Foxfyre wrote:And then tell me that the modern day Iraqis do not speak an Arabic dialect.
They speak Arabic, period. One might allege that they speak a distinctive patois of Arabic, and that, in fact, helps Iraqi police and security personnel to identify foreigners in their country--but they don't speak a separate dialect.
All educated Muslims at least read, and the great majority speak Arabic. That doesn't mean that the Pakistanis are descended from Arabs. That doesn't mean that the Pathans of Afghanistan, or the Urdu or the Uzbeks are descended from Arabs. That doesn't mean the Bengalis who practice Islam are descended from Arabs. That doesn't mean that Indonesians are descended from Arabs. In Europe five hundred years ago, all educated people spoke and wrote Latin--that doesn't mean they were descended from Latins or Hernicans (ever heard of the Hernicans, oh thou fount of historical expertise?).
This is a specious argument on the face of it.
Quote:And tell me that the modern day Iraqis do not occupy the center of ancient Babylonia and that it is not reasonable to assume that they, along with all other Arabs (generic term) in that area descended, at least in part, from that culture.
Strickly speaking, there never was such a place as "Babylonia." There was, strictly speaking, no such culture as a "Babylonian" culture. Babylon was founded by the Akkadians. These were a Semitic people who arrived in the region more than 4,000 years ago. Their greatest military leader was Sargon, who conquered the Sumerian city states, and established his capital at Akkad (hence the name for the Akkadians--Accad is still a common family name in the middle east, and i have known Lebanese who have that name--Sargon drove his conquering armies right to the shore of the sea in what is now Lebanon). Akkad was later renamed Babylon. Only Bobble scholars who know damned little of the history of the region refer to "Babylonia," and a "Babylonian" culture. It's one of the ways an historian familiar with the period and the region can spot the amateur who comes with a religious agenda and who considers the Bobble a reliable historical source.
Quote:You can nit pick this to death and will just look more and more like a nit picker who doesn't want to accept that somebody intended exactly what they intended. You're better than that.
Walter can, of course, defend himself against your silliness, and is sufficiently intelligent and sophisticated to see through your left-handed compliment. It is not nit-picking to take note of the very distinct origins or peoples ranging over thousands of miles in a period of thousands of years.
