The origins of the Turkic peoples has been a topic of much discussion.[35] Recent linguistic, genetic and archaeological evidence suggests that the earliest Turkic peoples descended from agricultural communities in Northeastern China and wider Northeast Asia, who moved westwards into Mongolia in the late 3rd millennium BC, where they adopted a pastoral lifestyle.[36][37][38][39][40] By the early 1st millennium BC, these peoples had become equestrian nomads.[36]
The genetic and historical evidence suggests that the early Turkic peoples were of largely East Asian origin but became increasingly diverse, with later medieval Turkic groups exhibiting both East Asian and occasionally also West Eurasian physical appearances and genetic origins.[41][42] Many vastly differing ethnic groups have throughout history become part of the Turkic peoples through language shift, acculturation, conquest, intermixing, adoption, and religious conversion.[3] Nevertheless, certain Turkic peoples share, to varying degrees, non-linguistic characteristics like cultural traits, ancestry from a common gene pool, and historical experiences.[3]
During the first century CE, Pomponius Mela refers to the Turcae in the forests north of the Sea of Azov, and Pliny the Elder lists the Tyrcae among the people of the same area.[54][55][56] However, English archaeologist Ellis Minns contended that Tyrcae Τῦρκαι is "a false correction" for Iyrcae Ἱύρκαι, a people who dwelt beyond the Thyssagetae, according to Herodotus (Histories, iv. 22), and were likely Ugric ancestors of Magyars.[57] There are references to certain groups in antiquity whose names might have been foreign transcriptions of Tür(ü)k, such as Togarma, Turukha/Turuška, Turukku and so on; but the information gap is so substantial that any connection of these ancient people to the modern Turks is not possible.[58][59]
It is generally accepted that the name Türk is ultimately derived from the Old-Turkic migration-term[60] 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 Türük/Törük,<[61] which means 'created, born'[62] or 'strong'.[63] Scholars, including Toru Haneda, Onogawa Hidemi, and Geng Shimin believed that Di, Dili, Dingling, Chile and Tujue all came from the Turkic word Türk, which means 'powerful' and 'strength', and its plural form is Türküt.[64] Even though Gerhard Doerfer supports the proposal that türk means 'strong' in general, Gerard Clauson points out that "the word türk is never used in the generalized sense of 'strong'" and that türk was originally a noun and meant "'the culminating point of maturity' (of a fruit, human being, etc.), but more often used as an [adjective] meaning (of a fruit) 'just fully ripe'; (of a human being) 'in the prime of life, young, and vigorous'".[65] Turkologist Peter B. Golden agrees that the term Turk has roots in Old Turkic.[66] yet is not convinced by attempts to link Dili, Dingling, Chile, Tele, & Tiele, which possibly transcribed *tegrek (probably meaning 'cart'), to Tujue, which transliterated Türküt.[67] The Chinese Book of Zhou (7th century) presents an etymology of the name Turk as derived from 'helmet', explaining that this name comes from the shape of a mountain where they worked in the Altai Mountains.[68] Hungarian scholar András Róna-Tas (1991) pointed to a Khotanese-Saka word, tturakä 'lid', semantically stretchable to 'helmet', as a possible source for this folk etymology, yet Golden thinks this connection requires more data.[69]
The earliest Turkic-speaking peoples identifiable in Chinese sources are the Gekun and Xinli, located in South Siberia.[70][71] Another earlier people, the Dingling, are often also assumed to be Proto-Turks,[72][73][74] or are alternatively linked to Tungusic peoples[75][76] or Na-Dené and Yeniseian peoples.[77] Medieval European chroniclers subsumed various Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppe under the "umbrella-identity" of the "Scythians". Between 400 CE and the 16th century, Byzantine sources use the name Σκύθαι (Skuthai) in reference to twelve different Turkic peoples.[78]
In the modern Turkish language as used in the Republic of Turkey, a distinction is made between "Turks" and the "Turkic peoples" in loosely speaking: the term Türk corresponds specifically to the "Turkish-speaking" people (in this context, "Turkish-speaking" is considered the same as "Turkic-speaking"), while the term Türki refers generally to the people of modern "Turkic Republics" (Türki Cumhuriyetler or Türk Cumhuriyetleri). However, the proper usage of the term is based on the linguistic classification in order to avoid any political sense. In short, the term Türki can be used for Türk or vice versa.[79]
^Book of Weivol. 102. quote: "悅般國 [...] 其風俗言語與高車同" translation: "Yueban nation [...] Their customs and language are the same as the Gaoche['s]"; Gaoche (高車; lit. "High-Carts") was another name of the Turkic-speaking Tiele
^Merkits were always counted as a part of the Mongols within the Mongol Empire, however, some scholars proposed additional Turkic ancestry for Merkits; Christopher P. Atwood – Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol EmpireISBN9780816046713, Facts on File, Inc. 2004.
