Talk:Khazars/Archive 10

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The previous version was better here: [1], because it represents the situation better. That there is strong support and evidence supporting that Ashkenazis are Khazars and there is disagreements and no consensus while the version Shriek reverted to presents a false narrative trying to portray it as linguistic and genetic studies have not supported it which is false.

Here are some quotes from the article:

• "Several scholars have suggested that the Khazars did not disappear after the dissolution of their Empire, but migrated west to eventually form part of the core of the later Ashkenazi Jewish population of Europe."

• "The German Orientalist Karl Neumann, in the context of an earlier controversy about possible connections between Khazars and the ancestors of the Slavic peoples, suggested as early as 1847 emigrant Khazars might have influenced the core population of Eastern European Jews."

• "The theory was then taken up by Albert Harkavi in 1869, when he also claimed a possible link between the Khazars and Ashkenazi,[note 93] but the theory that Khazar converts formed a major proportion of Ashkenazi was first proposed to a Western public in a lecture by Ernest Renan in 1883.[note 94][192] Occasional suggestions emerged that there was a small Khazar component in East European Jews in works by Joseph Jacobs (1886), Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, a critic of anti-Semitism (1893),[193] Maksymilian Ernest Gumplowicz,[note 95] and by the Russian-Jewish anthropologist Samuel Weissenberg.[note 96] In 1909 Hugo von Kutschera developed the notion into a book-length study,[195][196] arguing Khazars formed the foundational core of the modern Ashkenazi.[195] Maurice Fishberg introduced the notion to American audiences in 1911.[194][197] The idea was also taken up by the Polish-Jewish economic historian and General Zionist Yitzhak Schipper in 1918.[note 97][198] Israel Bartal has suggested that from the Haskalah onwards polemical pamphlets against the Khazars were inspired by Sephardi organizations opposed to the Khazaro-Ashkenazim.[199]"

• "In 1932, Samuel Krauss ventured the theory that the biblical Ashkenaz referred to northern Asia Minor, and identified it with the Khazars"

• "Ten years later, in 1942, Abraham N. Polak (sometimes referred to as Poliak), later professor for the history of the Middle Ages at Tel Aviv University, published a Hebrew monograph in which he concluded that the East European Jews came from Khazaria."

• "Léon Poliakov, while assuming the Jews of Western Europe resulted from a "panmixia" in the first millennium, asserted in 1955 that it was widely assumed that Europe's Eastern Jews descended from a mixture of Khazarian and German Jews. Poliak's work found some support in Salo Wittmayer Baron and Ben-Zion Dinur,"

• "Raphael Patai, however, registered some support for the idea that Khazar remnants had played a role in the growth of Eastern European Jewish communities,[note 107] and several amateur researchers, such as Boris Altschüler (1994),[182] kept the thesis in the public eye."

• "Recently, a variety of approaches, from linguistics (Paul Wexler)[212] to historiography (Shlomo Sand)[213] and population genetics (Eran Elhaik, a geneticist from the University of Sheffield)[214] have emerged to keep the theory alive."

• "One thesis held that the Khazar Jewish population went into a northern diaspora and had a significant impact on the rise of Ashkenazi Jews. Connected to this thesis is the theory, expounded by Paul Wexler, that the grammar of Yiddish contains a Khazar substrate."

• "The hypothesis of Khazarian ancestry in Ashkenazi has also been a subject of vehement disagreements in the field of population genetics,[note 115] wherein claims have been made concerning evidence both for and against it. Eran Elhaik argued in 2012 for a significant Khazar component in the paternal line based on the study of Y-DNA of Ashkenazi Jews using Caucasian populations—Georgians, Armenians and Azerbaijani Jews—as proxies"

So the claim that Shriek did in his revert that "Linguistic and genetic studies have not supported the theory of a Khazar connection to Ashkenazi Jewry" is a complete LIE! The evidence clearly shows that there is strong support for it. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 13:18, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry , SD. but there is no more evidence that Ashkenazis were Khazars than for the proposition Ashkenazis were Israelites. You are confusing the article's survey of the history of the idea, for evidence for the idea. They are two different things. For all his maverick eminence, Paul Wexler's arguments so far remain conjectures, without consensus. Eran Elhaik now espouses a northern Anatolian-Iranian provenance, which is shaping up as a reasonable possibility, since many genetic studies admit the 'Middle Eastern' male component doesn't point to Israelitic or Second Temple Israel. The matrilineal side is decidedly neolithio European. Ideologists hail the founding male thesis, despite the fact that descent is matrilineal since the 2nd century CE, and would make the Ashkenazis Europeans (which to all ex-tent and poiposes they are). Nishidani (talk) 14:21, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

As I have pointed out above, there is large support among researchers that support that Ashkenazis are Khazars, which makes Shrieks claim that "Linguistic and genetic studies have not supported the theory of a Khazar connection to Ashkenazi Jewry" false.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 14:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

@Supreme Deliciousness: The sentence in the lede refers to contemporary scholarship. There have been proponents of the Khazar hypothesis in the past/over time; the history of this is included in the article (some of which you cited above - a survey, as mentioned, of the history of the idea), but most contemporary scholarship rejects it (including the majority of genetic and linguistic research) - it does not have large support. Elhaik's is a minority opinion and his studies and methods have been criticized by several prominent researchers in the field (and his opinion had nonetheless drifted somewhat away from the Khazar hypothesis in the classical sense). Wexler's is also a minority opinion and is considered fringe and has also been criticized by specialists. The majority of genetic studies indicate that Ashkenazi Jews are (mostly) of mixed Middle Eastern and European ancestry (are related to Sephardic and Italic Jews and share a partial common ancestry with Mizrahi Jews) and have not supported the Khazar hypothesis. See: [[2]], [[3]], [[4]]

The article also says:

"The evidence from historians he [Elhaik] used has been criticised by Shaul Stampfer and the technical response to such a position from geneticists is mostly dismissive, arguing that, if traces of descent from Khazars exist in the Ashkenazi gene pool, the contribution would be quite minor...or insignificant." (From the "Genetics" section of article, with refs [[5]]).

