I. SIGNI GENTIUM EUROPAE et SIBERIAE GENTIUM | SYMBOLS OF THE EUROPEAN PEOPLES and main Siberian peoples

Europe appears as a great circle of belonging, home to nearly a hundred peoples and over a thousand historical regions.
It forms a geographically, historically, and humanly diverse unity, whose historical offshoots on other continents constitute a largely northern civilizational ring. The counterpart to the diversity of Europe’s peoples is their shared participation in the civilization they have created, in both its material and immaterial aspects.

The peoples of Europe form a living organism capable of transformations within a tripartite linguistic framework: Basque (Euskarian), Indo-European, and Uralic.
The geographical and cultural articulation of the continent outlines a Western Europe, a Southern Europe, a Northern Europe, and an Eastern Europe, centered around a Central or Median Europe—a five-part figure.

Historically, the popular cultures of Europe include those of the Basques or Euskarians, the Celts (Gaelic and Brittonic), the Latins, the linguistic origin of the Romance-speaking peoples (Hispano-Romans, Aquitano-Romans, Southern Gallo-Latins, Northern Gallo-Latins, Balkano-Romans), the Germanic peoples (Continental, Scandinavian, Western), the Balts, the Slavs (Western, Southern, Eastern), the Albanians, the Hellenes, the Finns (of the Baltic, Perm, and Volga regions), and the Ugric peoples.
Some peripheral linguistic groups include: the Ossetians, North Iranian-speaking descendants of the Alans; the Circassian Adyghe; the Nenets (Samoyeds, the third group of Uralic peoples, also present in Siberia); and Turkic-speaking communities (Tatars) as well as Mongolic-speaking groups (Kalmyks).

Naturally, the peoples mentioned here exhibit regional and local variations that administrative boundaries alone cannot adequately reflect. Over time, religion has contributed in highly varied ways to feelings of belonging. Aware of the diversity of situations—which do not affect the overall definition of European culture—we have limited ourselves to territorialized peoples, which does not exclude the contributions of dispersed groups, such as the Armenians, who for over a century have participated in the shared European culture. Cataloging all secondary identities in the manner of an ethnographer would have been arbitrary and prone to endless controversy.

These peoples, not all of whom have the same perception of their identity—but the great majority of whom define themselves by a distinct language (official in some places, marginalized or without status in others) and a particular history—must be regarded as diversified forms in themselves. While the traceability of linguistic roots is clear up to their current settlements, this should not obscure the fact that the territory of founding peoples has fluctuated over time—through expansions and retractions—as toponymy still bears witness. Ethnic definition does not exclude accumulated heritages.
From this perspective, one must also acknowledge that internal movements within the continent—driven by economic or political reasons, or by the attraction of urban centers of education or power—have always existed, without ever disrupting its general balance.

N.B.: International migratory movements since the late twentieth century have altered this picture.

We have devoted a special chapter to Siberia—Siberia, Sibir.
Home to a very large number of peoples, some of European origin, and a place of Paleolithic population dispersals toward both west and east, it constitutes one-third of the Northern Ring.
Hence the title of our main map: THE EUROPEANS, Europenses, and main Subborean peoples of Siberia.

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