The Liao civilization, the first Uralic civilization? (read desc)

However since no linguistic traces remain, and the only major evidence is the haplogroup N, there is no concrete proof of anything, take with a grain of salt.
Haplogorup N is also found in other non-Uralic siberian peoples, thus any theory on Liao's classification is guessing game.
Also even if Liao spoke a similar language as Uralic (or a sister language?) it doesn't mean its the homeland of Uralic people.

Sources for claims:
Uralic like language was likely spoken in Manchuria: Juha Jahunen

"The Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages have been spoken in the Manchurian region, and there is little chance that a similar structural typology of Uralic languages could have emerged without close contact with them"

Some people claimed a relationship with Chinese and Uralic (though this video doesn't endorse the Sino-Uralic theory, it is clearly not true) -Tonu Tender and Jingyi Gao
Note that I also said in the video that similarities in vocabulary can be due to coincidence, and not necessarily due to influence

[hishot]

Liao is the birthplace of Mongolic, Turkic, Koreanic and Japonic people, according to international research.

[YummYakitori]

I am Singaporean Chinese with Haplogroup N, our haplogroup accounts for 6.7% of the modern Han Chinese population and it is most likely my ancestors descended from this original Liao River civilisation as my specific branch (N1b1-CTS582) has been found at the Erdaojingzi archaeological site of Inner Mongolia. Different subclades of N like N1a1a3-F4063 which is a parallel branch under N1a1-TAT commonly found among Uralic peoples has also been found at Yumin, Inner Mongolia and also at Houtaomuga. It is currently unknown what type of language the people of the Liao River spoke, but Martine Robbeets and Oxford University has actually attempted to revive the controversial Altaic language family and apply it to the Liao River civilisation in the form of Transeurasian languages (Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Japanese, Korean); but it is otherwise also possible the people of the Liao River civilisation spoke some form of Para-Proto-Uralic or something very distantly related. I think it is more important to find out where the Uralic language family actually originated in the first place :) Also the Liao River civilisation has indeed went on to influence the formation of Chinese civilisation, but it is extremely unlikely their language shaped the formation of the Chinese language in any way (the similarities between Finnish and Mandarin and Minnan are too farfetched). Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language which likely originated from the Cishan, Yangshao and perhaps also Majiayao, Qijia cultures that have shown close genetic (Haplogroup O-M117, O-M134) and ethnolinguistic ties with other Sino-Tibetan people groups.

[Tammivelho]

Learning both mandarin and some finnish I find this intriguing despite being hardly realistic

[ejbl]

This is a very interesting theory. I hope it's true in some form.

[Ṽïkiṇḡ--ṝ-w]

“Five thousand years of history.” It’s a phrase repeated by both Chinese and non-Chinese. Somehow we are supposed to believe that China has more history than other places. A slightly strange concept anyway, and, regardless of whether you want to define “history” as starting with written records or by the emergence of “civilization” as seen in the first large settlements, the five thousand figure is wrong.

The Shang dynasty (founded around 1600 BC) of the Yellow River valley in northern China is as far back as we have solid archaeological evidence and positive proof of the first written records. Earlier than that, history disintegrates into mythology. But even if you accept the preceding mythical Xia dynasty as the start, it takes you back only to around 2000 BC.

In terms of age, civilizations in other parts of the world precede China. Writing systems in Egypt and Mesopotamia predate Chinese writing by a thousand years. The world’s first city, Uruk, in modern-day Iraq, dates back seven thousand years. Even in comparison to Europe, China isn’t that old. Confucius’ life overlapped with those of Pythagoras and Socrates. China was first unified in 221 BC, a century after Alexander the Great had created the Hellenistic Empire, and just a few centuries before the zenith of the Roman Empire.

Three, three-and-a-half, four millennia — surely all ancient enough. Does it really matter that China doesn’t have five thousand years of history? Yes, it does matter, and not because it’s annoying to have this inaccuracy spouted ad nauseam as historical fact, not to mention the hypocrisy of glorifying history yet so poorly preserving it. The myth is important because of the inference that China is uniquely old and so deserves special consideration. This has real-life consequences. When dealing with China — whether trying to turn a profit or awaiting democratic reforms — the implication is you need to be more patient and just wait a little bit longer. After all, the country has five thousand years of history.

In 1991 former American president Richard Nixon told his biographer, “Within twenty years China will move to democracy” and explained the need for America to have patience: “You can’t rush them. The Chinese look at history and the future in terms of centuries, not decades, the way we do, because they’re so much older as a culture.”

