What do all the people who are classified as "Arabs" have in common?

[Boojatta]

I suppose that it's possible to identify a region on the map and give a name to all the indigenous peoples of that region. For example, one could say that the indigenous people of Morocco, Spain, France, and Belgium are all Oozoot peoples. Of course, initially the word "Oozoot" will not be well-known, but is there anything inherently wrong with it?

[leftofthedial]

1. John McCain wants to kill them

if it takes 100 years

[BeFree]

15. Well

How else are we gonna get our oil out from underneath their houses?

Ya think they're just gonna let us have it all? No, they will fight us.

[Dawggie]

2. Dark hair?

[Taverner]

10. Nope. Afghans and Kurds can be blonde

[ieoeja]

20. Afghans aren't Arabs. Don't know about Kurds. n/t

[NoPasaran]

27. Kurds aren't Arabs either. They're Kurds

[Dawggie]

21. Right....

Good point. How do we know who to hate then? I hear some Mexicans are blond as well!!!!!

OMFG! We're doomed! We can no longer identify our internal enemies!!!!

:sarcasm:

[laconicsax]

3. Didn't your avatar used to be Lincoln?

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Language

I believe that originally "Arab" referred to a native of the Arabian Peninsula, and not all of them, but later it came to mean anyone whose native language is Arabic. If I'm remembering that correctly, then it's not a very meaningful classification.

[MADem]

5. They are Semites. NT

[sinkingfeeling]

6. They either came from one of the tribes of Arabian peninsula or speak Arabic as a 1st. language. It

has nothing to do with Islam.

[Bear down under]

14. The Emperor Marcus Julius Philippus (205 -249)

Known as Philippus Arabus or Philip the Arab from the fact that his family came from Syria. The ethnic/cultural identity of the Arabs was already well established 400 years before the Hegira.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. ...

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

[Enrique]

26. lol

what a concept. :-)

[CJCRANE]

8. What do all the people who are classified as "Europeans" have in common?

I suppose that it's possible to identify a region on the map and give a name to all the indigenous peoples of that region. For example, one could say that the indigenous people of Morocco, Spain, France, and Belgium are all Oozoot peoples. Of course, initially the word "Oozoot" will not be well-known, but is there anything inherently wrong with it?

[The Stranger]

23. "Europe" has a geographical and cartographical meaning. It is a continent.

Don't think there is a continent called "Arabia."

[CJCRANE]

24. Um.. the Arabian Peninsula is a

geographically defined piece of land.

Using your logic there is no such race or culture as Jewish people because they don't have a continent named after them.

[The Stranger]

36. Um ... the people referred to as Arabs are not confined to the Arabian Peninsula.

But Europeans are exclusively in Europe.

And what in the fuck does the Jewish people have to do with this?

[CJCRANE]

37. So there are no Americans

who consider themselves to be of European origin?

What about all those Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans..?

What about African-Americans? Do they all live in Africa?

Grow up.

On edit: And people who are called "Asian" all live Asia?

Jewish people are just an example. I could have used Celts, Inuits, Maoris, Aborigines etc.

[The Stranger]

55. Europeans all live in (or originate or claim to originate from) Europe.

However, Arabs don't all come from the Arabian peninsula and, in fact, some come from another continent (Africa) entirely. Defining them geographically is problematic.

And, even if there is some difficulty in defining Europeans, as they arise from many different ethnicities, they are much easier defined, in some sense, than are Arabs. And that contains a certain irony.

But all I can say is that reading your posts is amazing. You seem to go all over the place.

[JackRiddler]

57. Whatever their claims, Europeans come from most every invading army...

Even Mongolians.

[Dorian Gray]

52. I met a bunch of Europeans

who were living in Asia.

[JackRiddler]

43. Europe is not a continent

Thus illustrating the opposite of the point you are laboring to make.

Europe is a peninsula of the Eurasian continent, on the same tectonic plate as China.

Now by convention we call Europe a continent, and there's your answer: all of these things are subject to our definitions, which are often obscure historically.

[The Stranger]

54. Go argue with a cartographer then.

And, actually, if you read the post to which I was responding, the difficulty in assigning a people an identity like "Arab" is not the opposite of the point I was trying to make.

It is precisely the point I was making.

[JackRiddler]

56. The cartographers I know understand that Europe is not a continent.

Except by convention.

And all ethnic identities are mythological.

Languages are real. Arabs speak Arabic.

[thereismore]

9. They descended from Ishmael, son of Abraham. nt

[Boojatta]

25. What happened to all of Abraham's neighbors?

Do they have no surviving descendants? Did their descendants move away?

[thereismore]

32. Apparently. nt

[elehhhhna]

11. Anybody, quick: How does Persian differ from Arabic?

[El Supremo]

12. It's Farsi not Persian.

as in Farcical.

[elehhhhna]

17. My Iranian neighbor an danother iranian acq. call themselves "Persian"

whassup w/ that then?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Pretty much interchangable.

The language is usually called "Farsi," at least around these parts, but either work.

[WinkyDink]

29. "Persian" is more exotic, less fraught with current animosities.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

33. Iran used to be called Persia.

The Persians native religion is Zoroastrianism, which is the oldest still practiced religion. The Shah promoted it as a matter of national pride. However, most of them are Muslims, but they are not Arabs. Example: Omar Khayyam of Naishapur, astronomer, scientist and author of the Rubaiyat.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

50. After the 1979 hostage crisis, a lot of Iranian-Americans realized that

most other Americans have no idea that Iran was once called Persia.

