TURKISH PEOPLE : Comprehensive Encyclopedia

The Turks, (Turkish: Türkler), or the Turkish people (Türk Halkı), are a nation (millet) in the meaning an ethnos (Halk in Turkish), defined more by a sense of sharing a common Turkish culture and having a Turkish mother tongue, than by citizenship, religion or by being subjects to any particular country. In a historic context the word Turk or Turkish has also a wider meaning, because—especially in the past—it referred to all Muslim inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire irrespective of their ethnicity. Today, the word is primarily used for the inhabitants of Turkey, but may also refer to the members of sizeable Turkish-speaking populations in Bulgaria, Cyprus and other lands of the former Ottoman Empire, as well as parts of Central Asia and the ex-Soviet Union. Large Turkish communities have also been established in Western Europe (particularly in Germany), North America and Australia.

Etymology

The term Turkish people has several usages. In the most common form it refers to the people of Turkey. It may also be used to refer to those people with Turkish ancestry outside of Turkey. Turkish citizens residing in another country as "foreign" nationals may also be referred to as "Turkish."

The Turkish term, Türk, can also be used with several meanings. In official use, it generally refers to Turkish citizens. Colloquially, it is often used to refer to Turkish ethnicity. The inability or unwillingless to distinguish between the two meanings is a cause of much friction in Turkish society. In Turkish, the word Türk can also mean "Turkish" as, for example, in ''Türk müziği: "Turkish music". The word Türki is used to refer to Turkic elements present in a larger geography, and Türkmen, in Turkey, is not only the name given to brethren in the Caucasus, Middle East and Central Asia, but also, within the borders of Turkey, to those parts of the population, usually rural, who have preserved some kind of attachment with the former semi-nomadic lifestyle (yörüks that live through folklore and traditions, in arts like carpet-weaving, with the continued habit of keeping a yayla house for the summers, sometimes in relation to the Alevi community etc.).

The term Türk first appeared in the Gokturk Inscriptions as a political term. The Turkic peoples (including the ethnic Turks of Turkey who claim to have descended from the Gokturks) readily identify themselves as Turks as their ethnicity. The term Turk had negative connotations in Europe that were established during the Crusades and the period of Ottoman expansion. It was used interchangeably with the term Muslim and generally had such derogatory connotations as infidel and savage.^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26] It is a neutral term related to ethnicity in Turkic languages.

History

Turks, who first appeared in history in the 7th century BC at the foot of the Köğmen Mountains, are a society whose language may belong to the disputed Altaic linguistic group. The Göktürks chose Ötüken, as a base and established khanates. The new state called the Göktürk Empire was founded at the foot of the Altay Mountains. Later they spread out and became an empire.

Throughout history, the Turks have established numerous states in various geographical regions on the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa. Turks brought their culture to the places to which they had migrated or invaded and were also affected by the existing cultures of these regions.

The Oğuz were the main Turkic people who moved into Anatolia after 1072 CE. Small bands of Turks began their migration following the victory of the Seljuks, led by Alp Arslan, against the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert and this paved the way for Turkish dominance in Anatolia. This also marked the beginning of the decline of the Byzantine empire. In the centuries after Manzikert, the relatively small number of Turkic immigrants began to assimilate local populations as their numbers grew. Anatolia was an ethnic mosaic, a region with a wide variety of peoples, but dominated by the Byzantine Greeks and other prominent regional groups such as Armenians, Kurds, and others.

A Turkish girl, 1837 by Karl Briullov

Over time, as word spread regarding the victory of the Turks in Anatolia, more Turkic ghazis arrived from the Caucasus, Persia and Central Asia. These groups in turn merged with the local inhabitants as a slow process of conversion to Islam took place, thanks in large measure to the efforts of the sufis, that helped to bolster the Turkish-speaking population. While most historians believe that the actual migration of Turks was relatively small, genetic testing has revealed that as much as 30% of Turks have varying degrees of Central Asian ancestry.^[27] However, there are also other researches showing that paternal gene flow from Central Asia could be as low as 9%, indicating the minor genetic influence of Turkic speakers on existing population of Anatolia.^[28] These migrations and later populations movements would continue to impact the modern Turkish people as the rise of the Ottoman Empire made Turkey into a world power and a focal point for a wide variety of peoples.

The modern Turks

The Turks of Turkey can be broken down into a variety of segments and the majority of self-identifying Turks include four main groupings: Rumelian Turks who are mostly of Balkan origin, Anatolian Turks who compose the bulk of ethnic Turks found in Anatolia, (see history section) Central Asian Turks who remain a sizeable minority segment of the population that has been moving to Turkey for centuries^[2], and Eurasian Turks from Russia and the Caucasus such as the Tatars and Azerbaijanis who have more recent ties with Turkic peoples. These Turks share various similar languages and cultures.

