I think that the Greeks can be best recogised by their lips. It's very clear.

"I think that the Greeks can be best recogised by their lips. It's very clear."

I disagree, it's all in the earlobes. Greeks can be best recognized by their earlobes. It's very clear.

It is said that the only way Greeks are recognised as such is by their foot toes.

True Greeks have a certain characteristic: their second foot toe is a bit longer than the the first toe.

I can't imagine that all true Greeks had a seccond longer foot toe. It's like saying that they all had a Greek nose. Not by a long shot. Just take a look at the ancient statues.

As for the lips. I din't mean that you can pick a Greek from looking at his lips, but they do seem to have some similarities.

I am not saying their second toe is MUCH longer than their first toe, it is a slight difference that .....makes the difference.

"I am not saying their second toe is MUCH longer than their first toe, it is a slight difference that .....makes the difference."

Please quantify ("slight difference").

Look, I know what you mean. A lot of Greeks have seccond larger foot toes. It's called a 'Greek toe'! Ancient Greeks also shared that same characteristic.
But my point is that we can't be sure ALL true (as in ancient) greeks had seccond larger doot toes.

"True Greeks have a certain characteristic: their second foot toe is a bit longer than the the first toe."

Thats not very charming for you as a Greek because this is a primitive feature.
Its an ape-like "grab foot" like Eickstedt saw it more often in regions of the old homo sapiens strata.
Normally its in Europe something of an individual feature and not very common.
I think it would go to far to say its an atavismus but its nothing very positive from an esthetic or anagenetic point of view.

If you would prove that the most Greeks got this feature you dont do them a favour. ^^

>> I think it would go to far to say its an atavismus but its nothing very positive from an esthetic or anagenetic point of view.

Quite a lot of Greek statues have this feature, but not all. Some modern Greeks have it and some don't.

Please explain what an "anagenetic" point of view is.

Anagenese meant for me in this context the progressive development of the species.
This intraspecific cladogenetic development is the opposite of degeneration on the one and primitive/archemorphe features on the other hand.
F.e. the development of the Neocortex or the change of the position of the Forum magnum are such things in the human evolution.

To the Greeks posting here: unlike "digit," "toe" in English never means finger -- so you can stop writing "foot toe." Just put "toe."

(I wasn't going to say anything, of course, but that changed when every single Greek put "foot toe.")

What an extraordinarily ugly woman. Not surprised she's Greek.

Such comments are really useless Randy...
Maybe shes not that attractive to you and maybe she's not my favourite type of woman, but one thing is for sure, shes not ugly.
And in my personal opinion she is quite attractive, even if she is not my favourite type of woman.

"What an extraordinarily ugly woman. Not surprised she's Greek."

Are you saying that *all* Greek women are ugly? I disagree.

This business about knowing Greeks by their lips: this girl's thumbnails are arrayed in three rows of three on my machine. Look carefully at her lips in the first two thumbnails of the bottom row. Do those two pix in particular give anyone the feeling they are looking at a woman of Greek ethnicity? They do me -- strikingly so, even.

(Of course it's not just "lips," but rather the combination of lips, entire mouth, and teeth, all taken together as a whole, in each of those two pictures: look carefully at the entire mouth, lips, and teeth. You can almost hear her speaking Greek as you look.)

Most people in my family (I'm Greek) have the longer second toe, especially the left one, and I've seen this in many other Greeks too.

There are also some other features I've noticed in many Greeks ancient and modern (and in some Italians/Turks): big, wide, flat feet; and an unmistakable body type. Many people have this look where their torso is sort of too big for the rest; like, their arms will look sort of skinny for their bodies, and they'll look like they have no waist. The arms can look really long too, and the neck will often be thick.

I bet it wouldn't be too hard to find the gene for that longer second toe and then test out the hypothesis, seeing which peoples had it most. (Of course, that research would be seen as a frivilous use of grant money -- which it sort of would be -- and would never get funded.)

