Hi all,

newbie here. I have been trying to learn "turkmen" from folks in Syria. Generally they seem to understand most Turkish words, what is the difference? Words that are borrowed from English seem to not make as much sense for them. . .

No difference, Türkmens are nomadic Turks aka yörüks from Oghuz family, of course they speak Turkish with a dialect, lots of Arabic and foreign words mixed in their language because they are living with Arabs, Persians and Kurds. As far as I know many of the Turkmens in Syria were subject to assimilation. By the way millions of them are living in North Iraq...

I would say something quite different actually..

We all know that some of the Turkish tribes moved to the west because they were running away from Mongolians. These tribes/clans entered Anatolia and possibly, Ottoman nobles were one of these tribes..

But conquering a land does not make the people of that land from that tribe. What is a common British person got to do with their Royal family for example?

Why are we trying to connect all people who call themsleves Turks in Anatolia (and around Anatolia)  with the Ottomans + Oghuz people?  Normally, a warrior aristocracy comes and establishes themselves as the rulers of the local people..

If we take  100 random pictures of central asian people and compare them with us, then take another random 100 pictures of Greeks/Armenians/Kurds and compare, we will clearly see we have nothing to do with central Asians..

Hi all,

thank you for your responses. Quite interesting...

Would a good rule to follow be to change english borrow words, IE problem and switch it with an Arabic word?

Thanks again,

Johnny

Somebody deceived you then, maybe you are under the affect of Grek statement "Mongolic Turks" . Who said to you Anatolian Turks need to look like the ones in central asia? Afterall Mongols had ruled the remaining Turks who did not migrate to west, so it is expected for them to look like Mongol. By the way according to Arabic sources, at the time when they first met with Turks around 620-650 AC, their depiction of Turks were far from Mongols. Just go and check the portrays of Ertuğrul Gazi or Karamanoğlu Mehmet Bey, they surely do not look like a Mongol. In that case we can say Armenians and Greks look like Turks since Turks had ruled them for hundreds of years.

Ha ha

Well sorry to disappoint you. First the language (for C++): when it comes to language, history is full of examples about how people would change their language and their religion if the conditions force them.  Especially during the migrations, occupations, colonization nations easily and quickly switch their language and religion.

People of Haiti speak French but they never think of themselves as French -they are all black-. Mexicans switched to Spanish in 16th century.. But they are not Spanish (I don´t think they say ´they are Spanish´ or I don´t think they ´believe´ they are the actual Spanish people, and people in Spain are assimilated by Europeans   ). People in Anatolia, become Helens after Alexander the great.

The second thing about ´people in Anatolia are the real Turks but not the central Asians´ is the numbers.. We don´t know how many Turks came to Anatolia at 11th and 13th century.. The maximum estimate is around 1 million..But possibly a value between 200.000 and 1.000.000 would be more realistic.. Lets say 500.0000.. But the estimate of the population in Anatolia at the time is around 5 to 15 million. Those people spoke Greek and Armenian. But 200 years later Turkish was the common language in Anatolia..There was not a mass exodus during that time and there is no reason why Turks would make more babies than Greeks and Armenians. Of course a serious chunk of local population become Turks..

But I am sure ´not carrying central Asian genes´ is not a problem for you guys as being Turkish is nothing to do with ethnicity anyway.  

so tell me, why today do we not see a slant-eyed Grek or Armenian since that gene is dominant? According to some sources Turks were far more before in Anatolia than 11th century, as they state even Seljuks recieved help from that Turks in Anatolia. one more info for you when Anatolia were divided into "Türk beylikleri", it is stated that those were close communities and they do not easily mix with other races except elites, still today some "yörük"s reject to marry to other races, i do not know why. But yeah being Turkish has nothing to do with ethnicity but language and culture 

Well. The answer is very simple: Those people carry more genes with Greek/Armenian origins than slant-eyed central Asians.. Gene researchers are telling the same thing: we have more Greek and Armenian genes than central Asian Turkish genes.. Again, in history, there was not a serious immigration from central Asia.. (there was once but hundreds of years ago and we do not know who those people were..They were from Caucasus but not a source saying that they were from central Asia) But, with all being close community etc, somehow, the numbers dont add up, I am afraid (simple number of people came from central Asia is not big enough- half million to 5-to 15 million) .. But as you also mentioned, since being Turkish is nothing to do with ethnicity, it should not bother us being more Armenian and Greek genetically than central Asian.

Bu salak fikirlerinle boy gostermeden once, kendine bir Turkmen bulup kendisini hangi etnik kokden gordugunu sorsana...

Belki de Ingilizim der....

We don´t know how many Turks came to Anatolia at 11th and 13th century..

How can you say that ´Turks´ came to ´Turkey´ long before the name Turkey existed? They were Mongols spreading into the West, so Mongolians are Turks? or Turks are Mongolians?