Skllagyook (talk) 14:37, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

There is nonetheless, a good deal of bad faith, dubious history or incompetent polemics in much of those Elhaik criticism sections cited above. Geneticists less worried by ideological fallout recognize that a considerable number of contributions to this debate are more motivated by contemporary political interests than science. (Stampfer's own extreme sceptical view is, fringe, since it validates Moshe Gil, whose arguments on this are not taken seriously by area specialists) For every one editor who tries to get Elhaik's views paraphrased neutrally, there are 10 that muster up a criticism section. Lastly, most of this area's genetics articles and sections are not worth a nob of goatshit, being based on the abstracts of primary sources, with little understanding of technical issues. This will only improve as we have more secondary and tertiary sources from competent authorities surveying the field comprehensively without the parti pris which emerged so hysterically after 1967, or which drove a good deal of the nonsense you get in Ostrer et al.Nishidani (talk) 15:50, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

We have to follow the sources, not your personal opinion, and the sources clearly shows that there is a dispute amongst professionals in the field, so it is false to claim that "Linguistic and genetic studies have not supported the theory of a Khazar connection to Ashkenazi Jewry". Either this description has to be changed to the accurate description as can be seen here: [6], or the pov tags need to be reinserted. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 06:24, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

You are ignoring the conversation. All the sources you quote for 'contention' are historic, not current. A controversy in a field relates to either the past or the present. The controversy you showcase (based on all information I dug up from the relevant literature on the history of this idea) doesn't exist as an academic debate now, except as a minority viewpoint argued by one group of scholars, Elhaik and Werxler etc., almost a decade ago. The majority view challenged their work, and Elhaik and Wexler then modified their approach by shifting the locus for the originative population of the Ashkenazi community southwards, from Khazaria, to northern Anatolia, emphasizing an Iranian trade and population flow through that transit zone, which would have involved several groups, not excluding some Khazars elements. This is an acceptable remodulation or version of a position that even their critics in genetics don't discount, since a 'north of the Levant' core for the small Middle east component of Ashkenazis is compatible with the data yielded by the genetics of population flows. All the historical material you cite predates the emergence of the new field of historical inferences about antecedent populations' genetic profiles. The Khazar hypothesis is no longer hotly disputed between different camps. You have no evidence for any such ongoing controversy.Nishidani (talk) 08:37, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I brought up 10 points above. Do you have reliable sources that those professionals in those 10 points have shifted opinions and are no longer supporting their initial opinions? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 12:17, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

See WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT.

Linguistic and genetic studies has been subject of vehement disagreements in the field of population genetics

The sentence is deliciously inept in its meaninglessness, (aside from the grammatical error of 'has' for 'have', and the omission of 'the' before subject) because the subject - 'linguistic and genetic studies'- is made to refer to a debate in the 'field of population genetics'. Population geneticists have no competence in linguistics. The other implied half: 'genetic studies' in 'the field of population genetics' can just scratch by, damaged though it is as an egregious case of pleonasm, like saying 'linguistic studies in the field of historical linguistics'. I know what you tried to state, but you didn't manage to state it, and just seeded confusion.

I registered 18 overwhelmingly Jewish scholars from 1847 to 1979 who occasionally mentioned a possible connection between the two populations. There is no mention of vehement disagreements in linguistics and genetics over that period. Vehement dismissals arose after the publication of Arthur Koestler's book in 1977, contested by historians, not by linguists or geneticists. The 'vehement disagreements' in those two fields arose with Elhaik and Wexler's work and lasted 4 years out of the 173 years covered, and regarded a fringe view.

In brief, you don't realize that your edit was (a)incompetently drafted (b) in part tautological (c) historically false (you use the present perfect progressive tense in 'has been' which means continuity over time of what is referred to in the subject) in generalizing as a discursive constant over 173 years what was a mere recent blip. (d) you have no source for the generalization, and (e) as a summary it is utterly false or errant, in so far as it can be understood. Nishidani (talk) 13:23, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

• Comment This is all much ado about nothing. Early medieval Jews had an impossible dream that never really happened, writing a wholly invented fictitious account about some lost distant Asian kingdom converting in part to Judaism. This is the Sefer ha-Kuzari completed around 1140 by Arabic-Hebrew poet Judah Halevi. As I said, this is a wholly invented fictitious account to make up for distant dreams and vanishing dreams of a long lost sovereignty and statehood. Nothing more than a very distant, impossible dream. And later, to this day, this unreal and impossible dream still comes back to haunt them in the figure of this rather ridiculous "Khazar theory." All because of their past daring one-time attempt to dream of a remote, long-lost sovereign statehood.

As for the possibility of so-called "genetic studies" shedding any real light on historical matters, it is all rather a basic logical impossibility. It is all just pseudo-science and politics anyhow, in my view. Wexler's Yiddish linguistic theories are not only lunatic fringe, but actually laughable and ridiculous for any one that has just a basic feeling for the spoken language and culture. He's just a second-tier (Tel Aviv University) professor trying to create some sensation with crackpot linguistic theories. Now, Elhaik himself is interesting, beyond all the pseudo-scientific allegations. An oriental-mizrahi "geneticist" trying to undermine the very basis of Ashkenazi identity and selfhood in Israel. It is all just a rather fun and ridiculous political spectacle, completely devoid of any serious scholarly interest. warshy ^(¥¥) 17:35, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

The problem, Warshy (nice to see you around these nooks), is that as the article shows, the Geniza fragments and the evidence of Judah Halevi are sufficient to make one wonder. Far too many scholars of high caliber, assessing the fragmentary hints in a dozen languages, propend for a provisory judgment that the tradition has credibility, for us to dismiss it as a fantasy. Within twenty years of HaLevi's Kuzari, after all, Abraham ibn Daud noted that he and other Jews had noted Khazari talmudists in Toledo.

History is freakish with the long past: it conserves in great detail much we could do without(Nonnus in 48 books, and only fragments of the greatest lyrical voice of Western antiquity, Sappho. We have fascinating traces of numerous things that happened in otherwise poorly attested areas and epochs as opposed to bullying paper hoards of 'stuff' that tell you nothing of reality because generated by obsessive thinking about angelic hypotheses impossible to verify(Eco's Name of the Rose). I have no convictions either way on the Khazars, the curiosity lies in how we put together the puzzle, which every generation will scrabble up in new ways. But it is a legitimate field of historical enquiry.

As to Wexler, read Neil Jacobs' Introduction to Yiddish, at least to page 24. That is a pretty authoritative voice of regard. As regards Elhaik, my instincts are always to listen, and listen even harder if there is a voice that, intelligent and highly qualified, expresses a dissonant view that finds a chorus of lockstep voices trying to shut them up. Was he undermining 'Israeli selfhood'? I thought that he just challenged the idea in Zionism that Jews everywhere in the world 'return' to the country their ancestors lived in. In this, I think, he stands at the centre of a consensus that that doesn't hold water. It is a religious notion, and not a sine qua non of Jewish identity, which is infinitely more complex matter than 'Israeli identity'. Age tends to complacency, and, at least with myself, I find an antidote to the natural tendency to be dismissive of things marginal to the mainstream to be a useful medicine for my own complacency.Nishidani (talk) 19:07, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Enjoy Nishidani! I know you don't need me wishing you that, since you obviously have been enjoying the issue quite a bit and for a long time, apparently. As for me, I just enjoy observing from the side the amount of intellectual effort and jousting I see put around a rather unimportant and marginal literary invention, to my eyes at least. Wow! Ibn Daud noted that he and other Jews saw "Khazari Talmudists," no less, in Toledo, Spain, of all places! I guess they were not only an important state in their remote Asian location, but they also travelled pretty far, to the far end of Europe... Fascinating. warshy ^(¥¥) 20:20, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Abraham ibn Daud, The Book of Tradition, ed. Gerson D. Cohen (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1967) p.93.

