Quote Originally Posted by bossel
M-W: ethnic
2 a : of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background <ethnic minorities> <ethnic enclaves> b : being a member of an ethnic group c : of, relating to, or characteristic of ethnics

Ethnicity is obviously open to definition; the 56 ethnicities for China that you mentioned are only a political (communist) qualification. They lumped together which doesn't belong together, they drew lines where there are none. Actually, you can distinguish hundreds of ethnicities in China, even the Han are not one homogenous block.


Why do you need a dynasty to have foreign influence? IIRC, eg. Buddhism grew without being forced upon the Chinese by a foreign dynasty. Except for invasions, when a "foreign" ethnicity achieved rulership, they were already very much sinicised. Which, then again, doesn't mean that on their way to sinicisation they didn't leave their mark on society & culture (albeit regionally).


Neither was China ever ethnically "pure."


At the time of the establishment of their states they were foreign.


At least one half-Turk did: Li Yuan Tang


From the Turks? Honestly, I don't know, but probably (since Turks lived inside China for several centuries, before they finally assimilated) some folk dances, a few words, dishes, costumes aso. Sogdian traders also brought a lot of Western (European) stuff into China.

Influences of other non-Chinese ethnic groups, apart from what I already wrote about the Turk peoples? Buddhism, Islam, warfare (weaponry & tactics), perhaps (well, probably) influence on literature & arts. Esp. during Tang we have quite a lot of foreign students & scholars in ChangAn, not only being influenced, but also influencing.



Yes, why would I.


Since Japanese is a different language family from Chinese, while both Germanic & Romance languages belong to one & the same, the comparison still limps, IMO.


Ah, you see, this explanation actually makes sense to me.

Yeah, but chinese came from south east asia.