Turkish phenotypes and diversity

Turkish parade in Berlin featuring an Ottoman marching band

While the majority of Turks do bear a common brunette Mediterranean appearance similar to that of neighboring countries, there are large visible exceptions that are a testament to the legacy of population movements into the region. People walking in a Turkish street or watching a Turkish movie can see Turks of most physical types prevalent in the country, from the blond haired and-blue-eyed to Asiatic-looking individuals. Turkey, like so many other vast former imperialist powers such as the Romans and the British, in part reflects its imperial past.

Proving the difficulty of classifying ethnicities living in Turkey, there are as many classifications as the number of scientific attempts to make these classifications. Turkey is not a unique example for that and many European countries (e.g. France, Germany) bear a similar ethnic diversity. So, the immense variety observed in the published figures for the percentages of Turkish people living in Turkey (ranging from 75 to 97%) totally depends on the method used to classify the ethnicities. Complicating the matter even more is the fact that the last official and country-wide classification of spoken languages (which do not exactly coincide with ethnic groups) in Turkey was performed in 1965, and many of the figures published after that time remain static estimates. It is necessary to take into account all these difficulties and be cautious while evaluating the ethnic identity of the Turks of Turkey.

Possible Genetic Links

A 2003 genetic study shows that some Turkish Anatolian tribes may have some ancestors who originated in an area north of Mongolia at the end of the Xiongnu period (3rd century BCE to the 2nd century CE). According to the study, some modern Anatolian Turks appear to have some common genetic markers with the remains found at the Xiongu period graves in Mongolia:

Interestingly, this paternal lineage has been, at least in part (6 of 7 STRs), found in a present-day Turkish individual (Henke et al. 2001). Moreover, the mtDNA sequence shared by four of these paternal relatives (from graves 46, 52, 54, and 57) were also found in a Turkish individuals (Comas et al. 1996), suggesting a possible Turkish origin of these ancient specimens. Two other individuals buried in the B sector (graves 61 and 90) were characterized by mtDNA sequences found in Turkish people (Calafell 1996; Richards et al. 2000).^[29]^[30]

A genetic testing has revealed that as much as 30% of Turks have varying degrees of Central Asian ancestry.^[31] Although, result of another genetic testing suggests that the actual Centeral Asian ancestry could be less than 9%.^[32]

Geographic distribution

Turkish folk dancers

The etymology briefly presented above will be inherent to any depiction of the geographical distribution of the Turkish people.

Turks primarily live in Turkey. Significant minorities of Turks live in neighboring Bulgaria (see Turks in Bulgaria), Cyprus (see Turkish Cypriots), the Western Thrace region of Greece, Macedonia, the Dobruja region of Romania and Kosovo (especially in Prizren). Immigration in the 20th century has resulted in large Turkish communities in Germany, North America and Australia. Sizeable populations are (note that these are figures for Turkish nationals) also found in France (400,000 ^[33]), the Netherlands (350,000 ^[34]), the United Kingdom (300,000 ^[35]), Austria (250,000 ^[36]), Belgium (120,000 ^[37]), Saudi Arabia (120,000 ^[38]), Switzerland (80,000 ^[39]), Denmark (35,000-50,000 ^[40]^[41]), Sweden (35,000)^[42] and Liechtenstein (884)^[43]).

In the United States, the largest Turkish communities are found in New York City, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles.

Culture

Main article: Culture of Turkey

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Language

Main article: Turkish language

The Turkish language is a member of the Oghuz subdivision of Turkic languages, which in turn is thought by some to be a branch of the proposed Altaic language family. Turkish is mutually intelligible with other Oghuz languages, and to a lesser extent with other Turkic languages.

Modern Turkish differs greatly from the Ottoman Turkish language that was used officially in the Ottoman Empire. Almost all government documents and literature from the Ottoman period and the early years of the Republic are unintelligible to today's Turkish-speaker, due to the language reforms enacted by Atatürk that resulted in the expulsion of what were deemed foreign influences in the language. Historically, there were many dialects of Turkish that were spoken throughout Anatolia and the Balkans that differed significantly from each other. After the proclamation of the Republic by Atatürk, the Istanbul dialect was adopted as the standard. Regional dialects are currently, disappearing rapidly due to many factors, but mainly because of the effect of the media and educational system.

Religion

Main article: Islam in Turkey

The vast majority of Turks are at least in a nominal sense, Muslim. The most popular sect is Sunnism of the Hanafite school, which was the type that was officially espoused by the Ottoman Empire. There are also however, a significant number who adhere to Alevism (estimated at 15-20%). Historically Sufism has been a significant influence on Turkish culture (notably the Mevlevi and Nakshbandi orders) and played a large role in the conversion of Turks to Islam. Today, secularization and other modern influences mean that religous identity often tends to based more on cultural tradition and heritage more than actual belief in religious dogma. Despite this, many Turks acknowledge Islam's tremendous role in shaping Turkish history and its not uncommon for a person with privately Atheistic or Agnostic beliefs to associate with the religion.

TURKISH PEOPLE

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