He was contemporary with the 'fantasy'. So either he is a fantasist, a liar, or, which I think commonsense suggests, just reporting what he knew.Nishidani (talk) 20:46, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll look into it with some time. warshy ^(¥¥) 20:52, 3 September 2020 (UTC) (Google Books has no content nor search for the book...)

Google's failure is what keeps civilization alive, in libraries. I should add that for my master's thesis, I had to read a large amount of ethnography on Turkish and Central Asia tribes, and that naturally got me pissed off when I saw the dreadful state of this article, and led me to rewrite it from top to bottom. If I had world and time enough, I would really like to do the same with the Pechenegs.Nishidani (talk) 21:02, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

I am assuming this vast amount of ethnographic material was all published mainly in German and Russian, including also, no doubt, the ability to understand and analyze the vast amount of sources written in the original ancient and medieval (now-extinct) Asian languages. warshy ^(¥¥) 21:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

The assumption is partially correct, in that those are the languages. I didn't get far into the Russian material . apart from translating for an appendix a rare Russian Marxist paper on shamanism and classical Greece from 1930 miraculously procured for me by that bibliographical magician Axel Lodewycks. The fervor of obsession was inordinately expensive therefore: jumping, for example, the bullet train from Osaka to Tokyo when a friend tipped me off, remembering my search for the tome, that he'd spotted a copy of Wilhelm Radloff's Aus Sibirien (1883) in a second-hand store in Jinbōchō. I didn't blink at the asking price ¥40,000, - just murmured Hodie vivo in dull imitation of Isaac Casaubon - which with the travel and other expenses meant I had to survive on rice for some weeks to get through to the next scholarship disbursement. No, I never learnt those original/ancient Turkish languages, though a friend from the same faculty did, and has now his wiki page which vastly underestimates his erudition. As usual, I got distracted. Nishidani (talk) 21:51, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that none of the most important 17th century European Hebrew scholars knew much Arabic. I cannot judge how far their intellectual descendants, the 19th century Orientalists, and since, did really advance in this area. Oh, well... :) Regards, warshy ^(¥¥) 22:26, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Language change on infobox.

Peter Golden states:

Oğuric Turkic, spoken by many of the subject tribes, doubtless, was one of the linguae francae of the state. Alano-As was also widely spoken. Eastern Common Turkic, the language of the royal house and its core tribes

So I would like to propose to change the infobox language section to

• Khazar (lingua franca)
• Old Turkic (dynastic, spoken)
• Alanian (spoken)

opinions? Beshogur (talk) 12:29, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

• The majority of the population of the Khaganate was Turkic, why would we add Alanian as spoken as if it was used as widely as Turkic? Given that Peter Golden doesn't state what language he means by Alano-As --Devlet Geray (talk) 22:49, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
• From Azerbaijani wikipedia

Alan adı yazılı mənbələrdə ilk dəfə M.Ş. 1. əsrdə ortaya çıxar və Çin qaynaqlarına görə Alanlar doqquz Tele Türk boylarından biridir. Alanlar (Aslar) köhnə Türk yazıtlarında bir Türk boyu olaraq qırğızların yanında çox dəfə ifadə edilmişdir. Kaşgarlı Mahmut 'Az keshe' (yani 'Az kişi') adlı ve şübhəsiz Türk olan bir qövm haqqından bəhs edər. Türk tarixçi Əl-Biruni'ye göre Alanların dili Xarəzmşahların ve Kumanların dillərinə bənzər. Alanların bir qismi Qıpçaq ve digər qismi Oğuz (Azərbaycanlıların ataları) dallarına ağit. Qaraçay-balkarlar özlərinə bu günə qədər Alan deyə xitab edərlər və qonşu xalqlar tərəfindən də eyni xitabı almaqdadırlar. Etimologiya dünyagörüşündən Alan ismi Türkçe "alan, ova, açık yer, geniş veya büyük mesafe" deməkdir. Osetinlərin əcdadları olduğunu göstərən araşdırmalar da vardır.

--Devlet Geray (talk) 23:01, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

References

@Devlet Geray: proto Ossetic perhaps. He also says that the subject tribes´ lingua franca was Oghuric, not everyone speaking Alanic. By Eastern Common Turkic, I am pretty sure he means Old Turkic considering Khazars were Ashina. Beshogur (talk) 11:42, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

• Ok, Beshogur, you can add it anyway if you see that it is needed Devlet Geray (talk) 16:54, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

@Beshogur: Revisiting this issue, according to:

• Slavic on the Language Map of Europe: Historical and Areal-Typological Dimensions, "How Yiddish can recover covert Asianism in Slavic, and Asianisms and Slavicisms in German", Paul Wexler, ed. Andrii Danylenko and Motoki Nomachi, page 227;"The Khazar Empire at its peak had at least three "lingua franca": Eastern Slavic, Iranian (Ossete?), and Turkic(alongside Finno-Ugric and possibly Estonian)..."

Thoughts?--Kansas Bear (talk) 16:37, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Kansas Bear: they're listing modern languages, and listing Finnic alongside Turkic. The terms "Eastern Slavic" and "Turkic" are just too vague imo. Beshogur (talk) 16:49, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Kansas Bear: changed to Oghuric, what do you think? It includes Khazar as well. Beshogur (talk) 17:52, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

At least the source supports Oghuric. That is all I was worried about. --Kansas Bear (talk) 19:00, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

general housekeeping: lead

A couple of remarks:

• The opening paragraph has that "written by committee" look indicating a long history of small changes which did not look focus too much on having readable sentence, and avoiding repetition. I am a bit scared to try fixing it in case it changes the meaning in some sensitive way.
• It seems that the lead contains the most detailed discussion of speculations about origins, and the equivalent main body section is indicates only that it is a language section. Actually it seems that for better or worse language and origins is being treated as one topic, so perhaps we should change the sub-section title and try to move some detail from the lead?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:23, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, Andrew, reading the lead without looking at the notes gives me the iompression it flows fairly adequately in covering the text. No one reads the page I guess, but a large number of editors visit only to tamper, challenge or disagree about bits and pieces in the lead. Nishidani (talk) 14:18, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I think it is a general tendency on many articles that leads get longer, and sentences within leads become longer and more complex. Small tweaks will probably be good enough. Note that when I wrote the above there was for example "were a semi-nomadic Turkic people with a confederation of Turkic tribes that in the late 6th century CE". Were they just a people within a confederation or did they have some sort of leading role? Were all those tribes in the confederation really all Turkic? There is a still the following sequence which looks like a selection of similar sentences to choose from, rather than a logical sequence: "established a major commercial empire [...] created [...] the most powerful polity [...] became one of the foremost trading empires [...] dominated the vast area". Also consider how many similar but slightly different descriptions of the area(s) involved are mentioned in that paragraph. Would it be easier to describe a core definition and then add comments about how things changed over time?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:40, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

