[Menydh]

Originally Posted by kyashan

I don't know where all this germanic thing spawned from: before browsing anthro-boards I had never heard of such thing regarding N.Italy.

I just did notice that the Northern League party promoted a celtic renaissance but usually in a folkloristic and unrehearsed way.

Sounds sort of like a New Age thing.

about the long time debated issue on phenotypical differences between north and south I basically agree with Coon: the north has a higher % of atlanto-meds while the south is more insular med. Southern regions have also berids and "a local approximation to an armenoid" type (this is the Coon's definition) which are not common among native people of the north.

I wonder about the percentages of Atlanto-Mediterraneans in the different regions of Northern Italy. Also, if it might not be the case of a trend towards Ponto-Mediterranean the farther you move East.

You should have also mentioned the Alpinid and Dinarid (a local approximation to Armenoid?) elements in the Northern regions.

the real radical difference is in social-economics and culture. Northern Italians are more mild-mannered, soft-spoken and respectful towards authority while the Southerners are more extroverted, loud-mouthed with a familistic attitude towards society.

In the 80s we had a fashion of Italian young males flooding the coastal areas of Spain during the Summer seasons. This left a negative print in the mind of Spaniards about Italians in general, which still endures today, because of their manners. Not far from the also negative print left by the English, although different in the details.

Now the easiest thing to think here would be to point to Southern Italians. But in my experience it was Southern and Northern Italians alike, only the levels of noise making the difference between the ones and the others.

I can say it's rather annoying for us northerners to be equated to some stereotypes about Italians supposedly lazy, non-professional at work, unorganised and connected to Mob. We are one of the most hard-working people in Europe and we haven't that familistic way of life which Mafia culture is rooted in (I'm not saying those stereotypes are true in regards of South Italy anyway)

Can you expand on that "familistic" way of life that you mention and which you link to "Mafia culture"? I'm not sure what you mean by it.

On an ethno-linguistic viewpoint Northern Italian languages belong to the Rheto-Cisalpine family opposed to the Italo-tuscanian family in the rest of the country.

That Rhaeto-Cisalpine terms doesn't sound familiar. Do you mean Rhaeto-Romance or Gallo-Romance, or both together?

What about the Siculo-Italian languages? Do they spread beyond Sicily and Malta into the mainland?

the economical differences are also worth mentioning but that would deserve a thread of its own.

As well as the historical details, especially that the union of Italy was pushed from the North and against the will of the South.

At any rate, it is worth noticing that Central Italy is always forgotten in this North vs South feuds.

the whole concepted of Padania is basically an invention but so is Italy, so I'd personally pick Padania over Italy because I consider the north (and on a lesser extent also central Italy) as my real 'heimat'.

Strange. I would have said that you were a Southern Italian. At some point I thought that you might be of Southern Italian origins but living in Northern Italy.

Originally Posted by svin

But didn't Langobards contributed to contemporary N.Italian genes?

Sure they did. Just like Ostrogoths contributed to the modern Central Italian gene pool (or the Normans to the Sicilian gene pool).

For historical reasons, the print of the Ostrogoths in Central Italy is quite unpopular there unlike that of the Visigoths (and remnants of Ostrogoths) and the Suabians in Spain.

How big was their contribution? Afterall, 500.000 of Langobards is not very small number.

Where did you get that figure from? I don't think that it was half as many.