^Refers to forest peoples of the North, including the Turkic-speaking Tuvans and Yakuts, and also Mongolic-speaking Altai Uriankhai. The ethnonym Uriankhai is etymologically Mongolic, compare Khalkhauria(n) "war motto" and khai, alternation of khan. Uriankhai people are possibly linked to the Wuluohun tribe of the Shiwei people, who were predominantly Mongolic-speaking.
^Even though Chinese historians routinely ascribed Xiongnu origin to various nomadic peoples, such ascriptions do not necessarily indicate the subjects' exact origins; for examples, Xiongnu ancestry was ascribed to Turkic-speaking Göktürks and Tiele as well as Para-Mongolic-speaking Kumo Xi and Khitan.[92]
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some 30 languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, to Siberia and Manchuria and through to the Middle East. Some 170 million people have a Turkic language as their native language;[93] an additional 20 million people speak a Turkic language as a second language. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper, or Anatolian Turkish, the speakers of which account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers.[94] More than one third of these are ethnic Turks of Turkey, dwelling predominantly in Turkey proper and formerly Ottoman-dominated areas of Southern and Eastern Europe and West Asia; as well as in Western Europe, Australia and the Americas as a result of immigration. The remainder of the Turkic people are concentrated in Central Asia, Russia, the Caucasus, China, and northern Iraq.
The Turkic language family is traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.[95] Howeover since the 1950s, many comparative linguists have rejected the proposal, after supposed cognates were found not to be valid, hypothesized sound shifts were not found, and Turkic and Mongolic languages were found to be converging rather than diverging over the centuries. Opponents of the theory proposed that the similarities are due to mutual linguistic influences between the groups concerned.[96][97][98][99][100]
The Turkic alphabets are sets of related alphabets with letters (formerly known as runes), used for writing mostly Turkic languages. Inscriptions in Turkic alphabets were found in Mongolia. Most of the preserved inscriptions were dated to between 8th and 10th centuries CE.
The earliest positively dated and read Turkic inscriptions date from the 8th century, and the alphabets were generally replaced by the Old Uyghur alphabet in the East and Central Asia, Arabic script in the Middle and Western Asia, Cyrillic in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, and Latin alphabet in Central Europe. The latest recorded use of Turkic alphabet was recorded in Central Europe's Hungary in 1699 CE.
