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Turkish people

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This article is about the ethnic Turks of Turkey. For information on residents or nationals 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
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Regions with significant populations
Turkey:
   58,700,000

Germany:
   2,110,000-2,700,000
Bulgaria:
   800,000-1,200,000
Syria:
   1,000,000
France:
   400,000
Netherlands:
   350,000
United Kingdom:
   300,000
Austria:
   250,000
Cyprus:
   230,000
USA:
    118,000-220,000
Uzbekistan:
   200,000
Australia:
   150,000
Macedonia:
   80,000
Belgium:
   120,000
Greece:
   90,000
Romania:
   60,000
Saudi Arabia:
   120,000
Russia:
   96,000
Switzerland:
   80,000
Kosovo:
   20,000-50,000
Azerbaijan:
   50,000
Canada:
    25,000-50,000()
Denmark:
    35,000-50,000()

Sweden:
    35,000
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 Turkish people (Turkish: Türkler) are a Turkic ethnic group sharing a common culture and language. Turks 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 been established in Western Europe (particularly in Germany), North America and Australia.

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, Turk, is used to refer to Turkish ethnicity. It refers to both Turkic and Turkish elements and peoples. The term 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 identified themselves as Turks as their ethnicity.

A brief historical overview

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, an Indo-European people possibly from the steppes of modern Russia and the Ukraine, who merged with the local population. Later invaders included Phrygians, Lydians, Assyrians, Urartians, Armenians, Kurds, Greeks, Romans, Galatians, Byzantines, Arabs and of course 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 Greek-speaking Byzantines (who were themselves Hellenized Anatolians) 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

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 about all physical types prevalent in the country, from the blond haired and-blue-eyed to the Asiatic Mongol individuals, and even people with some partial Hamitic roots, from the times when the Ottoman Empire stretched into Sudan. Turkey, like so many other vast former imperialist powers such as the Romans and the British, in part reflects its imperial past.

File:Turkisch-day-in-Berlin.jpg
Turkish parade in Berlin

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.

References

See also

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