They were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that emerged in the late 6th.century and eventually formed an empire of confederated Turkic groups that dominated east-west trade etc. If you can find a source that yields the shorter sentence, by all means. I'm busy reading a fucking huigely stupid tract, just arrived today, on why Shakespeare was John Florio, so won't have much time in the next few days to look into it again quickly.Nishidani (talk) 15:12, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

In any case, the major issue at stake here, I've always thought is to establish parallel coverage of the kind we managed here (260 notes) with this one group for the several tribal peoples (Pechenegs (47 notes), Alans (79), Oghuz Turks (68 etc.) who were their rivals and contemporaries. Were that done, I think, much of this article could be tweaked, since the essential thrust is to focus on its imperial rivals, Christian and Islamic, rather than on the way those two powers, and later the emerging Rus' played one group off against the other, to undermine either the Khazar client statelets, or break up the confederation (from memory the Byzantine chronicles speak of 9 klimata). Nishidani (talk) 15:19, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

LOL, good luck with that Shakespeare book. Would the article benefit from an origins section?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:22, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Oops, there is one.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:29, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

I think we already have an origins narrative in terms of the two sections:Tribal origins and early history Rise of the Khazar state. They look of course pretty intricate, but it was the best I could do in what is a pretty labyrinthine world of scholarly arguments. Too little detail can be niggled as too general: too much detail, can be challenged as confusing. I tried to strike a middle way. Damn, now down to the newsagent to pick up that ridiculous (with my pseudo-Joycean mind thinking of a portmanteau reading of that Horatian adjective ridere (laugh), English 'dick', and Latin culus/Italian culo) 380 page screed by a blithering nincompoop with a veneer of refinement because it's the updated French (per)version. Jeezus. What we have to wade through to ensure Wikipedia is reliable, ah. (Sorry I haven't been more helpful with the Goths - time, time, time) Nishidani (talk) 15:38, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

No worries. There is a fairly straightforward RFC there at the moment if you have a moment though! I'll try to find time to look at this again, but it is more a question of seeing if there are ways to simplify; so first I'd need to spend more time on the material again. Can't promise I'll do that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:55, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Lede say: "Proposals of Khazar origins have been made regarding"

Now that someone endeavors fixing the article, here is an issue for you. With three exceptions (that have separate subsections), the "proposals" are "refbombed" into a lumped group of footnotes. My suggestions:

• Have a separate set of refs for every ethnicity in question, otherwise it is difficult to expand/verify particular claims
• Thoroughly review the refs cited. For example, I reviewed {{sfn|Wexler|1987|p=70}} ([7]) and I see that the source is misrepresented here: pages 70-72 of the book speak about the absorption of Khazars into certain peoples/geographies, rather than about the origins of these peoples.

I'm sorry I cannot do it myself; I am not an expert, and while I can notice inconsistencies, I cannot write "consistencies". :-)Lembit Staan (talk) 17:08, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes I guess you are referring to the same sort of comment I made above about how it seems we should maybe move a bit more out of the lead and into the body. I also don't have a direct suggestion about how.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:53, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Lembit Staan, in short you want 11/12 refs instead of the 3 given (from which the 11 peoples and a Khazar commingling are taken). The finicky distinction you make between absorption of the Khazars and the origins of those people is not cogent: the text says that on the breakdown of the Khazar empire, its members were dispersed and that some of them may have entered into the early demographic formation of 11 contemporary peoples. The text is not about those peoples or their origins: it is about hypotheses as to where the Khazars went after the demise of their state. You are wrong to say Wexler is misrepresented: We wrote:

Proposals of Khazar origins have been made regarding the Hungarians, the Kazakhs, the Cossacks of the Don region and of Ukraine, Bukharan Jews, the Muslim Kumyks, the Turkic-speaking Krymchaks and their Crimean neighbors the Crimean Karaites, the Moldavian Csángós, the Mountain Jews, even some Subbotniks on the basis of their Ukrainian and Cossack origin and others

Wexler, one of the three sources, provided 6 of these.

The fate of the Khazar Jews cannot be determined with certainty, though it has been suggested that they were absorbed by such heterogeneous groups as the Karaites, by two groups presently residing primarily in the Daghestan ASSR. the Judeo-Tats (also known as “Mountain Jews” ) and the Kumyks (a Muslim people), by the Crimean Krymcaks, the Bukharan Jews and the Cossacks.p.70

Your suggestion would require that those six groups all have a Wexler p.70 ref, plus two more for them and the others in the group. Sure, I could add another hour or two to the 3 months I spent on this article, forego seeing the second half of the Switzerland France match, etc., but fuck, man, what's the point. The 3 refs have that info. Those curious just need click thrice instead of 11 times to ascertain it. As I keep saying, there's a huge amount of work to be done still on the peoples of this period, and frigging around with pettifoggery (excuse me) is just to exact a toll on scarce time without any visible advatange gained. Sorry for the harshness of tone, but . . Nishidani (talk) 20:28, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

The finicky distinction you make between absorption of the Khazars and the origins of those people. - Sorry, colleague, I beg to disagree: this is a crucial historical distinction, whether, say, Hungarians descended from Khazars or (some of) Khazars were assimilated into Hungarians (or their predecessors) leaving nearly no trace (or only a guesswork of traces). I may guess (as a non-expert) that in some cases it is hard to tell what had actually happened, but then we shall use a more cautious phrasing. Lembit Staan (talk) 20:50, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

there's a huge amount of work - Well, your user page says you are no longer active, what's your problem, then? I am not forcing you to do anything. Cool down and let someone else do it. I say, plenty a time it was proven in wikipedia that this kind of "cluster refbombing" creates clusterfuck maintenance issues when the article mutates. Lembit Staan (talk) 20:50, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Read what I said:

The text is not about those peoples or their origins:it is about hypotheses as to where the Khazars went

The text does not concern itself with your 'crucial historical' details about Hungarian or any other peoiples' origins. All ancient continental peoples are promiscuous, despite obsessions about lineal mono'racial' origins. That kind of question is for the respective pages on those ethnic groups. Secondly we go by sources, not by what we want sources to say. You haven't grasped this elementary point.Nishidani (talk) 21:01, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Please get some respect to fellow wikipedians. your 'crucial historical' -- these are not "mine". I didnt write a word here or there. Secondly we go by sources -- please put you words into your keyboard. My original complaint is that our lede contradicts the source I mentioned. If you think that the notions "Khazar origins" (of some peoples) and "Khazars were absorbed" (by some peoples) are identical, then IMO you have grave comprehension problems. And I am no longer talking to you; let some other people have a say. promiscuous - exactly. In my opinion the terminology "Proposals of Khazar origins " in the lede implies lineal lineage, at least major contribution, rather than a gradual in-mixture. Taking an example from my better knowledge, in Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was a significant intermixture of Poles, Lithuanians and "western" East Slavs, but nobody in sane mind would write about "Lithuanian origin of the Poles" (although we do speak about Lithuanian origins of some Polish noble families (which were originally from GDL, but subsequently were Polonized (nationalists would say "absorbed by a stronger culture"))). Lembit Staan (talk) 21:57, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Your original point was completely oblique because you failed to clarify from the outset the passage contested in simple terms, by contrastive citation. I've fixed it, as I now understand it after the third degree.Nishidani (talk) 22:20, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Unknown tombstone from Phanagoria