The Turkic runiform scripts, unlike other typologically close scripts of the world, do not have a uniform palaeography as, for example, have the Gothic runes, noted for the exceptional uniformity of its language and paleography.[101] The Turkic alphabets are divided into four groups, the best known of them is the Orkhon version of the Enisei group. The Orkhon script is the alphabet used by the Göktürks from the 8th century to record the Old Turkic language. It was later used by the Uyghur Empire; a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Kyrgyz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian script of the 10th century. Irk Bitig is the only known complete manuscript text written in the Old Turkic script.[102]
The origins of the Turkic peoples has been a topic of much discussion.[35]Peter Benjamin Golden listed Proto-Turkic lexical items about the climate, topography, flora, fauna, people's modes of subsistence in the hypothetical Proto-Turkic Urheimat and proposed that the Proto-Turkic Urheimat was located at the southern, taiga-steppe zone of the Sayan-Altay region.[103]Martine Robbeets suggests that the Turkic peoples were descended from a Transeurasian agricultural community based in northeast China, which is to be associated with the Xinglongwa culture and the succeeding Hongshan culture.[36][37] The East Asian agricultural origin of the Turkic peoples has been corroborated in multiple recent studies.[38][39][104] Around 2,200 BC, due to the desertification of northeast China, the agricultural ancestors of the Turkic peoples probably migrated westwards into Mongolia, where they adopted a pastoral lifestyle.[36][105]
Linguistic and genetic evidence strongly suggest an early presence of Turkic peoples in eastern Mongolia.[106][35][107]
Genetic, archeologic and linguistic evidence links the early Turkic peoples to the "Northeast Asian gene pool". Proto-Turks are suggested to have adopted a nomadic lifestyle and expanded from eastern Mongolia westwards.[citation needed]
The genetic evidence suggests that the Turkification of Central Asia was carried out by East Asiandominant minorities migrating out of Mongolia. The exact location of the homeland of the Turkic peoples and languages cannot be adequately concluded, but must have been somewhere within the areas of the "Northeast Asian gene pool".[108][109]
The main migration of Turkic peoples occurred between the 6th and 11th centuries, when they spread across most of Central Asia. The Turkic peoples slowly replaced and assimilated the previous Iranian-speaking locals, turning the population of Central Asia from largely Iranian into primarily of East Asian descent.[110]
Xiongnu, Mongolic, and proto-Turkic tribes (ca. 300 CE)
The earliest separate Turkic peoples, such as the Gekun (鬲昆) and Xinli (薪犁), appeared on the peripheries of the late Xiongnu confederation about 200 BCE[111][112] (contemporaneous with the Chinese Han Dynasty)[113] and later among the Turkic-speaking Tiele[114] as Hegu (紇骨)[115] and Xue (薛).[116][117]
The Tiele (also known as Gaoche 高車, lit. "High Carts"),[118] may be related to the Xiongnu and the Dingling.[119] According to the Book of Wei, the Tiele people were the remnants of the Chidi (赤狄), the red Di people competing with the Jin in the Spring and Autumn period.[120] Historically they were established after the 6th century BCE.[112]
The Tiele were first mentioned in Chinese literature from the 6th to 8th centuries.[121] Some scholars (Haneda, Onogawa, Geng, etc.) proposed that Tiele, Dili, Dingling, Chile, Tele, & Tujue all transliterated underlying Türk; however, Golden proposed that Dili, Dingling, Chile, Tele, & Tiele transliterated Tegrek while Tujue transliterated Türküt, plural of Türk.[122] The appellation Türük (Old Turkic: 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰) ~ Türk (OT: 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰚) (whence Middle Chinese 突厥 *dwət-kuɑt > *tɦut-kyat > standard Chinese: Tūjué) was initially reserved exclusively for the Göktürks by Chinese, Tibetans, and even the Turkic-speaking Uyghurs. In contrast, medieval Muslim writers, including Turkic speakers like Ottoman historian Mustafa Âlî and explorer Evliya Çelebi as well as Timurid scientist Ulugh Beg, often viewed Inner Asian tribes, "as forming a single entity regardless of their linguistic affiliation" commonly used Turk as a generic name for Inner Asians (whether Turkic- or Mongolic-speaking). Only in modern era do modern historians use Turks to refer to all peoples speaking Turkic languages, differentiated from non-Turkic speakers.[123]