As I read it the Mongolian race spread westward into modern day Turkey, previously Mesopatamia, and conquered most of the country, except a few villages in the far west.

Sorry which century are you talking about B.C or A.D?

Well, what I mean to say is Turkic people have nothing to do with yellow race but caucasoid. The east Turks of central asia mixed with Chinese and Mongols because of Chinese and Mongol occupation and ruling, they became slant-eyed which is the dominant gene. For instance in Chinese records, Kirghiz people depicted as red-haired with green eyes similar to Arabic records or in Oghuz legends, it is stated that wife of Oghuz khan was "gökgözlü" or in Şehname Persian records Turkic tribes were depicted similarly to Arab and Chinese ones. So your comparison of Anatolian Turks with today´s central asian people is just ridiculous. Now what you say also funny, you claim that there was a place called Anatolia with a thousand year of Roman civilization and with a rooted culture and arts before muslim Turks arrived, but suddenly nomad, sepherd Turks with nearly 5% of local people occupied Anatolia, assimilated 95% of local people and Anatolia became a Turkish speaking land within 1-2 centuries, how weak was that Roman culture and how strong was that nomad Turkish culture!! Even crows laugh at this sorry. Before 1071 there were lots of Turkic tribes in Anatolia such as Kumans, Peceneks, Oghuzs, Kipchaks especially in black sea region, eastern anatolia and aegean region. In fact Turkish existence in Anatolia stand far from that like Sakas and Iskits later continued with Sabar/Sibir Turks, then Peceneks and Oghuzs. For your information there are more striking and interesting researches exist about the existence of Turks in Anatolia, need to look over those...

Quoting thehandsom

Well. The answer is very simple: Those people carry more genes with Greek/Armenian origins than slant-eyed central Asians.. Gene researchers are telling the same thing: we have more Greek and Armenian genes than central Asian Turkish genes.. Again, in history, there was not a serious immigration from central Asia.. (there was once but hundreds of years ago and we do not know who those people were..They were from Caucasus but not a source saying that they were from central Asia) But, with all being close community etc, somehow, the numbers dont add up, I am afraid (simple number of people came from central Asia is not big enough- half million to 5-to 15 million) .. But as you also mentioned, since being Turkish is nothing to do with ethnicity, it should not bother us being more Armenian and Greek genetically than central Asian.

Exactly. Who cares about genes? I don´t care about my genetic codes. I am happy being (or calling myself)  a Turk. "NE MUTLU TÜRKÜM DİYENE".

Sözün bittiği yer! Bence bundan sonra herkes sadece SUSSUN, özellikle de şu entel-dantel tayfası! NE MUTLU TÜRKÜM DİYENE!

Celts of Britain was made british by very little amount of anglo-saxons in less than 2 centuries in 5-6 century.. It is a quite a common thing in history that a warrior clan comes into a place and forces their  religion/language etc.. or not necessarly forcing, simply they create the political situation that everybody converts into their religion and language.. The other example is Egypt, Mesopotamia becoming Arabs with the Arab invasion.

But we do have an anomoly in the thesis ´Turks in modern Turkey came from Central Asia´. Why do we have that? we simply dont look like Uyghurs, Kirgiz, Kazaks. Turkmens , Ozbeks. (as I said yesterday in one of my posts, make that test with pictures of our Turkish brothers from central Asia.. The results is we look like more Greeks and Armenians than our central Asian brothers. Also all DNA tests are proving that too..)

This is not a bad thing of course.. why the hell not?..

But because of this anomaly and not accepting the idea that we might be  more Greeks and Armenians than Turks, in 1930 Turkish historians developed this fantasie of  ´actually, Turks spread the world way before than we know.. Greeks and Armenians  actually might be Turks´. It was again during 1930s, the theories of Turks brought civilisation to every corner on earth were flying.. But all those theories were abandoned with the death of Ataturk though..

You sound very much concerned with your Kurdish/Greek/Armenian genes in your genome. So be it. You indeed sound like one of them usually here rather than a Turk.

We don´t care about our genes. We call ourselves a Turk and that´s all.

"NE MUTLU TÜRKÜM DİYENE"

I  care very little about the race of people to be honest. 

But I wonder if Hitler knew he was genetically more Jewish than a German, if he would do the same..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/world-war-2/7961211/Hitler-had-Jewish-and-African-roots-DNA-tests-show.html

You don´t care the race of people, eh? That´s why you are always #1 at ethnicity and race discussions?

Very funny!

Duy da inanma!

As i said there were Turkic people far more before than 1071, it was clear, even some were working as paid soldiers in Byzantine army, in Malazgirt these paid soldiers sided with Seljuk Turks which was one of the key factor of Seljuks winning this battle. And according to funny comparison of theh, these people as well should have looked like as today´s central asian people .

