The study doesn’t identify specific genetic markers linking Ashkenazi Jews to Khazar populations (e.g., modern Chuvash or Crimean Tatars, used as proxies). Instead, it broadly cites Iranian and Turkic similarity, which could reflect general Silk Road admixture rather than Khazar descent.
Other genetic studies (e.g., Behar et al., 2013; Cell, 2022) confirm Ashkenazi Jews descend from a small founding population like I mentioned above.
And you still have to contend with the 30-60% of autosomal DNA to Levant populations that could not rise from a mass conversion of a Turkic people.
Yiddish lacks Turkic vocabulary, phonemes, or syntax, which would be expected if it originated among Khazar or Turkic-speaking Jews. Even minor loanwords from Turkic languages are absent, unlike Slavic terms (e.g., bubbe from Polish babcia).
The relexification theory (replacing Slavic vocabulary with German while retaining Slavic grammar) is widely rejected by linguists.
In an effort to discover the origin of the Yiddish language, researchers say that they have found evidence that proves that Ashkenazi Jews are descended predominately from four villages in northeastern Turkey.
The study, titled “Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to primeval villages in the ancient Iranian lands of Ashkenaz” was conducted by researchers from three universities in the U.K., U.S., and Israel. It was published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.
Using a Geographic Population Structure device, Dr Eran Elhaik, a geneticist from the University of Sheffield who led the study, was able to convert the DNA of Ashkenazi Jews into geographic coordinates.
The data showed that 90 percent of Ashkenazi Jews have links to the ancient villages of Iskenaz, Eskenaz, Ashanaz, and Ashkuz that sit near ancient Silk Road trade routes.
From the study:
“North east Turkey is the only place in the world where these place names exist – which strongly implies that Yiddish was established around the first millennium at a time when Jewish traders who were plying the Silk Road moved goods from Asia to Europe wanted to keep their monopoly on trade.
“They did this by inventing Yiddish – a secret language that very few can speak or understand other than Jews. Our findings are in agreement with an alternative theory that suggests Yiddish has Iranian, Turkish, and Slavic origins and explains why Yiddish contains 251 words for the terms ‘buy’ and ‘sell’. This is what we can expect from a language of experienced merchants.”
Yiddish, which incorporates German, Slavic and Hebrew, and is written in Aramaic letters, is commonly thought to be an old German dialect.
However, an alternative theory proposed by Professor Paul Wexler from the University of Tel Aviv and also an author on the study, suggests that Yiddish is a Slavic language that used to have both Slavic grammar and words but in time shed its Slavic lexicon and replaced it with common and unfamiliar German words.
Fair enough, but this undermines the whole Khazar hypothethis, as the theory implies that it was a mass conversion of Turks with minimal to no Jewish ancestry!
The study doesn’t identify specific genetic markers linking Ashkenazi Jews to Khazar populations (e.g., modern Chuvash or Crimean Tatars, used as proxies). Instead, it broadly cites Iranian and Turkic similarity, which could reflect general Silk Road admixture rather than Khazar descent.
Other genetic studies (e.g., Behar et al., 2013; Cell, 2022) confirm Ashkenazi Jews descend from a small founding population like I mentioned above.
And you still have to contend with the 30-60% of autosomal DNA to Levant populations that could not rise from a mass conversion of a Turkic people.
Yiddish lacks Turkic vocabulary, phonemes, or syntax, which would be expected if it originated among Khazar or Turkic-speaking Jews. Even minor loanwords from Turkic languages are absent, unlike Slavic terms (e.g., bubbe from Polish babcia).
The relexification theory (replacing Slavic vocabulary with German while retaining Slavic grammar) is widely rejected by linguists.
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/ashkenazi-jews-as-well-as-the-yiddish-language-came-from-four-villages-in-northeastern-turkey-study
In an effort to discover the origin of the Yiddish language, researchers say that they have found evidence that proves that Ashkenazi Jews are descended predominately from four villages in northeastern Turkey.
The study, titled “Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to primeval villages in the ancient Iranian lands of Ashkenaz” was conducted by researchers from three universities in the U.K., U.S., and Israel. It was published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.
Using a Geographic Population Structure device, Dr Eran Elhaik, a geneticist from the University of Sheffield who led the study, was able to convert the DNA of Ashkenazi Jews into geographic coordinates.
The data showed that 90 percent of Ashkenazi Jews have links to the ancient villages of Iskenaz, Eskenaz, Ashanaz, and Ashkuz that sit near ancient Silk Road trade routes.
From the study:
“North east Turkey is the only place in the world where these place names exist – which strongly implies that Yiddish was established around the first millennium at a time when Jewish traders who were plying the Silk Road moved goods from Asia to Europe wanted to keep their monopoly on trade.
“They did this by inventing Yiddish – a secret language that very few can speak or understand other than Jews. Our findings are in agreement with an alternative theory that suggests Yiddish has Iranian, Turkish, and Slavic origins and explains why Yiddish contains 251 words for the terms ‘buy’ and ‘sell’. This is what we can expect from a language of experienced merchants.”
Yiddish, which incorporates German, Slavic and Hebrew, and is written in Aramaic letters, is commonly thought to be an old German dialect.
However, an alternative theory proposed by Professor Paul Wexler from the University of Tel Aviv and also an author on the study, suggests that Yiddish is a Slavic language that used to have both Slavic grammar and words but in time shed its Slavic lexicon and replaced it with common and unfamiliar German words.
you are giving the same study again and it lacks the genetic markers to make the claim - only genetic similarity.
Again, how would 30-60% of DNA of Ashkenaz have ties to Levant population if they were mass converted Turks?
I don't know. Maybe they did the nasty with the traders on the Silk Road where they lived.
Fair enough, but this undermines the whole Khazar hypothethis, as the theory implies that it was a mass conversion of Turks with minimal to no Jewish ancestry!