Culture vs. genes; peoples & places

Lost of discussion about Basques below. Some interesting examples which are less speculative. Hungary = Language changes, genes do not The intrusion of ethnic Magyars, and later the settlement of Kipchak Turks fleeing the Mongols, within Hungary is historically attested. Additionally, down to the Reformation there were isolated settlements of Turks among the Magyars which maintained their own linguistic tradition. But digging through the literature it is very difficult to find much genetic impact. Anatolian Turks are a milder case; eastern genetic contributions can be found, but it is the minor component, and this may reflect the greater genetic distance of Turks from Europeans/Anatolians than the Ugric groups of the lower Volga. Bulgaria = Neither language or genes change Bulgaria is interesting because it resembled Hungary in many ways. An alien ethnic elite on top of a local substrate. In this case though the alien Bulgar elite was Slavicized, leaving only their ethnonym. Again, no genetic impact. Japan = Language and genes change This is a case where the preponderance of evidence seems to be that the Yayoi rice-culture bearers arrived from the continent and predominantly replaced the indigenous post-Jomon culture. The Ainu may be a residue of the Jomon natives, and a non-trivial, though minority, component of the Japanese ancestry can be traced back to the Jomon (a Uyghur treatment would clear up the case of Japan, because if admixture did occur in the manner posited above it would should up in the form of decayed linkage disequilibrium. Though the parent populations in this case are much closer than in that of the Uyghurs). Basques & Brahui = Language does not change, genes do Unlike the previous cases I'm a little sketchy about these instances. I can't think of a whole political nation where this occurred, but linguistic isolates are possible cases. The Basques were suggested below, but the Brahui of Afghanistan and Pakistan may be a case where the Dravidian language persisted despite long term gene replacement by their Indo-Iranian neighbors. This dynamic is most likely to occur in the case of small culturally distinctive populations surrounded by larger groups whose distinctive gene content "bleeds" into them. Some of the Romani speaking groups in Europe ("Gypsies") clearly fall into this group, especially western ones such as the Siniti. Most of these populations retain Indo-Aryan speech, but many have admixed enough with the local populations on their migrations that more of their genetic heritage is European or Middle Eastern than South Asian (though the genetics & phenotype also indicates a strong South Asian stamp in many of these groups, especially in south & east Europe, though I didn't guess that the run-down Balkan village in Borat was populated by Romanian gypsies by physical type alone). Thinking about these extreme cases allows us to get a better intuitive sense of how different inheritance constraints of genes and culture shape our variation. We obtain 50% of our genes from each parent, but we don't need to obtain 50% of our language from each parent. We may not even share the same first language with our parents. And yet historically linguistic and genetic patterns have been related. Note:Ashkenazi Jews may be another case where culture, if not language, persists where the ancestral genetic distinctiveness is eroded. But like the Romani speaking populations this may be a special case where relatively strong endogamy has also generated a unique genetic profile which is distinctive from their neighbors and their ancestors.