As for the examples about celts and mezopotamia, if one accepts Turkish/Islamic culture was far more developed than Roman/Christian culture in Anatolia as pre-condition, yes it was possible .

Well 

Accept it.. "We Turks in Anatolia are the real Turks but all other Turks in central Asia are mixed with Mongolians-that is the reason why we dont look like them-, we are more Turks than them" is not a winning argument. 

Apart from the looks, DNA researches are saying what I am saying basically..

I simply do not say that but I give reference to Arabic, Persian and Chinese sources which clearly depict Turks different than yellow race. By the way i can show you other DNA researches which says otherwise. 

Do anyone know that Karaman Turks(Kipchak by origin) celebrated the end of Ottomans as soon as M. Kemal declared Turkish Republic? They were the strongest rival of Ottomans in Anatolia. Even Ottomans failed to assimilate them.

http://tez.sdu.edu.tr/Tezler/TS00412.pdf

See page 83:

There was another mass migration of Turks during the Mongol invasion of Anatolia.

Some 5 million Turkomans migrated to Anatolia.

Thanks si++

I like this...So neither Greeks nor Armenians can blame Turks for whatever happened in history...It was all their internal affairs..

We don´t know how many Turks came to Anatolia at 11th and 13th century..

How can you say that ´Turks´ came to ´Turkey´ long before the name Turkey existed? They were Mongols spreading into the West, so Mongolians are Turks? or Turks are Mongolians?

As I read it the Mongolian race spread westward into modern day Turkey, previously Mesopatamia, and conquered most of the country, except a few villages in the far west.

 I´m still lost we are talking about the birth of a civilisation, this was way before the Greeks,Sumarins etc. So how can ´Turks´ invade a country that wasn´t even ´Turkish´?

´The Fertile crescent´ consisted of hunter gatherers before the Mongals came there, they exibited modern day farming and the domestication of animal techniques, or are you guys talking a lot later on in time?

What about the kh sound? In Arabic it exists, and Turkish it doesn´t however there are some words in Turkmen that I hear it. For example fear korkh. But Turkish has it as korku

No logic there. Sound changes do occur all the time in all languages. That said, I think kh requires more effort to say. We are trying to find ways to say things more easily. So that´s such an outcome.

I will really appreciate your input on this matter.. You mentioned it once or twice in my columns but you did not come back with a real input..

But we have been covering here 10th century onwards.. As far as I know, there was only one mass population movement from the north east (Caucasia). But it was long time ago and we don´t know if they were from central Asia or not (from Europe?)....I don´t think people were calling themselves Turks at the time..

Well, obviously, we don´t look like Turks in central Asia..Do they lost their Turkishness because of Mongolians? I am not entirely sure.. Because insisting that Turks/Turkmens did not mix with the other races in Anatolia/Mesopotamia but they mixed with Mongolians. So "the Turks in Anatolia are the real Turks but the ones in central Asia are less Turks"   does not have any credibility and genetic map of Turkey is  not supporting that idea either..

But what I learnt recently is that "the effect of slavery in Ottoman times".. According to Halil Inalcik (living-legend Historian), Ottomans used to have around 10.000 slaves from Poland/Russia/Caucasia every year.. This slave trade went on with that pace for almost good 250 years (1500- 175. These slaves were treated better than slaves in the USA and after a certain times released to society..  These salves were mainly brought to Istanbul and then released in Istanbul.. Halil Berktay (another historian) estimates around 2 million slaves got mixed with us.. Their growth/kids etc were not included in that number..

I wonder how many of us are having Polish/Russian roots and how many of them are staunch nationalists ..

Just an interesting thought..

"How can you say that ´Turks´ came to ´Turkey´ long before the name Turkey existed? They were Mongols spreading into the West, so Mongolians are Turks? or Turks are Mongolians?"

Questions by another member

This is a good question. To solve the mystery here, one should be able to answer three basic questions.

1. While Mongols were on their way into Anatolia, they stopped by major Arab cities on their way and made sure all libraries were practically burnt out. WHY?

2. Mongols devastated Ottomans in one large battle near Ankara. The Ottoman Sultan was enslaved. Quite surprisingly however, Mongols first released the defeated and enslaved Ottoman Sultan, then stopped their campaign further West into Anatolia, though there was no one left to stop them. WHY ?

3. Before Mongols hit Ottomans, Ottomans were busy making life miserable for Europeans in the West. One would expect Europeans to take advantage of the loss Ottomans suffered and go for a sweet revenge, with no Ottoman army left to stop them. But that did not happen. No one dared attack Ottomans, even after they were practically plastered by Mongols. WHY?

I shall not offer my own answers to these questions. They are however, worth thinking about - for those interested in Turkic history.

Why are you so sensitive about the genetics of Anatolian Turks? People are what they feel for. Why do you try to prove that we are not Turks genetically? What are you trying to do?