Therefore, they took to calling themselves Persian, hoping that the pleasant connotations of that word (Persian rug, Persian cat) would save them from possible boneheads who would see it as their "patriotic" duty to beat up Iranians.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. Arabic's semitic, Persian's indo-european.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

49. Yes, that's it: Different language families

Persian is distantly related to English and other European languages. If languages were people, English and Persian/Farsi would be distant cousins.

Arabic is related to Hebrew and some other Middle Eastern and North African languages.

Persian uses the Arabic alphabet, but that doesn't make it related to Arabic any more than the use of the Latin alphabet for Navaho or Vietnamese makes them related to European languages.

[Malikshah]

22. Different language families--different grammatical structure, word root construction

etc.

The similarities (i.e. script, etc.) come from historical proximity and general history.

Turkish is Ural Altaic (closer to Japanese than Arabic)
Persian is Indo European (closer to English than Arabic)
Arabic is Hamito-Semitic (closer to Hebrew than Persian or Turkish)

Never make the mistake of confusing and Arab, Turk, or Persian...

The terms are Ethno-linguistic, not tied to religion, life-style, etc.

[Hekate]

13. Generally language; similar to how we refer to Latinos/Hispanics here

Europeans don't all speak the same language, though they share a continent. Muslims share a religion, but likewise speak a multitude of languages (and are spread out over several continents), so it's incorrect to refer to all Muslims or Middle Easterners as Arabs.

Btw, your post is phrased very oddly. The last question appears to be a non sequiter.

Hekate

[DinahMoeHum]

16. Remember: not all Arabs are Muslims, and not all Muslims are Arabs

There are numbers of Arabs in Syria and Lebanon who are Christian in their faith; and the country with the largest number of Muslims is Indonesia in the Far East.

:think:

[Cleita]

28. That's like trying to pin down a Hispanic. There is too much

diversity with all the invasions in the Middle East dating back to the Stone Age.

[WinkyDink]

30. Transience. Mobility.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

31. Huh?

Maybe you're thinking of the Bedouins?

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. Given the number of Arab cities in the list of oldest continuously inhabited cities

I think the Arabs might have a bone to pick with you:

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

[CJCRANE]

34. "Arabia" or "Araby"

has been the name of the Arabian peninsula (or subcontinent) in English for centuries. It seems strange that some people are suggesting this place doesn't exist. Go and pick up a copy of "1001 Arabian Nights" or go look at a medieval map to verify this for yourself.

[Boojatta]

38. A lot of places exist.

The question is: are you entitled to mark the boundaries of any arbitrary region and give a name to all indigenous inhabitants in that region? If you aren't entitled to do that, then what rules should you obey when deciding on the boundaries of a region?

[CJCRANE]

39. Your question applies

to all nations and all boundaries. Your emphasis on arabs seems to imply a prejudice or obsession.

[Boojatta]

41. "Your question applies to all nations and all boundaries."

True, but people might not respond to a general question. So I provided a specific example. I don't see how you detect an obsession or prejudice based on the fact that one example was provided.

I notice that you used the word "nation", but Arabs are the majority in many member nations of the UN. Can you explain the difference between "Arab nationalism" and "White nationalism"?

[CJCRANE]

51. Well

"white nationalism" is usually considered a bad thing in liberal circles so by implication "arab nationalism" probably is too. However now we're getting into territory normally relegated to the I/P forum, which I'm neither knowledgeable enough (nor interested enough) to delve into.

[CJCRANE]

40. Have you ever been to Africa? or the ME?

I have been to Africa - and not everyone in Africa is "African". Some consider themselves to be european, some are arabs, some are asian. The same with the ME, not everyone considers themselves to be "arab". You seem to be generalising from a place of ignorance.

[Boojatta]

42. Where did I refer to the "ME"?

Your accusation of my ignorance seems to be based on your own ideas of what you think that I might think. Why not quote my actual words?

[Occam Bandage]

45. Well, "Arab," like nearly all ethnicities, is a matter of self-identification, so sure.

[Boojatta]

46. Which ethnicities are exceptions?

I don't think, if Obama identified himself as a "white man", that many people would accept that. Yet, based on ancestry he has just as much right to the label "white man" as he has to the label "African-American."

[Occam Bandage]

47. Well, we're not referring to individuals, of course,

because we're talking about drawing maps. I'm more referring to cases in which self-identification is unhelpful, whether due to quirk of history as with a small enclave of self-described Jews in Western China (who are ethnically Han, who speak Chinese, and who retain absolutely no cultural or religious ties to Judaism), or due to political strife, in which closely-related cultures claim to have nothing to do with one another.

[Occam Bandage]

44. They speak Arabic languages. They share a unique common cultural foundation. There is often

a genealogical link.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

48. I once read a book called The Arab World, and it discussed this very issue

It pointed out that Arabs live anywhere between Morocco and Iraq, can be Christian or Muslim, and can be olive-skinned or nearly black, a sophisticated city dweller or an illiterate nomad.

The book concluded that an Arab is anyone whose native language is Arabic.

[Karenina]

53. What do all the people who are "classified" (by whom?) as

Indigenous
Aboriginal
"Black"
"White"
"Asian"
Jewish
Christian
Muslim
WORLD CITIZENS
have in common???