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Turkic peoples

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This article is about the various peoples speaking one of the Turkic languages. For the ethnic group commonly known as the Turks of Turkey, see Turkish people. For information on residents or nationals of Turkey, see Demographics of Turkey.

Turkic peoples are Northern and Central Eurasian peoples who speak languages belonging to the Turkic family, and who, in varying degrees, share certain cultural and historical traits. The term "Turkic" is generally considered to represent a broad linguistic characterization, and not necessarily an ethnic one. "Turkish" on the other hand, is considered to represent more specifically the denizens of the nation of Turkey. The Turkic languages are a subdivision of the Altaic language group, and are one of the most geographically widespread in the world, being spoken in a vast region spanning from Europe to Siberia.

Geographical Distribution

The Turkic peoples have many different branches, and their total population is around 150 million. Roughly half of these belong to Turks of Turkey, dwelling predominantly in Turkey proper and formerly Ottoman-dominated areas of Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East; as well as in Western Europe, Australia and the Americas as immigrants. The other half of the Turkic peoples are concentrated in Central Asia, Russia, Southern Caucasus and Northern and Central Iran.

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Turkic Languages

At present, there are six independent Turkic countries: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, as well as the TRNC in Northern Cyprus (recognized only by Turkey and by Nakhichevan, an autonomous region in Azerbaijan). There are also several autonomous Turkic republics and Turkic-governed regions in the Russian federation: Altai, Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Dagestan, Hakasia, Karachay-Malkar, Tatarstan, Tuva and Yakutia. Each autonomous Turkic republic within the Russian federation has its own flag, parliament, laws and official state language.

There are also two other major autonomous Turkic region: The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (also known as East Turkestan) in western China, and the autonomous state of Gagauzia, located within eastern Moldova, and bordering Ukraine to the north. In addition, there are several stateless Turkic regions in Iran, and parts of Iraq, Georgia, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and western Mongolia. The Azerbaijanis of Iran (mostly found in Southern Azerbaijan and major urban centers) are the largest stateless Turkic people in the world. The Turks of Turkey number about seventy-five million, including expatriates and minorities in Europe, while the second largest Turkic people are the Azerbaijanis, who number more than thirty-five million worldwide, with most of these living in northwestern Iran -- a region refered to by some as Southern Azerbaijan.

Turkic Roots

The term "Turk" was first officially used as a political name in the 6th century. Turkic nationalists claim that the expansion of proto-Turkic peoples across Eurasia involved the Scythians (Ishkuz), Xiongnu, Huns, Sarmatians, Khazars, Pechenegs, Alans, Cimmerians, Massagetae and other steppe populations. While some of these peoples may have represented, to some extent, a proto-Turkic or Turkic tribe or confederation, the majority are considered largely non-Turkic. Certainly in later times the Khazars and the Pechenegs were Turkic, but the Cimmerians, Massagetae, Sarmatians and Scythians are thought to have been earlier Indo-European speakers.

Although they have been settled and urbanized, the older tradition of nomadism has created a cultural norm which, at its best, is represented by a combative spirit, a sense of leadership, the habit of mobility, craftsmanship, gallantry, elegant equestrian skill and an unusual dexterity as archers on horseback. Turkic peoples used their own alphabets, like runiform Orkhon script and Uyghur alphabet. The traditional, national and cultural symbols of the Turkic peoples include the star and crescent -- used as a symbol of Turks since pre-Islamic times when they aspired to Shamanism -- wolves, a part of Turkic mythology and tradition; as well as the color blue, iron and fire. In the age of nationalism, Turks were among the first Islamic peoples to take up Western ideas of liberalism and secular ideologies. It first sprang up at the end of 19th century in the Russian Empire and was advanced by leading Tatar intellectuals like Ismail Gaspirali and Yusuf Akçura, as a reaction to Panslavist and Russification policies of the Russian Empire. The first fully democratic and secular republics in the Islamic world were Turkic: the ill-fated Idel-Ural State established in 1917, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 (both annexed and absorbed by Soviet Union) and in 1923, Republic of Turkey.

Nomenclature

In modern Turkey, a distinction is made between "Turks" and the "Turkic peoples": the term Türk corresponds specifically to Turkish people and culture, while the term Türki refers generally to modern Turkic peoples and cultures.

Some claim that this distinction is an artificial one, and one not made by speakers of Turkic languages elsewhere. It is sometimes claimed further that much of the separation is the result of Stalinism, and that prior to the founding of the Soviet Union, the term "Turkish" had been used to describe all Turkic peoples as part of a greater family. Others counter that this argument is without basis, and only used to support the racial theories of Pan-Turkism -- pointing out that the differences among the separate governmental administrations, as well as cultural, religious, historical, and even racial differences, are too great to speak of any political unity.