Jewish tombstone found in Phanagoria, supposedly belonging to the Khazars

Could someone help source the origin, date of this tombstone and relationship with Khazars?Tritomex (talk) 17:02, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I didn't add that, but found the source of the picture.[8] It's this website that does the relation. Also mentioning Phanagoria being a center of Byzantine-Khazar relations. So perhaps that's an answer. Beshogur (talk) 17:31, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

I think that Russian source is a blog, not WP:RS, and the relationship of that tombstone to Khazars is unlikely. Nowhere in academic sources mentioning Khazar archeology I found anything similar.Tritomex (talk) 19:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

In fact, I found it and from an academic source of highest quality. The tombstone is not from Khazar times but from first centuries CE and related to Greek city established there. [9] page 15, also page 19 which dates it to I century CE.Tritomex (talk) 19:36, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

CZUQZ

Beshogur I will be duly reverting this revert made in your favour, regardless of your position. CZUQZ had made 47 edits over 4 years, several of them on obscure articles almost no one would notice except if they track certain editors to niggle and revert them because they otherwise work in the PIA territory (At Whaling in the Faroe Islands they came out of hibernation to target Iskander). That shows the hand of an opportunistic throwaway account of the Icewhiz type, ready to turn a legitimate difference between editors into a game of nerves and numbers, to frustrate one party. 'Better' in the esummary has no value because the handle's record shows no evidence of knowledge of the topic or commitment to wikipedia's quality. My revert is not prejudicial to the view of your (Beshogur)position which may have its reasons but which CZUQZ has jumped out to back with no other reason than hostility to myself. Your view which can be argued here on the talk page. Nishidani (talk) 13:26, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

The Khazar language is Chechen

{{Comment removed by the author of LandsGates}}

Nope, it is not. Where did you get the idea from? Beshogur (talk) 10:25, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

{{Comment removed by the author of LandsGates}}

The sources are given in the article. Remember that our basic job here is not do new research, but to report what experts are publishing on this topic in more recent times. I don't think anyone here is fighting for or against any particular position. It would be fascinating to read of any proposals about whether Caucasian languages were used. But I do notice that even your primary sources are only saying the language was different from the Turkic known to the Arabs, and somehow similar to the language of the Bulgars. I don't see anything about Chechen there?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:20, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

{{Comment removed by the author of LandsGates}}

Maybe you should work these ideas up into an article and try to publish them somewhere? I honestly have no idea how seriously I should take them because I am not an expert. But if there are records being ignored and you can make a convincing account of them which no-one has ever made, then who knows. Maybe others can be convinced? Unfortunately, like you seem to realize, we can't really publish new ideas here. It is just a basic rule we use to keep ourselves focussed upon a doable mission.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:15, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

{{Comment removed by the author of LandsGates}}

And this makes it Chechen? Beshogur (talk) 22:07, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

{{Comment removed by the author of LandsGates}}

Some stuff removed

Some historians traced their roots and looked for possible connections with the myth of the Lost Tribe of IsraelGoldstein, David B. (2008-10-01). Jacob's Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History. Yale University Press. pp. 73–74. ISBN 978-0-300-14510-6. I was initially quite dismissive of Koestler's identification of the Khazars as the "thirteenth tribe" and the origin of the Ashkenazi Jewry. Was this not just another self-aggrandizing Lost Tribe narrative bereft of evidence? I am no longer so sure. The Khazar connection seems no more far-fetched than the spectacular continuity of the Cohen line or the apparent presence of Jewish genetic signatures in a South African Bantu people. [&] I cannot claim the evidence proves a Khazari connection. But it does raise the possibility, and I confess that, although I cannot prove it yet the idea does now seem to me plausible, if not likely

That is flawed because the excellent David Goldstein is not an historian, but a geneticist, and the idea, dragging in the Lost Tribes meme connection, has no relevance for the survey of specialist views in that section, where opinion is still highly variable, and very complex.

(2) There is a natural entropy as over time new editors interested in one viewpoint Google it, adopt a quick template they're familiar with, and slam it in somewhere before having slowly read the article, or before trawling through the sources. Any additions should be vetted for their respect of these fundamental page criteria. Nishidani (talk) 16:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

(3)

The Kazar hypothesis was further exploited by esoteric fascists such as Miguel Serrano, referring to a lost Palestinabuch by the German Nazi-scholar Herman Wirth, who is said to have proven that the Jews descended from a prehistoric migrant group parasiting on the Great Civilizations.(Miguel Serrano, Adolf Hitler, the Ultimate Avatar (1984), 2011, p. 79, 295.

WP:OR. Such marginal crap has no place here. Certainly not by direct quotation from the primary source, as opposed to some scholarly examination of that ordure of nonsense. The same goes for David Icke. This is about Khazars, not about every dickhead who has opinionized about what they know nothing of.Nishidani (talk) 17:00, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Crimea

In the line "... empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Kazakhstan," regardless if where you stand on the Russo-Ukrainian War, Crimea is a part of one or the other, making its reference here redundant Jtb323 (talk) 23:56, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Feldman

I modified this recent edit, but hastily wrote not fully RS- Vostok Oriens is. But the point is that we should go carefully because, peer-review in a journal is one thing, and waiting for scholarly response to an article just published, given the claim by the editor that this explains the 'real reason' for the eclipse of Khazaria, is important. Collapses and declines rarely, if ever, show themselves to be monocausal, as the edit suggested. Nishidani (talk) 10:52, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Revert of recent addition about Khazar anti-Semitism

This revert[10] by @Nishidani I would like to discuss. I would like to find a reasonable compromise to add the material I added about the Khazar conspiracies in recent social media. Andre🚐 14:25, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Why are these theories even being repeated in detail on this page when they have their own page and the prevailing view is that they are largely fringe? Iskandar323 (talk) 14:35, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

The proposed additional sentence is "The idea has also been promoted by contemporary anti-Semitic groups on social media, according to the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee." I don't see that this is amplifying the fringe idea. But people should be able to read on the Khazars page that it is associated with anti-Semitic theories even to today in modern discussions. There is already a section on this page called "Use in antisemitic polemic" which I was adding it to. Andre🚐 15:08, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