According to some researchers (Duan, Xue, Tang, Lung, Onogawa, etc.) the later Ashina tribe descended from the Tiele confederation.[124][125][126][127][128] The Tiele however were probably one of many early Turkic groups, ancestral to later Turkic populations.[129][130] However, according to Lee & Kuang (2017), Chinese histories do not describe the Ashina and the Göktürks as descending from the Dingling or the Tiele confederation.[131]
It has even been suggested that the Xiongnu themselves, who were mentioned in Han Dynasty records, were Proto-Turkic speakers.[132][133][134][135] Although little is known for certain about the Xiongnu language(s), it seems likely that at least a considerable part of Xiongnu tribes spoke a Turkic language.[136] Some scholars believe they were probably a confederation of various ethnic and linguistic groups.[137][138] A genetic research in 2003, of the remains of 62 individuals buried between the 3rd century BC and the 2nd century AD at the Xiongnu necropolis at Egyin Gol in northern Mongolia, found that these individuals have similar DNA sequences as many modern Turkic groups, supporting the view that the Xiongnu were at least partially of Turkic origin.[139] These examined individuals were found to be primarily of East Asian ancestry.[140]
Using the only extant possibly Xiongnu writings, the rock art of the Yinshan and Helan Mountains,[141] some scholars argue that the older Xiongnu writings are precursors to the earliest known Turkic alphabet, the Orkhon script. Petroglyphs of this region dates from the 9th millennium BCE to the 19th century, and consists mainly of engraved signs (petroglyphs) and few painted images.[142] Excavations done during 1924–1925 in Noin-Ula kurgans located in the Selenga River in the northern Mongolian hills north of Ulaanbaatar produced objects with over 20 carved characters, which were either identical or very similar to the runic letters of the Turkic Orkhon script discovered in the Orkhon Valley.[143]
In the 18th century, the French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people, who were northern neighbours of China in the 3rd century BC.[144] The Hun hordes ruled by Attila, who invaded and conquered much of Europe in the 5th century, might have been, at least partially, Turkic and descendants of the Xiongnu.[113][145][146] Since Guignes' time, considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. The issue remains controversial. Their relationships to other peoples known collectively as the Iranian Huns are also disputed.[citation needed]
The first mention of Turks was in a Chinese text that mentioned trade between Turk tribes and the Sogdians along the Silk Road.[152]
According to the Book of Sui and the Tongdian, they were "mixed barbarians" (雜胡; záhú) who migrated from Pingliang (now in modern Gansu province, China) to the Rourans seeking inclusion in their confederacy and protection from the prevailing dynasty.[153][154] Alternatively, according to the Book of Zhou, History of the Northern Dynasties, and New Book of Tang, the Ashina clan was a component of the Xiongnu confederation.[155][156][157][158] Göktürks were also posited as having originated from an obscure Suo state (索國), north of the Xiongnu.[159][160] The Ashina tribe were famed metalsmiths and were granted land south of the Altai Mountains (金山 Jinshan), which looked like a helmet, from which they were said to have gotten their name 突厥 (Tūjué),[161][153] the first recorded use of "Turk" as a political name. In the 6th-century, Ashina's power had increased such that they conquered the Tiele on their Rouran overlords' behalf and even overthrew Rourans and established the First Turkic Khaganate.[162]
A Turkic warrior from the Göktürk period. The horse's tail is knotted in Turkic style. His hair is long, braided and his big-collared caftan and boots are Turkic clothing features.
