Genetic Haplogroups VS Historical Language Families

[unknownorigin]

Hello, so this is my first post and I found this forum looking for a place to clear up my confusion with this question, then I saw the other forum sections and got excited and registered. I have a very limited knowledge in this area and I hope with this post I will be able to gain a better understanding.

 

tl;dr: are modern ethnic groups/racial groups determined by Haplogroups, or by language families. Are haplogroups reliable? They conflict with language families, as language family theories state that a group of people migrated from one area while haplogroups claim something completely different. Examples: Are Romanians an extension of Italic peoples from the Roman empire or genetically I2A2, having more in common with Eastern European Slavs than Romance populations, as the newer Haplogroup studies have claimed. Another Example: Are Kurds, Iranians by extension, Indo Europeans with a common lineage traceable to central Asia, with the same roots as European and Indian language families, or are they the J2 haplogroup, with Semitic origins traceable to the Arabian peninsula.

 

So I've had this persistent set of questions, and I want to know which what kind of data I can follow to trace people to their origins. Should I be looking at the roots of people based on the languages they speak, and where the populations of the respective languages migrated from, or should I be looking at haplogroup sets, and the modern genetic studies. (Personally I've had a difficult time with this, as the "genetic" regions seem to be based on separating people for a political purpose, but I don't want to make any assumptions, so I'm just going to ignore that for now and mark it as speculation.)

 

My main question is: I find that the original theories for language migration and the modern haplogroup (and other genetic studies) conflict, as the language studies claim that a certain population migrates from one place and I would ASSUME they maintain their genetic differences from the other migratory groups. Take the Middle East for example, and while looking at Indo-European populations VS Afro-Asiatic ones, originally the Indo-Europeans (Kurds, Persians, and other south Asia) migrated from the Andronovo culture of the steppes (?), while the Afro-Asiatic population might have had its origins in Arabia, or the Red Sea area, and the Altaic (Turks, Tatars, Mongols) originated from the Eastern portion of central Asia, moving west over the original Scythian Iranian populations. Why then, are they considered to have haplogroups of the same family, specifically the J1 and J2 haplogroups. This is not even taking appearances into account. If one person has a certain set of traits that is completely different from another, yet are still considered to be genetically related, then what does a haplogroup determine (besides increased disease probability and supposed race).

 

I've also taken a look at the history, and I've looked at several other populations. This is again visible in the populations of Europe. For a vast period of time the Roman empire had controlled the Mediterranean, and as we see today, it left a massive linguistic legacy. However, European genetic studies have determined that the dominant Y-DNA haplogroups divide right through central Europe, from Berlin to Trieste. This grouping is confusing to me, because as far as I know, Germanic peoples migrated from a specific point and collided with the Romans in a series of wars and migrations fleeing each other and the Huns. The Slavic populations and those of Romania and Hungary are all linguistically separate from each other. Previously it was thought that the Hungarian, and by extension the Uralic language family on its own, had migrated from northern Russia into their current locations. If Romanians are originally italic peoples who migrated from where they were, how has their dominant haplogroup changed.

 

Sorry I've written so much. I've had a long time to think about this and no one who's been able to answer it. If it's badly written I apologize, I'm fairly new to this genetics/haplogroup stuff, so please correct me if I'm making a massive mistake somewhere.

 

As a side note, or as an optional question, my heritage is Turkish and Persian, and I don't share any common features with people from the Arabian peninsula or the Levant, and I have a much larger commonality with other Iranians and Turks, from Central Asia and South Asia. I have pale skin (Not Olive, but truly Pale), and a distinctive appearance. In order to understand my heritage and ancestry, should I be looking at haplogroups and genetic results, which claim that my ancestors originated in the Arabian peninsula, or to language families, which claim a common PIE family of people who migrated from their original location, and share a commonality with South Asia and Europe rather than Arabia.

 

[Edit] It's paining me to make this any longer haha, but I need to add one more quick point. In my DNA test it revealed that my Dad's primary haplogroup was from Armenia, and my mothers was from Bangladesh. However, when I click on MY Haplogroup it claims my origins as Central Saudi Arabia, or the Riyadh area. I think this is pretty fascinating, but is it accurate? Thanks for any help.

Edited April 25, 2017 by unknownorigin