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by astrodust 3174 days ago
That link about vocal characteristics is only relevant when talking about huge populations. On an individual basis it's meaningless, there's just too much variation. You need samples of a thousand or more to develop a picture. Where biological differences do exist that might affect intonation in a particular dialect, but not when soemeone was raised with a different dialect or intonation.

Now if "Japanese" isn't a race then nothing is. The vast majority of Japanese are identifiable on a genetic level due to the relative isolation of the country. Same goes for Inuit who were geographically and culturally isolated.

> Middle Eastern and European are better examples.

If you're talking some stereotypically Polish person compared to some stereotypically Arabic person from Egypt, obviously, but there's cases where ordinary Turkish people look more "European" than some groups of Europeans do.

The bell curve on these things is just too wide, there's nothing but overlap in all but the most extreme fringes.

1 comments

>That link about vocal characteristics is only relevant when talking about huge populations. On an individual basis it's meaningless, there's just too much variation.

If we are talking about white/black voice difference, then it is meaningful.

>Now if "Japanese" isn't a race then nothing is. The vast majority of Japanese are identifiable on a genetic level due to the relative isolation of the country.

Race is just a more broad concept than an ethnic group, that's what I mean.

>If you're talking some stereotypically Polish person compared to some stereotypically Arabic person from Egypt, obviously, but there's cases where ordinary Turkish people look more "European" than some groups of Europeans do.

That's what I meant when I said that it would be easier if you take groups 100 hundred people, it averages out. And yeah, Europeans and Arabs are white, so there is little difference between them.

>The bell curve on these things is just too wide, there's nothing but overlap in all but the most extreme fringes.

Yes, "cline" is a better description than "race" but it is not as useful in daily life as "race" is.