The original Old Turkic name Kök Türk derives from kök ~ kö:k, "sky, sky-coloured, blue, blue-grey".[163] Unlike its Xiongnu predecessor, the Göktürk Khaganate had its temporary Khagans from the Ashina clan, who were subordinate to a sovereign authority controlled by a council of tribal chiefs. The Khaganate retained elements of its original animistic-shamanistic religion, that later evolved into Tengriism, although it received missionaries of Buddhist monks and practiced a syncretic religion. The Göktürks were the first Turkic people to write Old Turkic in a runic script, the Orkhon script. The Khaganate was also the first state known as "Turk". It eventually collapsed due to a series of dynastic conflicts, but many states and peoples later used the name "Turk".[164][165]
The Göktürks (First Turkic Kaganate) quickly spread west to the Caspian Sea. Between 581 and 603 the Western Turkic Khaganate in Kazakhstan separated from the Eastern Turkic Khaganate in Mongolia and Manchuria during a civil war. The Han-Chinese successfully overthrew the Eastern Turks in 630 and created a military Protectorate until 682. After that time the Second Turkic Khaganate ruled large parts of the former Göktürk area. After several wars between Turks, Chinese and Tibetans, the weakened Second Turkic Khaganate was replaced by the Uyghur Khaganate in the year 744.[166]
Bulgars, Golden Horde and the Siberian Khanate[edit | edit source]
The migration of the Bulgars after the fall of Old Great Bulgaria in the 7th century
The Bulgars established themselves in between the Caspian and Black Seas in the 5th and 6th centuries, followed by their conquerors, the Khazars who converted to Judaism in the 8th or 9th century. After them came the Pechenegs who created a large confederacy, which was subsequently taken over by the Cumans and the Kipchaks. One group of Bulgars settled in the Volga region and mixed with local Volga Finns to become the Volga Bulgars in what is today Tatarstan. These Bulgars were conquered by the Mongols following their westward sweep under Genghis Khan in the 13th century. Other Bulgars settled in Southeastern Europe in the 7th and 8th centuries, and mixed with the Slavic population, adopting what eventually became the Slavic Bulgarian language. Everywhere, Turkic groups mixed with the local populations to varying degrees.[162]
The Volga Bulgaria became an Islamic state in 922 and influenced the region as it controlled many trade routes. In the 13th century, Mongols invaded Europe and established the Golden Horde in Eastern Europe, western & northern Central Asia, and even western Siberia. The Cuman-Kipchak Confederation and Islamic Volga Bulgaria were absorbed by the Golden Horde in the 13th century; in the 14th century, Islam became the official religion under Uzbeg Khan where the general population (Turks) as well as the aristocracy (Mongols) came to speak the Kipchak language and were collectively known as "Tatars" by Russians and Westerners. This country was also known as the Kipchak Khanate and covered most of what is today Ukraine, as well as the entirety of modern-day southern and eastern Russia (the European section). The Golden Horde disintegrated into several khanates and hordes in the 15th and 16th century including the Crimean Khanate, Khanate of Kazan, and Kazakh Khanate (among others), which were one by one conquered and annexed by the Russian Empire in the 16th through 19th centuries.[citation needed]
In Siberia, the Siberian Khanate was established in the 1490s by fleeing Tatar aristocrats of the disintegrating Golden Horde who established Islam as the official religion in western Siberia over the partly Islamized native Siberian Tatars and indigenous Uralic peoples. It was the northernmost Islamic state in recorded history and it survived up until 1598 when it was conquered by Russia.[citation needed]
The Uyghur empire ruled large parts of Mongolia, Northern and Western China and parts of northern Manchuria. They followed largely Buddhism and animistic traditions. During the same time, the Shatuo Turks emerged as power factor in Northern and Central China and were recognized by the Tang Empire as allied power. The Uyghur empire fell after several wars in the year 840.[166][167]
The Shatuo Turks had founded several short-lived sinicized dynasties in northern China during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The official language of these dynasties was Chinese and they used Chinese titles and names. Some Shaotuo Turks emperors also claimed patrilineal Han Chinese ancestry.[168][169][170]
