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For a specific analysis of the population of Turkey, see People of Turkey and Demographics of Turkey. Refer to the disambiguation page Turk for other uses of the term.

Ethnic group

Turks
Regions with significant populations
58mpx 65mpx L to R: Mehmet II, Suleyman I, Atatürk, Sezen Aksu
Turkey: 58,700,000 Bulgaria: 800,000-1,200,000 Cyprus: 230,000 Germany: 2,110,000-2,700,000 Syria: 1,000,000 USA: 118,000-220,000 Uzbekistan: 200,000 Russia: 96,000 Greece: 90,000 Republic of Macedonia: 80,000 Mexico: 70,000 Romania: 60,000 Australia: 55,000-120,000 Kosovo: 50,000 Azerbaijan: 50,000 Canada: 25,000-50,000
Languages
Turkish
Religion
Predominantly Muslim or nominally Muslim. Small numbers of adherents of Eastern Orthodoxy and Judaism. Many have Atheistic or Agnostic beliefs
Related ethnic groups
Other Turkic peoples Oghuz Turks

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. They primarily live in Turkey, but there are also sizeable populations in Bulgaria, Cyprus and other lands of the former Ottoman Empire. 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. It refers to both Turkish elements and peoples while Türki refers 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.

History

Main article: History of the Turkish people

Some of the earliest known inhabitants include the Hattians also known as Hattis, 2500-2000 BCE, who were quite possibly an aboriginal people of Anatolia. They were followed by the Hittites, 2000-1750 BCE, speakers of an Indo-European language possibly from the steppes of modern Russia and the Ukraine. The Hittites merged with the local population. Later invaders included Phrygians, Lydians, Assyrians, Urartians, Armenians, Kurds, Greeks, Romans, Galatians, Byzantine Greeks, Arabs and Turkic tribes.

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.

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. 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. 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, Central Asian Turks who remain a large segment of the population that has been moving to Turkey for centuries, and Eurasian Turks from Russia and the Caucasus such as the Tatars and Azerbaijanis. These Turks share similar languages and cultures.

Turkish phenotypes and diversity

File:Turkisch-day-in-Berlin.jpg

Turkish parade in Berlin

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 that was performed in 1965 and many of the figures published after that time are 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.

Geographic distribution

File:Şahin.jpg

Turks of Thrace performing a traditional folk dance in Şahin

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

Turks form the majority of the population in Turkey. Significant minorities of Turks are found in neighboring Bulgaria (see Turks in Bulgaria) and Cyprus (see Turkish Cypriots). Immigration in the 20th century has resulted in large Turkish communities in Germany, North America and Australia. Significant populations are also found in France (400,000 ), the Netherlands (350,000 ), the United Kingdom (300,000 ), Austria (250,000 ), Belgium (120,000 ), Saudi Arabia (120,000 ), Switzerland (80,000 ), Denmark (35,000-50,000 ) and Sweden (35,000)

Culture

Main article: Culture of Turkey

This section needs expansion. You can help by making an edit request adding to it .

Language

Main article: Turkish language

The Turkish language is a member of the Oghuz subdivision of Turkic languages, which in turn is a branch of the Altaic language family. In addition to Turkey, Turkish is also spoken in countries that formerly (in whole or part) belonged to the Ottoman Empire, such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Syria, Romania, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro (specifically in Kosovo and Metohija), Georgia and Greece (especially in Western Thrace).

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 and a variety of Sufi orders (the most notable of which are the Mevlevi and Bektashi). 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.

Notes

References

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