Are Austrians the same as Germans ??

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Robert22

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Hello have a question. Some people say that Austrians are ethnically the same as Germans. But when i look at the Haplogroup page i see differences between Austrians and Germans.

Region/Haplogroup

I1 ​

I2a​

I2b​

R1a​

R1b​

G2a​

J2​

J1​

E1b1b​

T ​

Q​

N1c1​
Austria

12​

6​

2​

26​

23​

8​

12​

0​

9​

1​

0.5​

0.5​
Croatia

8​

42​

1​

29​

8​

1​

3.5​

0​

6​

1.5​

0​

0​
Czech Republic

11​

9​

4​

34​

22​

5​

6​

0​

6​

1​

1.5​

0.5​
Germany

16​

1.5​

4.5​

16​

44.5​

5​

4.5​

0​

5.5​

1​

0.5​

1​
North Germany



18.5​

0.5​

7.5​

22​

36​

3.5​

4​

0.5​

2.5​

1​

2​

1.5​
East Germany



16.5​

1.5​

5​

24​

36​

4​

2​

0​

7.5​

1​

1​

1​
West Germany



12.5​

2.5​

6.5​

9​

47​

5​

5​

0​

8​

1.5​

0.5​

2​
South Germany



10.5​

4.5​

3​

9.5​

48.5​

8​

5.5​

1​

8​

1.5​

0.5​

0.5​
Hungary

8​

15​

2.5​

32.5​

17​

5​

7​

0​

9.5​

1​

1​

1​
Slovakia

6​

10​

1​

42​

23​

1​

4​

0​

9​

1​

2.5​

0.5​
Slovenia

9.5​

22​

2​

34.5​

23.5​

1.5​

3​

1​

3​

0​

0​

0​
Switzerland

12​

1.5​

4.5​

8​

48​

8​

6​

1​

9​

0.5​

1.5​

0​




So are Austrians their own ethnic group ?
 
Of course they are not the same in average, although haplogroups are not the most reliable indicator to know it. For the moment there's lack of Austrian samples, but probably something will come out soon as Dodecad achieves, at least, 5 Austrians to show the average.

But Germans aren't homogeneous as group, there's not a modal German in genetic terms. The German portrait from the Dodecad project, show significant variations from North to South in regards for this population. So even Germans are not the same between each other, and some of them are surely very similar to Austrians. I don't have any doubt about this.
 
There where no Austrians until 998AD, they where Bavarians and spoke the bavarian language. In ancient times, they where the Rhaetians, Gallic tribes of carni, taurisci and Norici and Osi IIRC. In the Barbarian invasion , the Rugii tribe from the baltic sea settled there as well as goths, huns , avars and some lombards..............I definetly left a lot of tribes out

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Bavarian_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugii

The only Hg which seems slight different from Germany is the high J2
 
There are many similarities between Austrians and Germans, especially in southern Germany.
But Norh Germans do look a bit different from Austrians.
In Burgenland there are some Hungarian and croatian influences
In Carinthia there are some slovenians.


But does Austria count as own ethnic group, like Bosnians are a own ethnic group, but from their appereance they resemlbe Serbians or Croats. And is Austria also its own ethnic group or are they just Germans.
 
I don't know much about the Austrian history but, considering its geographical place, my impression is that they are a mix of several ethnic groups, being the Germanic influence the most dominant. So it's more apropriate to call them "population", and we avoid twisting things.

For the little I know about Swiss results (very similar), they appear to be a mix of many different ethnicities, and I don't expect the average Austrians to be incredibly different.

However, I insist: we need more samples.
 
Austrians long ago might have been Germans but now they are more Slavic than German.
 
Well we are not that extremly slavic. But i agree there is more slawic influence here than in Germany. IIRC Slaws settled once in Austria, there are also the Romans, later the Germans came. Also we were a Multicultural Empire once and still we border on Slovenia, Hungary etc. So i think Austrians are rather a mix of various ethnics, rather than true German or Germanic. Atleast in the southern regions of Austria i think there is much more Slavic influence than in Germany.
There are many peoples here in my region who are not typically German or germanic, they more resemble slavics. Also Blondes with blue eyes are relativly seldom, in Northern Germany they are much more common.
 
Jacker22 said:
Austrians long ago might have been Germans but now they are more Slavic than German.
Click to expand...

IMHO a good indicator of the relative proportion of Germanic vs. Slavic influence in Austria is the I1 : I2a-Din ratio, as both are contained in similar proportions in their parent ethnicities and are generally strongly linked to those ethnicities. The small sample size currently yields about a 2:1 ratio, maybe a bit higher since not all I2a1/I2b/I2c is I2a-Din (although a lot of it is going to be in Austria). That matches my expectations of Austrians being more Germanic in heritage than Slavic. Their modern ethnicity is more influenced by Germans as well, as indicated by their language.
 
Robert22 said:
Well we are not that extremly slavic. But i agree there is more slawic influence here than in Germany. IIRC Slaws settled once in Austria, there are also the Romans, later the Germans came. Also we were a Multicultural Empire once and still we border on Slovenia, Hungary etc. So i think Austrians are rather a mix of various ethnics, rather than true German or Germanic. Atleast in the southern regions of Austria i think there is much more Slavic influence than in Germany.
There are many peoples here in my region who are not typically German or germanic, they more resemble slavics. Also Blondes with blue eyes are relativly seldom, in Northern Germany they are much more common.
Click to expand...