Speaking of the way people's lips, tongues, and teeth are shaped and move when they talk: Are Greek, English, and Castillian Spanish the only languages that have the th sound as in the English word "thing" or the Spanish word "entonces" (where in Castillian the c gets pronounced th)? Or do other languages have the th? Anglo-Saxon has it, of course, represented by the runic letter "thorn," þ, and the letter "eth" I think it's called, ð (that's supposed to look like a lower-case Greek delta with a little line crossways through the stem). But Anglo-Saxon counts as part of English. Does Icelandic have it? I suppose it must. Do the three other Scandinavian languages?

You guys are sounding a bit foolish now, with talk of "long toes." C'mon now.

I have just discovered I am not Greek because my big toe is the longest toe! Also my mom is not Greek but by brother is Greek.

Come on stop being clowns.

It's amazing how much make-up Greek women have to wear in order to look acceptable.

IN the long term game of strategic, purposeful human adaptation, it is not entirely inconcievable that we, as a species, may one day wish to return to our tree-swinging ways. When that happens, the Greeks will once again be on top, thanks to their freaky, arboreal toes. But you greeks shouldn't get too cocky, because as soon as the polar glaciers return, the Irish are coming down to take everything back.

OK, let's be silly. Why would the Greeks retain an ape like "grab foot"? Could it be because of the ancestral occupations of sailing and climbimg olive trees? I come from an island with plenty of olive trees and yes my "Greek toe" is definately longer than my "non-Greek toe". What about the Macedonians or the Thessalians though? They have no olive trees and are not renowned sailors. Are they less Greek than us islanders? What if you have a "Greek toe" on your left foot but not the right? Of course I love my feet. Especially now.

The various characters that are posting useless one-liners are advised to find the exit and don't come back.

The best thing non-Greeks are able to do, to beat their blush and embarassement when they are speaking about Greeks or to Greeks, is to insult them.

However, the second bigger toe, is not something non-Greeks would easily understand, and it certainly is not a monkey-like remain. It has a mystical/universal meaning instead...

And as some non-Greeks have began discussing monkeys, i dont think i need to remind them that it was their own ancestors that were sleeping in the trees like monkeys and mating with the blond baboons, the same time the Greeks were building Parthenons and civilising the whole world.

What is a blond baboon? Now it's your turn to insult Northerners, while protesting being insulted by "inferior" non-Greeks. Nice.

What is a blond baboon?
I will let you figure this one out yourself, as it was more of a poetical description.

I have no intention of insulting good mannered Northeners, like you for example.

However, given the fact that Northeners, like Germans for example, have historically stolen, misinterpreted and maltreated Greek history or presented it as their own, it is logical to insult Northeners from time time, in order for them to return to their racial and national reality.

The historical interest of Northeners is not bad, and many times it honours Greece and Greeks, but acquiring Greek history for themselves, means its time to remind them what the conditions of life in the North were while the true Greeks presented the classical Greek miracle to the world.

In fact almost every civilization since the Neolithic Revolution is based upon an older one.
So this is true for the Greeks, just think about the Phoenician Alphabet, and it is true for Northerners too.
The main question is what you make out of the new possibilities and knowledge.
And there both groups did it very good in the past. The reason why Northerners feel themselves superiour is because the Mediterranean world had a serious decline after the collapse of the Roman Empire and Greece in particular after the Turkish conquest.
In the same time the North was going to new highs and is still more developed at least in some respect.

I'm a proud blond baboon! Yet my second toe is longer that my first. However, I don't let this detract from my pride as a plainswoman! And whose pride is at stake?

"So this is true for the Greeks, just think about the Phoenician Alphabet, and it is true for Northerners too."

Yes i m damn sure this is true for Northeners, many government and important buildings from Lithuania to England to Germany France and the USA have in the front side, Greek-like columns, trying to imitate the Parthenon, just to name a very small example of Greek imitations by Northeners.

