The Mongol gene

Most legendary Mongol wrestler Bayanmunkh Kh.

It happened to me at least twice,  greeted with a  very friendly attitude,   Koreans declared me as a "close relative"  of theirs. By blood and origin. A slightly drunken native American (wrongfully called also as American Indian) approached me once and while holding his bare arm to mine's, said, "Aren't we brothers? Look at our arms; don't they look the same?", meaning the matching skin colors. Kazakhs say that Chinggis Khan (or Genghis Khan if you will) was a Kazakh and therefore they deserve some credit in regards to his fame and name he made in the world history. So, in any way all this makes me feel like I am very "attractive" persona. Indeed, I am not only "attractive", but also a "rare" one too. The fact that the Mongols belong to the remaining 10% of the human beings who originated from the  Haplogroups other than F, proves it. The 90% of the world's population  originally comes from the Haplogroup F.

Now we talking about human genetics.  A Haplogroup is a group of similar "haplotypes" that share a common ancestor. A Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) test determins a haplogroup. In human genetics, most commonly studied haplogroups are Y-chromosome (Y-DNA) haplogroups and Mitochondial (mtDNA) haplogroups. Y-DNA is passed from father to son and mtDNA is passed from mother to child of both sexes. Haplogroups are assigned letters of the English alphabet , and refinements consist of additional number and letter combination. You can find more information on that on Wikipedia and elsewhere.

Genetics tells me where I came from and who I am.  Y-DNA tells me that I belong to Haplogroup called C3. Haplogroup C3 is a Y-Chromosome DNA mainly found in indigenous Mongolians. The subgroup C3b is quite common among males of the indigenous people in North America, so my drunken native American friend could have been  right. As to the  claim of those kind Koreans, I must disappoint them because they belong to the other group: Haplogroup F. We said "Goodbye"  to each other  60.000 (sixty thousand ) years ago when haplogroups C and F were separated. Koreans are more "related" to the Chinese, Arabs, English who all belong to group F. Hard to believe  that they "fell"  from the same "tree" because   they look so different today! (imagine an Englishman standing next to a Han-Chinese). But genetics wouldn't lie and we all  have to believe the science, right?

So, where is the C3 mostly found, you may  ask. Most of the Mongols (including those Mongols living in so called Inner Mongolia/China and Buryat Mongols living in Buryat republic/Russia), Khazara (minority in Afganistan, descendants of Mongols, terrorized and killed by mass during the Taliban regime; C3 up to 40%),  Kalmyks ( Republic of Kalmykia of Russian federation, a Mongol tribe much suffered especially after WW2 during the Soviet regime), Kazakhs (people in Kazakhstan, and Kazakh minority in Mongolia) have a higher C3 percentage.

Kazakhs are descendants of certain Turkic tribes and have own language. How come they have such a  high C3? Kazakhstan's scientists have been working on this for   many years now to answer this question. Of course, one can imagine many different attitudes from them towards the Mongols; some are nice, and some are not. Yet, there is a great propaganda going on to make Chinggis Khan as a Kasakh, as I mentioned before. During the Soviet era, Soviet-Russians wanted the people to  believe  that Kazakhs used to be tall Europeans with blue eyes until Mongols invaded them and raped their women, which  resulted  in how they look today. Namely a Russian named Sergey Karjavin noted in his "study" that the higher C3 percentage among the Kazakhs comes from this invasion, and he dared even to state that today's Mongols are not the ancient Mongols but Manchus and Chinese. What a bastard!

Irish short-story master George Moore (1852-1933) wrote in one of his stories  ("A Russian husband") that if you "Scratch the Russian and you will find a Tartar".  With "Tartar" he meant the Mongols  because  back then Mongols were called mistakenly as Tartars (or Tatars). (There was a tribe called Tatar though).   Of course he meant by that the "barbaric" nature of the Russian who "inherited" it from Tatars (Mongols) by blood.  But genetic studies showed today that the Russians don't carry any "Mongol gene". So, if you "scratch"  them you  shouldn't "find"  any Mongol. I think this  is a good news for them, and the Russians should be relieved, but  still, there are some people who don't want to accept  it. A Russian Health ministry official named Vladimir Nujnii   declared  recently  that half of the Moscow's population carries a Mongol gene and that is why they are alcoholic. What a shame! Now that the science proved that the Russians don't have Mongol genes, it means that he literally insulted own  Russian people, specifically the Moscow's residents, including himself.   I'll  leave him to the native Muscovites regarding the punishment for insulting the entire city and its population. Зараза такая!

Of course, there are other nationalities who have C3 in lower percentage, but with up to 60% of C3, the Kazakhs are definitely closer to the Mongols than any other Asian nation.  We have to wait though until the scientists find out  how and why.