Regarding Slavic influence, I must disagree. Eastern Germany has a much larger influence there. Large parts of the eastern part of Germany - east of the Elbe and Saale rivers, and in the north as far west as parts of Schleswig-Holstein, were settled by Slavic tribes at the start of the Medieval Ages. As you may know, a distinct West Slavic language, Sorbian, is also still vestigially spoken today in the area of Lusatia. In must of these areas, you can find town names which have distinctly Slavic origin (notably "Lübeck" and "Chemnitz", to pick a few names). You don't find as many Slavic town names in Austria as you do in eastern Germany.

In any case, I find the idea that Austrians are that distinct from Germans somewhat silly, given the intermingled history. You might argue that Austria's separate history really only starts during the Napoleonic Wars, when the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, and the former Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II., declared himself as 'Emperor of Austria'. As others pointed out, Germany has a north-south gradient and Austria fits in with southern Germany. Austrian is part of the south German dialect continuum (specfically with Bavarian), and Austria started out as part of the stem duchy of Bavaria at the start of the medieval Ages. The Bavarians (Bajuvarii = "Boii Men" or "Boii warriors") in turn were originally from Bohemia (Boii home), and possibly formed from the remnants of the Marcomanni. The Marcomanni in turn were a Germanic tribe who conquered the Celtic Boii (in Bohemia) in the 1st century BC. Now the area of Austria was inhabited by a different Celtic people, the Norici, and they were conquered by the Romans in the late 1st century BC.
 
but then again even the slovenian Main city is called Laibach, the slovenians call it Ljubljana . But Leibnitz sounds a bit slawic to me. Graz has slawic origins, Garanas and Ossiach are slawic aswell. And i am sure there are cities or villages which have some slawic origin.
And in Southern Austria ( Carnithia for example ) there are many many slawic sounding village names: Woschte, Tomk,Sapotnitza, Dovjak, Drazjavas, Globasnitz, Soboth. Graz has also slawicorigin.
In southrtn Carinthia and Burgenland the city signs are often bilingiual.
 
The slavs got into east germans lands was only around 700AD due to the previous centuries departures of east german tribes in the barbarian invasion of the Roman Empire, the burgundians, goths, vandals, rugii, longbards, heruli, Quadi , etc etc etc
 
Ok.
But is Austria now just a nationality, or are they also a ethnic group. many say the ethnicy Austrians is just a invention.
 
Last edited:
zanipolo said:
The bear on the berlin flag as I was told represents the slavs, below is the old name
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cölln
Click to expand...

A common misconception is that the word Berlin derives from "bear". But in fact, the bear emblem has nothing to do with it's name.
Cölln was a separate town in the middle ages and later merged with Berlin. In contrast to Berlin it was founded by colonists, who came from Netherlands, Rhineland and Franconia during the "East Colonisation". In the 17th and 18th century Berlin was even 1/3 French (Huguenotts). When you look at the surenames of local people today, it is an interesting mixture of German, Slavic, French and Dutch names.
 
Robert22 said:
Ok.
But is Austria now just a nationality, or are they also a ethnic group. many say the ethnicy Austrians is just a invention.
Click to expand...

I would say, it's not so much an 'invention' but a product of relatively recent history (the past 200 years). Let's take a closer look at this:

- Austria shares a common linguistic origin with the Bavarians.
- The Habsburgs were, over longer stretches of time, the dominant power inside the Holy Roman Empire, and large areas of land which lie today within Germany or the Benelux countries were once technically part of Austria.
- As I mentioned before, the last Holy Roman emperor was a Habsburger.
- Austria was, due to the Austrian-Prussian rivalry (and due to the fact that by then it was a multi-ethnic empire) excluded from the German reunification.
- At the end of World War I, the rump Austrian state was prohibited from (re-)unifying with Germany.
- On the eve of World War II, Austria was de-facto annexed by Nazi Germany, and for the Allies, it was without debate to reverse this after the war.
- After World War II, Austrian national identity was heavily boosted in order to distantiate themselves from the Nazis (though there are reasons you might consider this a little bit ironic).
- By 1990, when the two Germanies reunified at the end of the Cold War, nobody on either side even raised the suggestion of a (re-)unification with Austria.

As you can see, the best way to describe this is a gradual process over the past 200 years. Had history happened differently, who knows?
 
So you say that the own Austrian ethnicy doesnt really exists, as we are Bavarians.
 
Robert22 said:
So you say that the own Austrian ethnicy doesnt really exists, as we are Bavarians.
Click to expand...

Well, what I said applies for Austria within it's current boundaries. If you go back, the situation looks quite a bit different: at one time, Austria stretched quite a bit across the dialect continuum and incorpororated German-speaing ethnicities of quite different origins (Sudetenland, Silesia, Transylvanian Saxons). None of these are considered Austrians today.
 
But i dont really get why Austrian Y-DNA haplogroup is relativly different from the German average. Maybe its the lack fo samples as Knovas said ? Do you think with more Austrian samples it would lpook different ?
 
Robert22 said:
But i dont really get why Austrian Y-DNA haplogroup is relativly different from the German average. Maybe its the lack fo samples as Knovas said ? Do you think with more Austrian samples it would lpook different ?
Click to expand...

Well, consider that genetics knows know boundaries and you have differences everywhere. So Austria lies pretty much within the spectrum of the surrounding areas. I do believe however that the lack of samples is a problem. Maciamo has marked Austria in his database with 2 stars, which means that it includes between 100 and 250 samples. This is too little to make reliable statements about the Haplogroup frequencies because the margin of error is too great.
 
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