My Q is why add anything to this section when it should really just be cut down? News-ish material on the Khazar hypothesis surely belong there. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:08, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree it should be cut down. It's a notable aspect of this topic. And I don't think it's newsish simply to say the idea has been promoted by contemporary anti-Semitic groups. It happens to be a topic that's currently relevant due to the rise of anti-Semitism, the Ukraine war, Black Hebrew Israelites being in the news and so on. However that doesn't mean any treatment of it is necessarily recentism or newsism. If anything, the Khazar conspiracy theory is actually quite old and stale, it comes and goes in waves, but we can explain to our readers more about it. Andre🚐 18:18, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Remember that the conspiracy theories, which might be interesting in themselves, are not the topic of this article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:43, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I've added similar text to the Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry‎ article. Though I don't see why this section which was preexisting on this article, couldn't have that as well. Andre🚐 19:20, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

It's just unnecessary. Since the hypothesis has it's own article and is clearly linked, all we need on this page is a simplified summary. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Andrevan's edit continues a polemic with me, as if I had some hidden objection to the use of the ADL as a source. The simple matter is that there is an extensive literature on Soviet-Russian antisemitism and the use of the Khazar hypothesis. This passage is already in the text with two expansive footnotes.

It has also played some role in Soviet antisemitic chauvinism[note 114] and Slavic Eurasian historiography; particularly, in the works of scholars like Lev Gumilev,[247]

In an article that has endeavoured to cover and synthesize the essential facts about the Khazars, adding passing details of the recent blip in fringe sites that mention this is pointless precisely because we have already noted that it is widespread in Russian antisemiticv chauvinism. As such expanding this is a case of WP:Notnews. We should be focusing on adding recent research on the wider history of the Khazars, which is far more interesting that harping on recent prtedictable instances of a tendency already noted.Nishidani (talk) 21:07, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

You say you don't object to it, but you removed the edit. If you have a different source that would be OK. Instead you reverted all of my changes, so that's why we are discussing it to try to come to an agreement: not a polemic. What I'm looking to add is some information of the contemporary usage of the Khazar conspiracy by anti-Semites such as the Black Hebrew Israelites or QAnon or Russian actors: which is not a blip, but in fact on the rise and increasingly common. I am not opposed to adding new research about the history either if there is such to add. Andre🚐 21:10, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm misread again, sigh. Please learn to read in context. The ADL piece on fringe lunatic Russophile antisemitic-Khazar outbursts in blogs after the Ukraine war began is useful, but not for this article, because it is something any reader here would be able to predict. I damn myself for not having shared what I said in conversation with a friend when the war exploded precisely to that end. We mention this silly Slavophile meme already and don't need to highlight it on the basis of passing areal tragedies by where it is predictably exhumed. If we entered QAnon, twitter twat, facebook crap on every topic touched on by those moronic outlets, wikipedia would not be an encyclopedic synthesis of scholarship illuminating the ignorant, but a terrible echo chamber of idiots screaming for attention. Nishidani (talk) 21:39, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I understand - you're not objecting to the source being reliable but you think it's too much weight and detail for this article - roughly per Iskandar as well - is that a fair paraphrase? Andre🚐 21:41, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Brook 2022

Nishidani also reverted my removal of the statement that Brook 2022 offers support for the possible-Khazar connection to Ashkenazi Jews. I paged through Brook and it really doesn't seem that he did in fact say that. Can we discuss that? Andre🚐 20:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't consider Brook 2022 a reliable source. Reading it today strengthens this impression. Brook has zero background in molecular biology, he says much that is sheer nonsense and cites on crucial controversial points blog opinions expressed by Leo Raphael Cooper, a co-administrator of several Family Tree DNA projects. I can't see any research by Cooper published after peer-review. Brook can be cited gor the idea Ashkenazi have a major ME component, no, hang on, then he state s genetics establishes their links to the 'ancient Israelites', whoops!, actually he then affirms a 'Judean' connection. (We have bone DNA from Israel of unknown identity. Correct me if I am wrong in stating that there is no paper yet published claiming a genetic link between Ashkenazi and Judeans). As I said elsewhere. If Brook aside from his WP:Promo presence on the other page, touting his book, gets a positive analytic review from a molecular biologist, this can be reconsidered. One does not cite historians on the intricacies of quantum physics, esp. if the historians venture into their own assessments or develop their own theories on the science. We go directly to the relevant specialist literature. This is being violated here.Nishidani (talk) 21:22, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Fine, so can we just remove Brook then? Andre🚐 21:23, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

On genetics yes. Brook's books symmarizing research on Khazar history are a different matter.Nishidani (talk) 21:28, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

OK. I removed the part that I thought was the part to remove, but if I was overzealous you can put part of it back. Andre🚐 21:31, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Brook has been positively reviewed by the geneticist Karl Skorecki. I think that would probably qualify as a positive review by a relevant expert (along with the book having peer-reviewed). Skllagyook (talk) 21:54, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Could you link me to Skorecki's professional review? All I have seen so far is a blurblike boost from that source of one or two paragraphs, not properly a serious review.Nishidani (talk) 23:08, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

According to his bio he "pursued postgraduate clinical and research training in Internal Medicine, Nephrology, and Molecular Biology... He also served as Director of the Rappaport Research Institute between 2000-2015, launching major novel research programs in Stem Cell and Human Genetics Research" but, he sounds more like a kidney doctor than a DNA guy. Andre🚐 22:09, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

He seems like a relevant expert (whether he's best described chiefly as a geneticist or a molecular biologist). He clearly has a background in genetics. And molecular biology is relevant also (as Nishidani points out above). And he's been a coauthor on several highly-cited population genetics papers with prominent geneticists, along with many on medical topics including molecular biology and medical genetics. See here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=pv3fVbcAAAAJ. Skllagyook (talk) 22:35, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not challenging Skorecki to which you direct me, but Cooper, whom Brook takes as bible, and who had a medical background yes, but no academic standing since he appears to be engaged in the business of serving people who pay to have their identity tracked down, their DNA, something which has been criticized as problematical in terms of neutrality. Brook cites him mainly from where he blogs. I'm still waiting for someone to tell me why Megiddo DNA is Israelite, or some other obscure sample Judean. Brook states things like that and I can find no independent academic source for these claims, which sound liuke blog speculation. Really, one does need some independent scholarly reflections on this for it to pass muster.Nishidani (talk) 23:04, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not saying he's a reliable expert but if we find him otherwise reliable but for the blog thing, WP:SELFPUBLISHED treats self-published blogs by qualified experts as reliable. I'm not sure that's what the issue is here. I think the issue is whether a minority view that's generally rejected is WP:DUE for this article. You keep coming back to the Israelite/Judea thing, which is really not what's being discussed at all. There are several historical polities in the Middle East, and we're not trying to prove anything about any connection to them here. If we're saying that Brook and Skorecki are fringe and partisan, then I get it. Andre🚐 23:15, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't see in what way Skorecki can be considered fringe. The papers he has coauthored on population genetics do not appear to be fringe (some of which also include prominent mainstream scholars as coauthors), nor is his molecular biology work fringe as far as I am aware. There is some dispute here over whether Brooks 2022 is a reliable source (due to his non-expert status). But the opinion he expresses in his book does not appear to be fringe. Skllagyook (talk) 23:22, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Skorecki has nothing to do with this. He wrote a blurb. We are talking about Brook and his use of blogs by people with no academic expertise or published record in paleogenetics, Brook and Cooper. And it is crucially important to note that for Brook, ME, Israelite, Judea are used irresponsibly as if they were all synonyms. Nishidani (talk) 23:28, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Let's suspend for the moment the idea that Brooks is automatically unreliable due to his apparent desire to equate ME with ancient Jewish states. Do we have any corroborating sources other than Skorecki, that either cite Brook and find him reliable, or have questioned his reliability or asserted lack thereof? If Skorecki is the only reviewer and he's a reliable population geneticist, is that sufficient for Brook to be reliable? A reliable prominent well-cited expert would have several positive reviews and cites, no? Andre🚐 23:44, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure. But I believe Brooks was only published this year a few months ago. So it doesnt seem too surprising that there are not more. Skllagyook (talk) 23:55, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

