zan wrote:phoenix wrote:zan wrote:phoenix wrote:Pumpy wrote:Piratis wrote:Speak about yourself. You of course are not Greek nor Cypriot. You don't speak Greek, you didn't serve in the army of Cyprus, you don't care about Cyprus (in fact you hate it), and I doubt you have the Cypriot citizenship. So what would make you Greek or Cypriot?
Cypriots are as Greek as it gets. Cyprus was Hellenized at the same time when most other Greek islands did, and just a few centuries after mainland Greece. All this happened long before the Greek civilization became the great civilization everybody admires today. Cypriots believed in the Gods of Olympus, one of which was Cypriot, and later became Greek Orthodox, again in line with the rest of the Greek world.
Greeks of Cyprus belong to the first Greek tribe, the Myceneans, and the spoke the most ancient Greek Language which became known as ArcadoCypriot since it was spoken in Arcadia (Peloponnese) and Cyprus. In fact Athenians and northern Greeks are mostly Dorians, a Greek tribe which arrived in the area later.
Cyprus did have many invadors and rulers since, but so did the other Greek islands and the Greek mainland itself.
Cyprus is not different, no different at all, than any other Greek island. The reason Cyprus today is not part of the Greek state is exclusively due to the fact that the British colonialists did not want to allow to the Cypriot people their freedom and self-determination and they have used the Muslim minority in Cyprus (turning them into "Turkish Cypriot community") as the excuse to deny to Cyprus its self-determination. All "Turkish Cypriots" before that spoke Greek, and in fact many of them had Greek as their mother tongue.
By the way Pumpy, you said you are "half English". Shouldn't you say a mix of Latin, Germanic and some other tribes?
Piratis, it would be quite helpful if you were to tell the truth about me every now and then, if only to know what it is like to debate openly and politely.
I am indeed half Greek Cypriot, my command of the language is weak, though respectable, and as far as the "Army" goes, that is clearly a ridiculous assertion you make based on a fanciful notion of what and who you think I am. I won't even acknowledge this statement.
I do not "hate" Cyprus, Piratis. Where have I said such a thing? Do we "love" our countries purely by omitting any criticism of them? What a laughable position to hold.
Some people seem to equate cultural identity factors, like language and religion, purely with being Greek (both aspects to Greekness that Greek Cypriots cling to for fear of not actually having a proper heritage or identity at all and quite an embarassing history of being overrun by foreign powers).
These perspectives are quite sad and a reflection of the confused state of the typical Cypriot in today's lost society. I'd say parentage and lineage have eveything to do with nationality and identity and the idea soneone can NOT be "Greek Cypriot" because they don't toe the line on certain areas is a joke. What a load of right wing nonsense.
Piratis progresses his post by equating language purely with nationality. Keep going, Piratis, as this is one of the few tenuous links you possess between Cyprus and Greece.
My "Englishness" is indeed up for dispute for the reasons given. A mixed blend for historical reasons, which is why my dear friend, people who recognise this call themselves "British" (all encompassing) as opposed to English (which denotes more of a racial harmony with the indigenous people).
I would never be so arrogant as to allign myself with a racially pure tribe. Seems like some of the more right wing greek cypriots here have trouble understanding their own position.
Pumpy your lack of education and intellectual prowess is showing through enormously with every post.
I assumed you ignored my pointer to "memes" and its application to Greekness through an oversight.
However, it is now apparent you are not up to date with memetic theory and how that is so much more important than genes and hereditary lineage .... because basically, Human Beings are all the same ... We inherit such different messages than pure signals from our parents, because of recombination events at chromosome replication, that Genetics is less relevant to the liberal elitists thinkers / scientists than the cultural differences that seep down to us from parents and kin.
That which we inherit that is far stronger, more Humanly unique than genes (which less face it, can be as high as 99% identical to those of Chimps) are the units of cultural inheritance, language, music, ideas and such like. These are the memes (akin to genes).
So Pumpy move with the times old boy, if you want to take on the heavy-weights like Piratis et al.
Here's a starter to get you motivated in the right direction (sorry it's from Wiki, but I don't think you are ready for the original Dawkins yet ....
Get with the times Pumpy, Old Bean
Biologist and evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme in 1976.[2] He gave as examples tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothing fashions, ways of making pots, and the technology of building arches.
Meme-theorists contend that memes evolve by natural selection (similarly to Darwinian biological evolution) through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance influencing an individual entity's reproductive success. So with memes, some ideas will propagate less successfully and become extinct, while others will survive, spread, and, for better or for worse, mutate. "Memeticists argue that the memes most beneficial to their hosts will not necessarily survive; rather, those memes that replicate the most effectively spread best, which allows for the possibility that successful memes may prove detrimental to their hosts."[3]
A short story written in 1876 by Mark Twain, A Literary Nightmare, describes his encounter with a jingle so "catchy" that it plays over and over in his mind until he finally sings it out loud and infects others (also known as an earworm).
What a weak theory that is
So now you are setting yourself above an Oxford professor are you "Prof" Zan.
Your inability to comprehend is not a measure of the validity of a theory .....
Whats not to understand...Is there something you forgot to tell us????You take the Darwinian Theory and use it on what ever entity you want and call it your own. Did it not work for shoes or not...They are regional and evolve in the same way as you described. Yu can even add aggressive advertising and selling to the equation to get the hunter and hunted part that accelerates evolution.......
Zan, you are on your own with this one. It is far more complex, quite radical, extremely progressive and probably beyond your intellectual prowess.
I am not saying you need a PhD in Genetics to comprehend it, but the odd "O" level would help.
Go forth and study, I will know when it has clicked because there will be a long silence from you about Cypriots and Greeks .....
.