After the fall of the Tang-Dynasty in 907, the Shatuo Turks replaced them and created the Later Tang Dynasty in 923. The Shatuo Turks ruled over a large part of northern China, including Beijing. They adopted Chinese names and united Turkic and Chinese traditions. Later Tang fell in 937 but the Shatuo rose to become one of the most powerful clans of China. They created several other dynasies, including the Later Jin and Later Han. The Shatuo Turks were later assimilated into the Han Chinese ethnic group after they were conquered by the Song dynasty.[167][171]
The Yenisei Kyrgyz allied with China to destroy the Uyghur Khaganate in 840. The Kyrgyz people ultimately settled in the region now referred to as Kyrgyzstan.[citation needed]
Kangar Union after the fall of Western Turkic Khaganate, 659–750
The Kangar Union (Qanghar Odaghu) was a Turkic state in the former territory of the Western Turkic Khaganate (the entire present-day state of Kazakhstan, without Zhetysu). The ethnic name Kangar is a medieval name for the Kangly people, who are now part of the Kazakh, Uzbek,[172] and Karakalpak nations. The capital of the Kangar union was located in the Ulytau mountains. The Pechenegs, three of whose tribes were known as Kangar (Greek: Καγγαρ), after being defeated by the Oghuzes, Karluks, and Kimek-Kypchaks, attacked the Bulgars and established the Pecheneg state in Eastern Europe (840–990 CE).[citation needed]
The Oguz Yabgu State (Oguz il, meaning "Oguz Land,", "Oguz Country")(750–1055) was a Turkic state, founded by Oghuz Turks in 766, located geographically in an area between the coasts of the Caspian and Aral Seas. Oguz tribes occupied a vast territory in Kazakhstan along the Irgiz, Yaik, Emba, and Uil rivers, the Aral Sea area, the Syr Darya valley, the foothills of the Karatau Mountains in Tien-Shan, and the Chui River valley (see map). The Oguz political association developed in the 9th and 10th centuries in the basin of the middle and lower course of the Syr Darya and adjoining the modern western Kazakhstan steppes.[citation needed]
Iranian, Indian, Arabic, and Anatolian expansion[edit | edit source]
Turkic peoples and related groups migrated west from present-day Northeastern China, Mongolia, Siberia and the Turkestan-region towards the Iranian plateau, South Asia, and Anatolia (modern Turkey) in many waves. The date of the initial expansion remains unknown.
Although the dynasty was of Central Asian Turkic origin, it was thoroughly Persianised in terms of language, culture, literature and habits[179][180][181][182] and hence is regarded by some as a "Persian dynasty".[183]
The Seljuk empire was founded by Tughril Beg (1016–1063) and his brother Chaghri Beg (989–1060) in 1037. From their homelands near the Aral Sea, the Seljuks advanced first into Khorasan and then into mainland Persia, before eventually conquering eastern Anatolia. Here the Seljuks won the battle of Manzikert in 1071 and conquered most of Anatolia from the Byzantine Empire, which became one of the reasons for the first crusade (1095–1099). From c. 1150–1250, the Seljuk empire declined, and was invaded by the Mongols around 1260. The Mongols divided Anatolia into emirates. Eventually one of these, the Ottoman, would conquer the rest.[citation needed]
The Timurid Empire were a Turko-Mongol empire founded in the late 14th century by Timurlane, a descendant of Genghis Khan. Timur, although a self-proclaimed devout Muslim, brought great slaughter in his conquest of fellow Muslims in neighboring Islamic territory and contributed to the ultimate demise of many Muslim states, including the Golden Horde.[citation needed]
The Bukhara Khanate was an Uzbek[189] state that existed from 1501 to 1785. The khanate was ruled by three dynasties of the Shaybanids, Janids and the Uzbek dynasty of Mangits. In 1785, Shahmurad, formalized the family's dynastic rule (Manghit dynasty), and the khanate became the Emirate of Bukhara (1785–1920).[190] In 1710, the Kokand Khanate (1710–1876) separated from the Bukhara Khanate. In 1511–1920, Khwarazm (Khiva Khanate) was ruled by the Arabshahid dynasty and the Uzbek dynasty of Kungrats.[191]
The Afsharid dynasty was named after the Turkic Afshar tribe to which they belonged. The Afshars had migrated from Turkestan to Azerbaijan in the 13th century. The dynasty was founded in 1736 by the military commander Nader Shah who deposed the last member of the Safavid dynasty and proclaimed himself King of Iran. Nader belonged to the Qereqlu branch of the Afshars.[207] During Nader's reign, Iran reached its greatest extent since the Sassanid Empire.
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi-based kingdoms three of which were of Turkic origin in medieval India. These Turkic dynasties were the Mamluk dynasty (1206–90); the Khalji dynasty (1290–1320); and the Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1414). Southern India also saw many Turkic origin dynasties like the Adil Shahi dynasty, the Bidar Sultanate, and the Qutb Shahi dynasty, collectively known as the Deccan sultanates.