This is the quality of Brook's evidence from the very start

• Statement (a very large claim)

Approximately half, or a little more than half, of the genetic ancestry of Ashkenazic Jews from Eastern Europe traces back to the ancient Middle East. Ashkenazim have partial similarities to the autosomal DNA in ancient bones from Tel Megiddo (northern Israel)15 and other parts ofthe Middle East.'p.2

• Source = n15 p.144 is a blog comment by a non-specialist.

In post #10690 in Anthrogenica thread https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.

php?14484-Could-Western-Jews-(Ash-and-Seph-)-descend-from-Aegeans-and-
Levantine-admixture/page1069 dated March 10, 2021, accessed January 21, 2022, Leo R. Cooper presented the results of a model he worked on for Ashkenazim from Germany that showed them to be 42.4 percent like Middle/Late Bronze Age samples from Tel Megiddo.'

Look.That is prima facie shit/crap documentation (probably going back to an unpublished view by Bennett Greenspan) reflecting a total lack of comprehension of academic methodology. And that's just the second page.Nishidani (talk) 23:51, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I do have to agree that citing a forum threads and familytreedna posts is not the quality of referencing we would expect. Leo R. Cooper is cited no less than 39 times in the book. Andre🚐 23:57, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

With due respect, you folks have no idea what you're speaking of. Leo R. Cooper has made some important contributions to genetic research, beyond what professional scientists had done, and as a result he became a co-author of last month's finalized Erfurt Jewish study (Waldman 2022). Nishidani is also being somewhat dishonest because he ignored the other statement on page 3 that some Jewish ancestors had arrived from different parts of the Middle East, including Iran and the Arab lands, and that Brook 2022 does not treat Israelite/Israel/Judea and the Middle East as synonyms, yet a Israelite component is stated to be part of that mix, which is not a fringe view and is consistent with what is known of Jewish history. Moreover, your fixation on the fact that Cooper's research was incorporated and that Family Tree DNA's database was used led you to ignore the fact that Brook 2022 cites massive numbers of scientific journal articles. 2600:1000:B16B:933:607F:DF48:A5DB:D821 (talk) 04:57, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

I do see that Cooper is listed as a co-author on the Erfurt paper, as an "independent scholar, Kalamazoo, MI." I'm not sure that one co-author credit makes him a credentialed subject-matter expert. Andre🚐 05:11, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

My comments above about Cooper also apply to Brook 2022's citations of Ariel Lomes. Admixture estimates by Lomes pertaining to the inclusion of a potential Greek ancestral element were used within Waldman 2022 and Lomes is also a co-author of that study. As for Andrevan's questioning whether Brook 2022 truly said anything that could be construed in support of a Khazar element, see page 140: "I previously thought that their haplogroups N9a3 and A12'23 also came from Chinese women but we need to reopen the possibility that one or both of those could have been Khazarian because of the close Bashkir, Chechen, and Ingush matches to the former and the close Uzbekistani Turkmen and ancient Central Asian matches to the latter." 2600:1000:B16B:933:607F:DF48:A5DB:D821 (talk) 05:05, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

That's very different than Brook saying that Ashkenazi Jews likely had a significant Khazar element. That a couple haplogroups in the data set could possibly match to a Khazar OR several other types of ethnic groups that could well be around in Eastern Europe, is not the same as Brook expressing new support for the hypothesis. Andre🚐 05:13, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

So. While awaiting for our correspondent to reply to my query below, we have so far a new book by Kevin Brook. It proposes his personal hypothesis about Ashkenazi origins. It challenges an established research result by specialists as a 'myth' (Costa, Richard et al 2013)). Brook has no formal knowledge of molecular genetics. Nonetheless he claims to have discovered new details on Ashkenazi origins no scientist in the field has ever noted. The only endorsement comes from Karl Skorecki, an Israeli nephrologist with a background in genetics, i.e., a blurb. The book has yet to be reviewed by specialists in paleogenetics. Mr Brook appears to be using wikipedia to promote his work, which draws extensively on an 'independent researcher' and his blog posts, and also on commercial companies like My Family DNA which have a vested interest in promoting as a sales spin the notion that for a sum, they can provide you with info about your ancestors 2-3,000 years ago (as I noted, we all have a common ancestor if the date range goes back that far). Nishidani (talk) 13:27, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, I'm sure I am not telling y'all any new information here, but worth mentioning, on the DNA analysis service point, AFAIK most of the DNA companies like 23andme, myHeritage, Ancestry etc., simply indicate "95% Ashkenazi Jewish, 5% Northern European" and the like, and they don't have an ability to break down admixture within the Ashkenazi area to its European and ME component. Additionally, due to the population bottleneck[11] or endogamy, commercial DNA analysis will tend to think that all Ashkenazi Jews are related since all descend from the same group of fewer than 350-500 people around 1000-1750 years ago (YMMV on the exact numbers, have seen lower). There are a bunch of tools and websites and amateur forums and blogs like Eurogenes and whatnot where people have come up with what they think certain markers are based on original independent research. The DNA companies themselves will periodically update their estimates as well. For example, my girlfriend is from a Filipino background and considers her 98.3% Filipino, 1.1% Chinese, and 0.4% Spanish and Portuguese, but at one point it had a larger percentage for the Iberian that it has now decided to consider Filipino. These numbers aren't scientific enough for Wikipedia and curational studies like Brook that rely on FTDNA posts should be considered WP:PRIMARY. We should wait until reliable secondary sources or major scientific studies with secondary sourcing (such as Waldman which had front-page coverage in Cell and Science simultaneously last week) talk about this, and not rely on Brook alone and his speculations. Whether N9a3 and A12'23 came from an Asian source according to amateur genealogists and amateur population genetics researchers, isn't enough to say conclusively that it's evidence for or against the Khazar hypothesis unless secondary sources interpret it as such. Andre🚐 14:58, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Nishidani is also being somewhat dishonest because he ignored the other statement on page 3 that some Jewish ancestors had arrived from different parts of the Middle East, including Iran and the Arab lands

