an Armenian Civilization, with Armenian Culture and Heritage, and a distinctly Armenian National Identity. Currently, its not unheard of to find Armenians who aren't Christian, yet have a distinctly Armenian National Identity.

On the other hand, The Armenian Christian Church has served as a sanctuary and preserver of Armenian Identity, and has performed a vital role in preserving a distinctly Armenian Civilization, despite that Non-Armenian Turks and Kurds have recently shared the same homeland, with their Armenian counterparts. Armenians who chose to marry Kurds and Turks very often found themselves ostracized from their Armenian Communities, and ultimately were absorbed and assimilated into Turkish and Kurdish Society.

[Armenian Bishop]

Thank You, for so many fine photographs of Kurds! I find many of them to be good looking people. I see here many beautiful Kurdish women!

[Azamat]

There's good cause to suspect that as many as a half million Kurds can trace some ancestry to Armenians; however, I personally cannot provide a specific number of Lost Armenians absorbed and assimilated into Kurdish Heritage and Culture.

^If the core of your contention were true, and as many as half a million Kurds in Eastern Anatolia may descend from assimilated Armenians or can trace substantial Armenian ancestry, then from the numerous genetic tests that have been carried out on Northern Kurds there would be observed:

-Increased rates of the Armenian modal haplotype R1b for specific Kurdish regions, corresponding to decreased Mesolithic and increased Neolithic European admixture
-Decreased admixture for Ancestral South Indian(normally around 2% in Kurdish averages) and Gedrosian genes in those same regions

By historical account, the region that one would expect to have received most absorption of Armenians is Dersim. Contrary to the genetic implications of that, the Dersimi individuals that have been tested so far show neither decreased admixture for the two aforementioned Kurdish marker components or an increase in R1b relative to other Kurds in Anatolia.

http://kurdishdna.blogspot.nl/2012/1...part-viii.html
http://kurdishdna.blogspot.nl/2012/0...-based-on.html

On McDonald's plot only one individual(from Dersim) clusters markedly closer to Armenians than the other Kurds, and the other Dersimis averaged cluster no closer to Armenians than the non-Dersim Kurmanjis:

http://kurdishdna.blogspot.nl/2012/0...somal-dna.html

Whilst some Armenians certainly assimilated into Kurdish culture(as indicated by the one individual on McDonald's plot), the data tells us that the degree in which that took place is either exaggerated, or the theory on how the assimilation happened is is wrong. The latter is suggested by the fact that "Kurdified Armenians" from Dersim who were approached and interviewed by Armenians were described as identifying themselves to the authorities and society as Kurdish to avoid persecution whilst they have preserved their Armenian identity in private settings and kept marrying fellow Armenians from their communities, although they tend to had lost their language.