The Mughal Empire was a Turko-Mongol founded Indian empire that, at its greatest territorial extent, ruled most of South Asia, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and parts of Uzbekistan from the early 16th to the early 18th centuries. The Mughal dynasty was founded by a Chagatai Turkic prince named Babur (reigned 1526–30), who was descended from the Turkic conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) on his father's side and from Chagatai, second son of the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan, on his mother's side.[214][215] A further distinction was the attempt of the Mughals to integrate Hindus and Muslims into a united Indian state.[214][216][217][218] and the
Last Turkic dynasty in India were the Hyderabad State lasted from 1724 to 1948 located in the south-central region of India.
Silver dirham of AH 329 (940/941 CE), with the names of Caliph al-Muttaqi and Amir al-umara Bajkam (de facto ruler of the country)
The Arab Muslim Umayyads and Abbasids fought against the pagan Turks in the Türgesh Khaganate in the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana. Turkic soldiers in the army of the Abbasidcaliphs emerged as the de facto rulers of most of the Muslim Middle East (apart from Syria and Egypt), particularly after the 10th century. Examples of regional de-facto independent states include the short lived Tulunids and Ikhshidids in Egypt. 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.[162]
After many battles, the western Oghuz Turks established their own state and later constructed the Ottoman Empire. The main migration of the Oghuz Turks occurred in medieval times, when they spread across most of Asia and into Europe and the Middle East.[162] They also took part in the military encounters of the Crusades.[219] In 1090–91, the Turkic Pechenegs reached the walls of Constantinople, where Emperor Alexius I with the aid of the Kipchaks annihilated their army.[220]
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.[162]
The Ottoman Empire gradually grew weaker in the face of poor administration, repeated wars with Russia, Austria and Hungary, 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.[162]
Ethnic nationalism also developed in Ottoman Empire during the 19th century, taking the form of Pan-Turkism or Turanism.
The Turkic peoples of Central Asia were not organized in nation-states during most of the 20th century, after the collapse of the Russian Empire living either in the Soviet Union or (after a short-lived First East Turkestan Republic) in the Chinese Republic. In the 20th century Turkey was the only independent Turkic country most of the time.[citation needed]
According to historians Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang, Chinese official histories do not depict Turkic peoples as belonging to a single uniform entity called "Turks".[221] However "Chinese histories also depict the Turkic-speaking peoples as typically possessing East/Inner Asian physiognomy, as well as occasionally having West Eurasian physiognomy"[221] and that "like Chinese historians, Muslim writers in general depict the "Turks" as possessing East Asian physiognomy".[222] According to "fragmentary information on the Xiongnu language that can be found in the Chinese histories, the Xiongnu were Turkic,"[223] however historians have been unable to confirm whether or not they were Turkic. Sima Qian's description of their legendary origins suggest their physiognomy was "not too different from that of... Han (漢) Chinese population,"[223] but a subset of Xiongnu known as the Jie people were described having "deep-set eyes," "high nose bridges" and "heavy facial hair."[223] The Jie may have been Yeniseian and regardless of whether or not the Xiongnu were Turkic, they were a hybrid people.[224] According to the Old Book of Tang, Ashina Simo "was not given a high military post by the Ashina rulers because of his Sogdian (huren 胡人) physiognomy."[225] The Tang historian Yan Shigu described the Hu people of his day as "blue-eyed and red bearded"[226] descendants of the Wusun, whereas "no comparable depiction of the Kök Türks or Tiele is found in the official Chinese histories."[226] However, Professor Xue Zongzheng has argued that West Eurasian features were typical of the royal Ashina clan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, and that their appearance shifted to an East Asian one, due to intermarriage with foreign nobility.[227] Lee and Kuang believe it is likely "early and medieval Turkic peoples themselves did not form a