No, Mr Brooks. I have never denied that some element in the Ashkenazi profile derives from some part of the Middle East, - calculations vary from 3% to 60%- indeed I have emphasized that several times, your remark is indicative of disattention. You are using blogs by people in the business of providing identity profiles in return for payment. I asked you how on earth is the claim you made on p.2 corroborated by the note (15) which you cite to validate your assertion. You dodged this, talking your way past the crux. Well, explain it here. Where is the Megiddo connection to contemporary Ashkenazi scientifically attested?Nishidani (talk) 10:29, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Wexler

Regarding Wexler, my understanding is that his theory that Yiddish has a Slavic or Iranian origin was rejected by Yiddish linguists. Andre🚐 21:50, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

The consensus is against Wexler, yes. Wexler is nonetheless a distinguished and extremely erudite Yiddish linguist, who trained under one of the greatest scholars on that topic. But he, unlike most of his colleagues in that area, works within a wider linguistic continuum involving over 20 languages. It's so far a minority dissenting voice, and we note that everywhere.Nishidani (talk) 23:04, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

In the portion which I removed and you restored, could we add something about how his theory isn't considered reasonable by most Yiddish linguists? Andre🚐 23:09, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

'Reasonable?' It's contested in terms of phonological construction, not because his theory is 'unreasonable'. Unreasonable theories do not, as his recent magnum opus (2021, 1420 pages), which I've just cited at Kaifeng Jews, draw on such a vast and closely reasoned documentation to buttress their argument. As to adding that it's a minority view, one could add the adjective 'dissenting' or something like that, but since so many have, in this area, laboured intensely everytime Elhaik or Wexler comes up, to assure the readership, at every turn, that these scholars are rubbish, I think this kind of mechanical gloss overegging the pud, or trying to sway the readership. I prefer outlining a controversy neutrally without trying to spin it.Nishidani (talk) 23:23, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I have added "Paul Wexler, dissenting from the majority of Yiddish linguists," per your comment Andre🚐 23:40, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

The meaning of Khazar

This is just a prediction, it would need further research, but I propose that the word Khazar came from the Persian word 'hezâr', or one of the variants, meaning one thousand. Therefore, I propose that it took the meaning of 'great' in Khazar, where the Khazar Khaganate simply means the Great Khaganate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EmilePersaud 14:06, 1 February 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by EmilePersaud (talk • contribs)

You may be right but we need WP:RS Andre🚐 16:01, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Of course and in the future I will see what I can find. My theory is backed up by the spread of that Persian root, from Hungarian [12] to Nepali [13]. I also checked the wikipedia topic article of Hazar, and it says that in Turkish, they call the Khazars as Hazar, strengthening my theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EmilePersaud 13:00, 6 February 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by EmilePersaud (talk • contribs)

"Róna-Tas connects qasar with Kesar, the Pahlavi transcription of the Roman title Caesar." I'm almost certain that this explanation is folk etymology, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EmilePersaud 13:18, 6 February 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by EmilePersaud (talk • contribs)

https:/upwiki/wikipedia/commons/archive/8/8b/20121028144343%21Davestar.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vurzibigjo (talk • contribs) 13:47, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Salmin

I've retained the addition of text re the Chuvash. An initial look over the text does not inspire confidence as to its use as an RS. It lies wholly outside international scholarship on the Khazars, lacks documentary rigour sourced, and the publication venue is obscure. The material added throws no light on the topic, and the idea of a popular beloief of origins among the Chuvash is neither here nor there (and it is not clear from pp1-2 where this comes from).Nishidani (talk) 22:26, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Given that the highly probable is now clarified, I've reverted the page to the state before these intrusive sock disturbances. Feel welcome to repatch in any intermediate edits that actually improved the earlier text we must start from again.Nishidani (talk) 09:34, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Garbled English and WP:OR

The latter based upon the assertion of the Persian historian Istakhri the Khazar language was different from any other known tongue. However, he contradicts himself by linking the Khazar language to the Bulgar language, which is known to be a part of the Oghur Turkic group.

• The sentence is garbled, the latter ('latter' means one of two whereas the antecdents are three; in a new sentence it is not clear what is being referred to: thirdly there is no source used for asserting, if that is what the editor wants to put over, that Istakhri 'contradicted himself'). In short some sentence has been fudged up without attending to the sources already existing. It should be removed.Nishidani (talk) 10:40, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Translating the infobox map

The map used in the infobox is in what seems to be German, I think it would make sense to use an English version since this is an English page. EldritchEmpress (talk) 16:24, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Broken? link

In the second paragraph, last sentence, Khwarazm leads to the geographical region; it looks like it should link to Khwarazmian_Empire instead.

   The state became the autonomous entity of Rus' and then of Khazar former provinces (Khwarazm in which Khazars were known as Turks, just as Hungarians were known as Turks in Byzantium) in Volga Bulgaria. 2406:3400:21D:A8D0:9504:C433:1D85:B286 (talk) 05:01, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Edit Request - Khazar Milkers

• What I think should be changed (format using {{textdiff}}):

I would like to add reference to the popular phrase "khazar milkers" gaining traction in the early 2020s, used to refer sexually to Jewish women. This would go into the sub-section "Use in antisemitic polemic" found under the "Ashkenazi-Khazar theories" titles.

A sentence could be "In the 2020s, a popular internet antisemitic rhetoric referred to Jewish women's big breasts as "Khazar milkers". This description gained considerable traction on X, 4chan and Reddit."

• Why it should be changed:

The use of the phrase (specifically known to target Abby Shapiro but extended to other Jewish women) has been used regularly in antisemitic rhetoric and is widely recognized. It cryptically refers specifically to the "Khazars are Jews" theory and should be mentioned alongside the "khazar kaganate" phrase already noted in the article.

• References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button):

https://digitalcultures.net/memes/khazar-milkers/

https://realitypaper.com/khazar-milkers.html

https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.09946

2A02:C7C:AC9B:E500:8279:A528:1150:828E (talk) 16:26, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

2A02:C7C:AC9B:E500:8279:A528:1150:828E (talk) 16:23, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

References

No relevance to this article, which is historical. That it has been commonplace to refer to gentile women as 'shiksas', likewise, would have no encyclopedic value in an article on Jews.Nishidani (talk) 20:26, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. PianoDan (talk) 21:58, 23 September 2024 (UTC)