But in Greece there was no such thing, the Phoenician alphabet thing is a hoax, Phoenicians were Ancient Greek settlers coming from the Aegean Area, for Gods name, think ignorant man, even the word "Phoenicia" is a Greek word.....

I hope you are just kidding huh?
Sure its a Greek word, but thats just because all foreigners are named with graecized names.
Or would you say that Kyros was a Greek too?
Phoenicians were maybe partly Indoeuropeans, but no Greeks in the narrower sence! And there language and culture was predominantely Semitic.
And furthermore I'm sure that Greeks didnt invent such a similar Alphabet like the Phoenicians had again on their own.
There culture was mangnificient and they gave the world much, but hey, do you want to hear that they were gods?
Stop joking kid.

>> Sure its a Greek word, but thats just because all foreigners are named with graecized names.

The word "Phoenician" (Gk. Phoinix) is indeed of Greek origin.

History of the Hellenic World: Prehistory and Protohistory, 1974, The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Section: Linguistic and Ethnic Groups in Prehistoric Greece, pp. 364-389 by M. B. Sakellariou

As concerns the ethnic name Phoinikes, there are two different opinions: according to the one, it is derived from the Indo-European g^w hon-os (blood, murder) whence Greek _phonos_ (murder), phoinos (red); according to the other, it goes back to a Semitic race-name _Puni_, whence the Latin _Puni_ (Phoenicians, Carthaginians). The former etymology has lost its probability since the reading of Mycenaean texts gave the words _ponike_,_ponikija_, which obviously stand for _phoinike_,_phoinikija_, for if _phoin-_ had been derived from _g^w on-os_, it should have appeared in these texts as _qonike_, _qonikija_ (since in Mycenaean times the original Indo-European _g^w_ is not changed into _p_). The latter opinion too is improbable, because (a) as regards the name _Puni_, it should have taken the Greek form _Pynoi_ which is not the case, and (b) as regards the name _Phoinikes_, it is known that the names _Phoinix_ and _Phoinike_ have a distribution that is incompatible with that of the Semitic Phoenicians: Phoenix was the name of a mountain and a stronhold in karia and of a river in Lykia, both being regions into which the Phoenicians never penetrated, while Phoenike in Epeiros was likewise beyong the limits of their expansion. At any rate, the ethnic name _Phoinikes_ was not born on the coast of Lebanon but in Epeiros. It was given by the Greeks to the people who lived on the Lebanese coast because the latter used to dye material in _phoinon_, a deep red color, and because there was a tribe called _Puni_, whose name sounded to the Greeks as the equivalent of _Phoinikes_. After excluding both the Indo-European and the Semitic origins of the name _Phoinike_, _Phoinikes), there remains no alternative but to assign them to the Mediterranean substratum.

"However, given the fact that Northeners, like Germans for example, have historically stolen, misinterpreted and maltreated Greek history or presented it as their own, it is logical to insult Northeners from time time, in order for them to return to their racial and national reality."

It's a fact that the Fuehrer was enthusiastic about neo-classical architecture and thought very highly of Greco-Roman culture (as opposed to Judeo-Christianity : "Rome vs. Judea").

"Neo Classicism had the task of giving expression to the existing forms of government, of legitimizing them and of contributing to their consolidation. The ideal model was the Greek temple, the Renaissance palace, the Baroque castle, and the Classicist building of the Empire era. The format of the buildings became monumental.

Hitler's Germany required the purge of foreign elements and architecture linked to establish governmental functions, expressive of the great German national cultural traditions or the regionalist 'blood and soil' ethic of the German people. Official Nazi policy required a monumental neo classical solution to big buildings while local housing was to be in the vernacular of the area. For example, the thatch in Saxony or wide spreading eaves in Vavaria."

http://www.geocities.com/rr17bb/hitler.html

Btw, I always thought that the Phoenicians were a Semitic people.