The first known mention of the term "Turk" applied to a Turkic group, was in reference to the Gokturks in the 6th century. A letter by the Chinese Emperor written to a Göktürk Khan named Isbara in 585 described him as "the Great Turk Khan". The Orhun inscriptions (735 AD) use the term "Turuk".

Previous use of similar terms are of unknown significance, although some strongly feel that they are evidence of the historical continuity of the term and the people as a linguistic unit since early times. This includes a Chinese record of 1328 BC referring to a neighbouring people as "Tu-Kiu".

The word "Turk" means "strong" or "powerful" in Old Turkic.

Traditions About Nomenclature

In the ancient Zoroastrian text, the Zend-Avesta, one of the grandsons of Yima (comparable to Noah as the sole survivor of a catastrophe that depopulated the Earth) is named "Tur" or "Tura" -- the supposed ancestor of so-called "Turanian" peoples, a term used in Ancient Iran for all the inhabitants of Central Asia. The term "Turanian" is derived from the Iranian word "tur" or "tar," meaning "dark," [citation needed] (in reference to how the West Iranians saw the lands to their north as a mysterious "land of darkness"), however claims that there is any etymological connection to the word "Turk" are hotly disputed among various historians.

This traditional Persian genealogy has been confused by some with the late 16th century Mughal (Indian) work Akbarnama by Abul-Fazel, where he recounts certain Islamic traditions making "Turk" the oldest son of Japheth and grandson of Noah; also, in the 19th century, it was common in Christian circles to equate the ancestor of the Turks with Togarmah, grandson of Japheth in Genesis 10.

According to Mahmud of Kashgar, an 11th century Turkic scholar, and various other traditional Islamic scholars and historians, the name "Turk" stems from "Tur", one of the sons of Japheth, and comes from the same lineage as Gomer (Cimmerians) and Ashkenaz (Scythians, Ishkuz) who, according to tradition, were some of the earliest Turks (most modern scholars believe these tribes to have been Iranian). A similar name, "Dur", also appears in Mediaeval Hungarian legend, as a legendary chieftain of the Caucasian Alans (Arran, Iron) whose daughters supposedly bred with the Magyar ancestors, "Magor" and "Hunor".

In the earliest Turkic dictionary extant, the eponymous hero of the Turks, Alp Er Tunga, is identified with the character Afrasiyab ("Frangasyan" in the Zend Avesta) in Persian literature. Alp Er Tunga is a symbolic figure in Turkic tradition; the Gokturks of the sixth century carried on the tradition of Alp Er Tunga and they too believed to be descendants of a wolf. According to the "Book of Kings" written by the Persian author Ferdowsi, Afrasiyab was hunted down and killed in Azerbaijan.

History

It is generally believed that the first Turkic people were native to Central Asia. Some scholars consider the Huns as one of the earlier Turkic-Mongol tribes. The main migration of Turkic peoples occured between the first and tenth centuries AD, when they spread across most of Central Asia and into Europe and the Middle East.

The precise date of the initial expansion from the early homeland remains unknown. The first state known as "Turk", giving its name to the many states and peoples afterwards, was that of the Gokturks (gog = "blue" or "celestial") in the 6th century AD. The head of the Asena clan led his people from Li-jien (modern ZhelaiZhai) to the Juan Juan seeking inclusion in their confederacy and protection from China. His tribe were famed metal smiths and were granted land near a mountain quarry which looked like a helmet from which they got their name 突厥. A century later their power had increased such that they conquered the Juan Juan ad set about establishing their Gok Empire.

Later Turkic peoples include the Karluks (mainly 8th century), Uyghurs, Kirghiz, Oghuz (or Ğuz) Turks, and Turkmens. As these peoples were founding states in the area between Mongolia and Transoxiana, they came into contact with Muslims, and most gradually adopted Islam. However, there were also (and still are) Turkic people belonging to other religions, including Christians, Jews (see Khazars), Buddhists, and Zoroastrians.

Turkic soldiers in the army of the Abbasid caliphs emerged as the de facto rulers of most of the Muslim Middle East (apart from Syria and Egypt), particularly after the 10th century. The Oghuz and other tribes captured and dominated various countries under the leadership of the Seljuk dynasty, and eventually captured the territories of the Abbasid dynasty and the Byzantine Empire.