The quotation from the Google CEO at the start of this chapter was also a reference to the need for patience. Here is the full quote: “China is a nation with a five-thousand-year history. That could indicate the duration for our patience.” The year before, Google had set up a Chinese site, Google.cn, which self-censored search results in order to keep the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) happy. Searches on sensitive subjects like Tibetan and Taiwanese independence and the Tiananmen “tank man” came up empty or with sanitized material. So much for Google’s informal company motto of “Don’t be evil.” Despite tarnishing their reputation by caving in to Chinese demands for censorship, there was no commercial pay-off. Google struggled to gain market share and had problems with the Chinese authorities. Events came to a head in 2009 with a series of cyber attacks against Google, targeting the Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents; the attacks originated in China and were tracked to state institutes. Google’s patience finally ran dry; deciding they would no longer censor search results, they redirected their website to Hong Kong.

Aside from patience, the “five thousand years of history” mantra implies the need for extra respect and cultural sensitivity. A good example of this is when Chris Patten, the last Governor General of Hong Kong, was preparing a speech for his swearing-in ceremony. He recounts: “The reference in my draft to the shared historic responsibilities in Hong Kong of ‘two great and ancient civilizations’ was scored out on the grounds that Chinese civilization was much older than the West’s and China might feel offended by the assumption of parity.” Patten, showing the backbone and bluster that would soon have him branded by the CCP as “a whore, a criminal, a serpent, ” and, bizarrely, “a tango dancer, ” ignored his advisors and went with “two ancient civilizations.”

Chinese history is long and fascinating; there’s no need to spin it, and it’s a shame to see it used by the government and media as an instrument of nationalism. The implied superiority of such a long history begets a dangerous sense of entitlement. And it’s just plain silly. Imagine if we applied the logic of “old civilizations deserve special treatment” to Egypt and the modern Mesopotamian nations of Iraq and Iran, places that actually do have five thousand years of history. Imagine executives explaining, “Our joint venture in Cairo is losing money but we have to be patient — they built the pyramids four-and-a-half-thousand years ago.” Or picture political commentators urging caution along the lines of: “Can’t push the Iranian government too hard for democratic reforms — they had cities when we were still living in caves.”

Lazy writers continue to churn out falsehoods about China’s glorious past and to contrast it against our own “upstart” cultures. They paint hyperbolic vignettes juxtaposing Oriental sophistication with Western crudity; silk-robed scholars sip tea and contemplate poetry while far away in darkest Europe the inhabitants run around in furs. In a recent biography on Sinologist Joseph Needham, author Simon Winchester contrasts the engineering masterpiece of a two-thousand-year-old Chinese irrigation waterworks with Westerners who “still coated themselves in woad and did little more than grunt.”

As well as its sheer age, China being the “longest continuous civilization” is often said to make it unique. The idea of Chinese civilization as a monolithic unchanging entity stretching in an unbroken line through the millennia is another myth that colours perceptions of China past, present and future. Sometimes the falsehoods are not just quaint asides, but the very foundations of narratives. Martin Jacques’ 2009 bestseller, When China Rules the World, is a case in point. Jacques regurgitates the line that China is special because of its antiquity and continuity, and adds his own take on it: China as a “civilization state” rather than a nation state. He sees an ascendant China ruled by Confucian authoritarianism, and, as it becomes more powerful, the reassertion of the age-old sense of superiority and a return to tributary-style relationships with lesser nations. This sort of commentary is demeaning to Chinese people, turning them into passive victims of their history forever condemned to repeat it.

[peternagy]

I really love Uralic languages, but this theory is based on very few evidence.

[Ṽïkiṇḡ--ṝ-w]

Yes Chinese started from Finns and Russians, no all jokes aside i just have a problem with the word Chinese culture and it's claim to being old when modern scholars do not see the origins of the Chinese civilization or history as a linear story but rather the history of the interactions of different and distinct cultures and ethnic groups that influenced each other's development. China was also almost ruled over by non Chinese people like Manchu, Mongolians etc.. And Han-Chinese isn't really a thing as Southern Han are closer in relation to a Thai person then to a Northern Han that's closer to a Japanese person not to mention all the Han subgroups or the subgroups of those subgroups or the fact that many Han-Chinese don't share much DNA when they take a DNA test so it's flawed mostly because of when the CPP came to power
Zhongyuan culture (中原)
Beijing culture (燕京)
Shandong culture (魯/鲁)
Jin culture (晉/晋)[8][9][10]
Dongbei culture (東北/东北)
Hubei culture (楚)
Lingnan culture (粵/粤)
Hakka culture (客)
Teochew culture (潮)
Hokkien culture (閩南/闽南)
Fuzhou Culture (闽都/闽东)
Jiangxi culture (贛)
Huizhou culture (徽)
Hunanese culture (湘)
Sichuanese culture (蜀)
Wuyue culture (吳/吴)
Wenzhou culture (瓯)
Haipai culture (海)
Hong Kong culture (港)
Macanese culture (澳)

[changchadchanamdong]

It is based off sino chinese civilization.

[moisuomi]

To be honest, this really is a stupid theory