ethnic origins

[Vimana]

Remember when Dodens got banned for making fun of your lips?

 

[Der Morgenstern]

I'm descend from a long line of reindeer herders.

 

[SentinelSlain]

Doden's is of Turkish descent.

 

[Der Morgenstern]

It comes across that he is all the time.

 

[skeptik]

JAGE, whatever became of that boy whom you called a retard? To his face? In front of his grandmother? Before that incident I always thought of you as a bit of a worthless little pissant, but after I'd read that you'd done that I was very impressed and became interested in following your various exploits.

 

[SentinelSlain]

He grew up and became president of the United States of America. I know you love me. There are places where you can go and be accepted for those kinds of feelings, like the YMCA.

 

[Chanakya]

I'm very interested in finding my ethnic origins. Culturally, I'm as South Indian as it gets. South Indians are the descendants of the original Indians [Indus Valley, anyone?] or Dravidians. However, my language is a very weird and ancient mixture of Sanksrit and Dravidian influences. I speak the "purer" Sanksrit version of the language, ostensibly since I'm a Brahmin.

As entanglement mentioned, inter-marriage never happened back in the day, so I can safely assume that my ancestors were Indo-Aryans. Brahmins are of course, the evil priestly class who were [and still fucking are] all about keeping the "purity" of our Vedic past. The rituals that we participate are said to have originated in 1400 B.C., so I'm pretty fucking confused.

The vast majority of South Indians are quite dark-skinned, but most of the Brahmins are quite fair-skinned. I'm scarily fair-skinned for a South Indian and have light brown eyes. More often than not, in America, I've been asked if I was Iranian/Turk/Arab/Latino before I tell them that I'm Indian.

After living in America and seeing so many different ethnicities, I'm now very interested in identifying my roots. Since the British took over, the South Indian naming standard evolved into this formula - First name-Place of Origin, Middle name-Dad's name, Last name-"First" name. Therefore my last name only traces to the village in which my Great-grandfather grew up in.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I'm very interested in finding my ethnic origins. Culturally, I'm as South Indian as it gets. South Indians are the descendants of the original Indians [Indus Valley, anyone?] or Dravidians. However, my language is a very weird and ancient mixture of Sanksrit and Dravidian influences. I speak the "purer" Sanksrit version of the language, ostensibly since I'm a Brahmin.

As entanglement mentioned, inter-marriage never happened back in the day, so I can safely assume that my ancestors were Indo-Aryans. Brahmins are of course, the evil priestly class who were [and still fucking are] all about keeping the "purity" of our Vedic past. The rituals that we participate are said to have originated in 1400 B.C., so I'm pretty fucking confused.

The vast majority of South Indians are quite dark-skinned, but most of the Brahmins are quite fair-skinned. I'm scarily fair-skinned for a South Indian and have light brown eyes. More often than not, in America, I've been asked if I was Iranian/Turk/Arab/Latino before I tell them that I'm Indian.

After living in America and seeing so many different ethnicities, I'm now very interested in identifying my roots. Since the British took over, the South Indian naming standard evolved into this formula - First name-Place of Origin, Middle name-Dad's name, Last name-"First" name. Therefore my last name only traces to the village in which my Great-grandfather grew up in.

What is it you're confused about?

The caste system is interesting. tbh i think there's something similar in effect in Western countries, it's just perhaps less written in blood than it is in money. From my experience, there seems to be a lot of exclusivism in professional circles (corporate, academic, government, whatever type) especially.

Also, what do you consider unique about South Indian culture relative to the rest of the country?

 

[cookiecutter]

I have a Tamil friend, and apparently his mom told him to avoid marrying a Tamil girl just so that they wouldn't have to worry about caste issues. Sounds weird at first, but as you say every culture has ways of dividing itself up.

 

[Chanakya]

What is it you're confused about?

The caste system is interesting. tbh i think there's something similar in effect in Western countries, it's just perhaps less written in blood than it is in money. From my experience, there seems to be a lot of exclusivism in professional circles (corporate, academic, government, whatever type) especially.

Also, what do you consider unique about South Indian culture relative to the rest of the country?

The confusion is about how the slow transition happened, and the degree of intermingling that occurred. I would like to know how and why my ancestors branched off and ventured further South, 3000 or so years ago and how my language was formed.

South Indian culture comprises of 4 distinct sub-groups with varying degrees of "Dravidan-ness"; Tamil is as Dravidan as it gets and is one of the oldest languages still spoken. Of course, there are very significant variants in each of these sub-groups, but we could ignore that.

South Indin culture has its own classical music style [Carnatic] and various other dance forms. The ethos of that place is vastly different, but I don't have much time to write about it, and most people may "tl;dr" this post. I do have to say that Bangalore is particularly different to all other big Indian cities with regards to how cosmopolitan it is. It is scarily British [language, art and sport snobbery] thanks to the heavy colonial heritage, and an amalgamation of every other culture, because the locals are very welcoming of people.