Meanwhile, the Kirghiz and Uyghurs were struggling with one another and with the Chinese Empire. The Kirghiz people ultimately settled in the region now referred to as Kyrgyzstan. The Tatar peoples conquered the Volga Bulgars in what is today Tatarstan, following the westward sweep of the Mongols under Genghis Khan in the 13th century. The Bulgars were thus mistakenly called Tatars by the Russians. Native Tatars live only in Asia; European "Tatars" are in fact Bulgars. Other Bulgars settled in Europe in the 7-8th centuries, exchanging their original Turkic tongue for what eventually became the Slavic Bulgarian language. Everywhere, Turkic groups mixed with the local populations to varying degrees.

As the Seljuk Empire declined following the Mongol invasion, the Ottoman Empire emerged as the new important Turkic state, that came to dominate not only the Middle East, but even southeastern Europe, parts of southwestern Russia, and northern Africa.

The Ottoman Empire gradually grew weaker in the face of maladministration, repeated wars with Russia and Austria, and the emergence of nationalist movements in the Balkans, and it finally gave way after World War I to the present-day republic of Turkey.

Language

Main article: Turkic languages

The Turkic language branch belong to Altaic language groups. The various Turkic languages are usually considered in geographical groupings, since high mobility and intermixing of Turkic peoples in history makes an exact classification extremely difficult: Oghuz (or Southwestern) languages, Kypchak (or Northwestern) languages, Eastern languages (like Uygur) and Northern languages (like Altay and Yakut) and divergent languages like Chuvash.

Religion

Various pre-Islamic Turkic civilizations of the 6th century were Shamanist and Tengriist. The Shamanist religion is based on spiritual and natural elements of earth. Tenghriism in turn involved belief in the god Tenghri as the god who ruled over the skies.They were also bearers of the Zoroastrian religion, especially in Azerbaijan, Buddhism, Judaism and above all Islam.

Today, most Turks are Sunni Muslims. They include the majority of Balkan Turks, Bashkorts, Crimean Tatars, Karachay, Kazaks, Kumuk, Kyrgyz, Malkar, Nogay, Tatars (Kazan Tatars) Turkmens, Turks of Turkey, Uygurs, Yellow (Sari) Uygurs and Uzbeks. The Azerbaijanis of the Republic of Azerbaijan and South Azerbaijan (northwestern Iran) are the only major Turkic people that adhere to the Shia sect of Islam, while there have been many conversions to Sunni Islam as of late. The Qashqay nomads and Khorasani Turks as well as various Turkic tribes spread across Iran are also Shia Muslims. The Alevis of Turkey are the largest religious minority in the country. Even though it´s claimed that they believe in a doctrine of Islam that is closely related to that of the Shia school of thought, Shia's, however, regard Alevis as heretics.

The major Christian-Turkic peoples are the Chuvash of Chuvashia and the Gauguz (Gokoguz) of Moldova. The Karaim Turks of eastern Europe are Jewish, and there are many Turks of Jewish backgrounds who live in major cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and Baku. In the Siberian region, the Altai, Tivan and Hakas are Shamanists, having kept the original relgion of Turkic peoples. The Yakuts of Yakutia in northeastern Siberia are tradtionally Shamanists, yet many have converted to Christianity. The Sari Uygurs (Yellow Uygurs) of western China are the only remaining Buddhist Turkic group. In addition, there are small scattered populations of Turks belonging to other religions such as the Bahá'í Faith and Zoroastianism.

Even though many Turkic peoples became Muslims under the influence of Sufis, often of Shi'a persuasion, most Turkic people today are Sunni Muslims -- although a significant number in Turkey are Alevis. Alevi Turks, who were once primarily dwelling in eastern Anatolia, are today concentrated in major urban centers in western Turkey with the increased urbanism.

The Chuvash of Russia, in their traditional religion, manifest a unique amalgam, that derives in part from ancient Turkic concepts, and in part from other aspects that may be compared to Zoroastrianism, Khazar Judaism, and Islam. The Chuvash religious calendar cycle was based on an agrarian cult, closely combining the cults of earth, water and vegetation, with that of ancestor worship. The conversion of the Chuvash to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, mostly effected in later 19th century, had a noticeable effect on their festivals and rites, that were adapted to coincide with Orthodox feasts -- with Christian rites substituted for their traditional counterparts. Though contemporary Chuvash are counted among Orthodox believers, a minority continue to profess their traditional faith [1].

The Gagauz people of Moldova are largely Christians.