If you feel that you are a Turk then you are a Turk. Who cares about the genetics? (answer: apperantly the likes of you who have some discomfort with the idea of feeling/calling yourself a Turk).

Well central Asian Turks may be more Turk than us genetically (nobody denies that) but they are less Turk than us in some countries. The fact is they are more Russian than Turk (Many  prefer to speak Russian instead of their language and feel more Russian than Turk).

If you call yourself a Turk then what is big matter with that? You know "Ne mutlu Türküm diyene". But if you instead say "Ne mutlu ...im diyene" that´s OK we understand that! (That´s what you are trying to do, right?)

Well, excuse me but, look at all the posts from the beginning and tell me ´WHO really is SENSITIVE about genetics of Anatolian Turks´!!

There is a concept in history : ethno-transformation. People-individually or collectively- change/adapt/accept  other languages/accept other religions.

In history, clans/tribes joined to other clans/tribes..They lived in an intertwined forms.. Sometimes they joined into a collective federations. If this ´living together´ was for a long time, they changed their language.. (Timurlane who defeated Beyazid in Ankara insisted that he was Turkish but  his tribe, ´Barlas´, originally was Mongolian, but Turkified by language)..  

When you accept this ethnic-transformation as a reality, you don´t reject the other cultures/ethnicity. 

If  nationalism is just the nationalism, which does not have racism attached to it (I mean the racism in which everything is tied into the race, the roots) this ethnic-transformation, this richness of cultures, this mixture of ethnicity can be absorbed and everything and all others (Greeks/Armenians/Kurds etc) would be tolerated easily up to a certain point...

But accepting the concept of ethnic transformation brings ambiguity about the race and racism can not live with (or tolerate) this uncertainty.

That is the racist nationalism we should have the real problem with. 

I think I made myself clear with ´Ne mutlu Turkum diyene´ in previous years: I have no problem with it at all.. But we all know  some of our citizens have some issues. They simply insist that they are not Turks.. I find it difficult to oppose people if they want to say ´Ne mutlu, I am This and I am That´ really..

The last paragraph is nothing to do with the Turkishness or race or nationalism.. It is just the manners and it is very much related to your family.. So I am not going to blame you on that  personally..

The question of "race" is always troublesome. It stems largely from the perception that "race" is a reality in itself, but it is actually no more than a perception. There are many variations on human features, and what were classified as "the four races" are actually no more than four extremes based on features that stand out to us. Eye shape skin color, hair type, etc. In reality it´s a continuum, but when people migrate and come across people who look differently, then it´s (for better or worse) human nature to try and classify folks.

During Ottoman times, the major dividing line was religion, not race and ethnicity as we think of them today. They only became a real issue during the age when the world was dividing itsulf up into nation-states, and some of those states were trying to grab parts of the failing Empire. The reasons various people in the Ottoman Empire wanted to break away are more complex than at first glance, and beyond the scope of this post. But the upshot was that out of the Ottoman Empire arose a group of nation-states, and one of those nations were the people that considered themselves (or were considered by others because of language and religion) "Turkish." And one of the difficult issues the new state of Turkey faced was to define what a Turk was. Unfortunately there was a point where some tried to define what a Turk was in terms of physical characteristics. Clearly this caused lots of problems. For one thing, Atatürk would certainly not fit into any definition of Turkishness based on Central Asian ancestry. And it also left people out - consider all the people who identified as Turkish, who fought in the War of Independence, and then (in the eyes of some) were considered to be of "doubtful" Turkishness. Without naming names, people in some areas were more subject to such attitudes, and it´s in such areas where we see the most extreme touchiness and nationalism.

In the end, Turkish, Greek, Kurdish, we´re all mixed, and most of our nationality is a construct of our education and the culture we were brought up in. To get caught up in fights about ethnic or racial purity just reeks of ignorance and hurts everyone.

+10000

Although  it looks like a few paragraphs but it is a very compact version of our history..

ethnic or racial purity?

Did we have such a fight here?

Don´t Bulgar Turks count?

The Bulgars (also Bolgars, Bulghars, or Proto-Bulgarians) were a people who lived in Eastern Europe during the Early Middle Ages. Their ethnicity is uncertain but most scholars posit that they were a Turkic people with some Iranian elements that migrated to Europe from Central Asia in 4th century. In the 7th century they established two states on the Pontic-Caspian steppe: Great Bulgaria, which spanned between the Caspian Sea and Black Sea, and Volga Bulgaria on the territory that is now part of the Russian Republics of Tatarstan and Chuvashia. Likewise, they imposed themselves in the Balkans as the elite ruling class of the Danube Bulgar Khanate. In each of these regions they were gradually assimilated over a period of centuries by the local ethnic groups, giving rise to several modern peoples claiming descent from them: Volga Tatars (see Bulgarism) and Chuvash, Balkars and Bulgarians.