They are Semitic people, what Dienekes said was just important for the Name Europeans gave them.
But even if they were of mixed origins like most of the caucasoid ethnic groups, they had a Semitic language and culture.

Who really knows true statistics about what group has a longer second toe? Or the percentage of males versus females. There is a lot of varying information on this subject on the net under --greek foot, toe--. (Try --Morton's foot-- to see how ignorant the medical community can be as opposed to anthropologists!) My ancestry is Black & Caucasian and my second toe is longer. My friend is German and the second toe is longer. I have a Dutch friend with same long toe. All I know is that as a researcher of ancient Greek sculpture (and a lot of classical paintings) the second toe IS dipicted as longer in much of this work which in my humble opinion, is just as normal (no matter what the true statistics) as any other regularly occuring variations of the human body. Wider spacing between the big & second toe often accompanies the "longer second toe" characteristic (at least in the art--only one in the above group of myself and friends has wider spacing.) As far as visual interpretation of art goes, it provides a more balanced look to the foot (and body) than does all toes decending progressively in length and spacing but has nothing to do with anything other than varying human characterisics. Maybe of which Greeks HAD more genetic disposition and maybe which Greeeks HAVE more genetic dispostion. Maybe not. Now if you look at Egyptian sculpture you'll note that the toes are almost always very close in length with each toe only slightly less length than the previous toe (called the Egyptian foot). Does this mean all current and past Egyptians had or have this shape of foot? The longer toe can not be considered a primitive feature with continued modern day regular occurance and especially when it extends across such a spectrum of nationalities & races whether to a lesser (or greater--who knows) extent to one group than another. Maybe the longer toe signals an advanced sign of intellegence (sic.)

first of all, my 2nd toe, isn't longer than the first, i do not look like the lady in the pic or have any of her features, my feet are not flat and long, i barely wear makeup and still look good, my hair is naturally dirty blonde, and i have light blue/green eyes. And I don't have a big nose as ppl say greeks do. AND I AM 100% GREEK!!! so i dunno wat all u haters are talking about bc greeks are hot. look at trish stratus for example, shes greek, so is jennefer aniston. mena suvari(shes in american beauty) is half greek. so is britney spears. and they are soo pretty. So, if you haters are gonna sit there and say greek women arn't pretty, then theres something seriously wrong with you ppl!

Norweigian's also have a characteristic longer second toe...

can anyone explain why someone might have a large space between their big toe and second toe? I have what might be described as an Egyptian foot, but I'm suspicious that the large space may be attributed to some Roman connection,as my mother is French.

Ok, this second toe buisness is giving me a headache. It is not a greek characteristic! It is actually a dominant gene that causes this, and having the second toe larger than the first is common (not just among greeks but all populations of human beings)!

Hi fellows, I'm a newcomer to your site.

All I have to say is that, forget about toe length, and hunt through Homer's Iiad and/or Odyssey. Their you will find tens, perhaps hundred, of discriptions of archaic heros none of them convey the picture of your typical "Greek". Homer's work is full of long haired brave killers, blond and red haired, who differ totally from you typical Greek.

How come Homer, the father of all things "Greek" get it so wrong; or did he?

Peter

>> Homer's work is full of long haired brave killers, blond and red haired, who differ totally from you typical Greek.

You haven't read Homer's work, so why do you pretend that you did?

I'm Greek, and both of my second toes are the longest. And so are all of my relatives.

I would like to say to Randy that you seem you do not like greek people at all!!!!I have seen ugly people all over the world but i do not consider the whole population of each of these countries ugly.

Hey, uh, Greekmelijana, where did you get the info
on Britney Spears being half-Greek?

I"m not greek at all, and Both of my second toes are longer than the big toe. I am mostly american indian, with irish, german and norweigian

Whomever would consider Faye, the news presenter pictured, or the striking Dimitra, as unattractive, let alone ugly!, should do himself and the planet a favour and see a doctor... Dr. Kevorkian, dig?, fuckwit.