Some Turkic peoples (particularly in the Russian autonomous regions and republics of Altai, Khakassia, and Tuva) are largely shamanists. Shamanism was the predominant religion of the different Turkic branches prior to the 8th century, when the majority accepted Islam.

There are also a few Buddhist (eg. Kalmuks), Jewish, Zoroastrian, and Bahá'í Turkic peoples today.

Remark: Tenghri has long changed to "Tanri" in current Turkish (of Republic of Turkey [R.O.T] at least) and "Tarı" in Azeri, which literally means "God" in English. However, traditionally, god is referred to as "Allah" in most daily usage, where "Allah" is one of many names of "God" as mentioned in Quoran. Therefore the word thengri=tanrı=tarı is still in use by citizens of Azerbaijan and R.O.T., where Islam is the dominant religion at the moment.

Geographical distribution and ethnic division

The distribution of peoples of Turkic cultural background ranges from Siberia where the Yakut reside, across Central Asia, to Eastern Europe. Presently, the largest groups of Turkic people live throughout Central Asia -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, in addition to Turkey. Additionally, Turkic peoples are found within Crimea, the Xinjiang region of western China, northern Iraq, Iran, Israel, Russia, Afghanistan, Cyprus, the Balkans Moldova, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and former Yugoslavia. A small number of Turkic people also live in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

An exact line between the different Turkic peoples cannot easily be drawn. The following is a non-comprehensive list of the major groups:

Some divide the above into six branches: the Oghuz, Kipchak, Karluk, Siberian, Chuvash, and Sakha/Yakut branches. The Oghuz have been termed Western Turks, while the remaining five, in such a classificatory scheme, are called Eastern Turks.

One of the major difficulties perceived by many who try to classify the various Turkic languages and dialects, is the impact Soviet, and particularly Stalinist nationality policies -- the creation of new national demarcations, suppression of languages and writing scripts, and mass deportations -- had on the ethnic mix in previously multicultural regions like Khiva/Khwarezmia, the Fergana valley and Caucasia. Many of the above-mentioned classifications are therefore by no means universally accepted, either in detail or in general. Another aspect often debated is the influence of Pan-Turkism, and the emerging nationalism in the newly independent Central Asian republics, on the perception of ethnic divisions.


Turkish world and Pan-Turkism

Some refer to the Turkic countries, regions and peoples as part of the Turkish World. Others are worried that this is a result and example of Pan-Turkism, claimed to encourage hegemonial or even imperialistic aims of modern day Turkey. However, this may not be the case as many claim that Pan-Turkism is supported widely outside Turkey. Turkey's official stance as a nation state does not support Pan-Turkism - though it does not reject it either.

Proponents of the concept point out that in similar fashion, many Arabs also feel to be part of a greater "Arab World". It is also held that encouragement of this cultural and linguistic affinity can be used as a vehicle to increased regional development and security.

Opponents point to the negative elements that can become involved in any kind of nationalism (be it Turkic or otherwise), the role of pan-Turkic movements in the revolutionary wars in Russia, and the cultural, religious, and political diversity among the many Turkic peoples and ethnic groups, and feel that a movement to greater pan-Turkic unity might be a negative influence on the region.

Translations for "Turk"

Afrikaans Turk.

Albanian turk.

Arabic ‏التركي.

Assyrian Turk.

Bulgarian турчин.

Chinese 突厥.

Czech turek.

Danish tyrker.

Dutch Turk.

Esperanto turko.

Persian, ترک

Finnish turkkilainen.

French Turc, Turque.

German Türke, Türkin.

Greek Τούρκος (Turkish), τούρκος.

Hungarian török.

Icelandic Tyrki.

Indonesian Orang Turki.

Italian turco, turca.

Korean 터키 사람.

Kurdish Tirk.

Manx Turkagh.

Papiamen turko.

Polish Turek.

Portuguese turco, turca.

Romanian turc, turcoaică.

Russian турок, тюрк.

Sanskrit turushka.

Serbo-Croatian turčin.

Slovene Turek.

Spanish turco, turca.

Swedish turk.

Turkish, Anatolian türk.

Turkish, Azeri türk.

Turkish, Tatar törek.

Turkish, Turkmen türk.

Ukrainian турок.

Vietnamese người Thổ nhĩ kỳ

Welsh Twrc.

See also

New DNA Results

Further reading

  • Charles Warren Hostler, The Turks of Central Asia, (Greenwood Press, November 1993), ISBN: 0275939316
  • Carter V. Findley, The Turks in World History, (Oxford University Press, October 2004) ISBN: 0195177266
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