homogeneous entity and that some of them, non-Turkic by origin, had become Turkicised at some point in history."[228] They also suggest that many modern Turkic-speaking populations are not directly descended from early Turkic peoples.[228] Lee and Kuang concluded that "both medieval Chinese histories and modern DNA studies point to the fact that the early and medieval Turkic peoples were made up of heterogeneous and somatically dissimilar populations."[229]
Medieval Arab and Persian descriptions of Turks state that they looked strange from their perspective and were extremely physically different from Arabs. Turks were described as "broad faced people with small eyes" and with pink skin,[230] as being "short, with small eyes, nostrils, and mouths" (Sharaf al-Zaman al-Marwazi), as being "full-faced with small eyes" (Al-Tabari), as possessing "a large head (sar-i buzurg), a broad face (rūy-i pahn), narrow eyes (chashmhā-i tang), and a flat nose (bīnī-i pakhch), and unpleasing lips and teeth (lab va dandān na nīkū)" (Keikavus).[231] Medieval Muslim writers noted that Tibetans and Turks resembled each other, and that they often were not able to tell the difference between Turks and Tibetans.[232] On Western Turkic coins "the faces of the governor and governess are clearly Mongoloid (a roundish face, narrow eyes), and the portrait have definite old Türk features (long hair, absence of headdress of the governor, a tricorn headdress of the governess)".[233] In the Ghaznavids' residential palace of Lashkari Bazar, there survives a partially conserved portrait depicting a turbaned and haloed adolescent figure with full cheeks, slanted eyes, and a small, sinuous mouth.[234] The Armenian historian Movses Kaghankatvatsi describes the Turks of the Western Turkic Khaganate as "broad-faced, without eyelashes, and with long flowing hair like women".[235]
Al-Masudi writes that the Oghuz Turks in Yengi-kent near the mouth of the Syr Darya "are distinguished from other Turks by their valour, their slanted eyes, and the smallness of their stature."[222] Later Muslim writers noted a change in the physiognomy of Oghuz Turks. According to Rashid al-Din Hamadani, "because of the climate their features gradually changed into those of Tajiks. Since they were not Tajiks, the Tajik peoples called them turkmān, i.e. Turk-like (Turk-mānand)." Ḥāfiẓ Tanīsh Mīr Muḥammad Bukhārī also related that the Oghuz' ‘Turkic face did not remain as it was’ after their migration into Transoxiana and Iran. Khiva khan Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur wrote in his Chagatai language treatise Shajara-i Tarākima (Genealogy of the Turkmens) that "their chin started to become narrow, their eyes started to become large, their faces started to become small, and their noses started to become big’ after five or six generations". Ottoman historian Mustafa Âlî commented in Künhüʾl-aḫbār that Anatolian Turks and Ottoman elites are ethnically mixed: "Most of the inhabitants of Rûm are of confused ethnic origin. Among its notables there are few whose lineage does not go back to a convert to Islam."[236]
Kevin Alan Brook states that like "most nomadic Turks, the Western Turkic Khazars were racially and ethnically mixed."[237]Istakhri described Khazars as having black hair while Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi described them as having blue eyes, light skin, and reddish hair. Istakhri mentions that there were "Black Khazars" and "White Khazars." Most scholars believe these were political designations: black being lower class while white being higher class. Constantin Zuckerman argues that these "had physical and racial differences and explained that they stemmed from the merger of the Khazars with the Barsils."[238]Old East Slavic sources called the Khazars the "White Ugry" and the Magyars the "Black Ugry."[239] Soviet excavated Khazar remains show Slavic-type, European-type, and a minority Mongoloid-type skulls.[238]
Other early-attested Turkic speaking groups were the Xinli 薪犁, later known as Xue 薛 in the 7th century[116][117] and the Gekun (鬲昆) or Jiankun (堅昆), later known as Jiegu (結骨), Hegu (紇骨), Hegusi (紇扢斯), Hejiasi (紇戛斯), Hugu (護骨), Qigu (契骨), Juwu (居勿), and Xiajiasi (黠戛斯), all being transcriptions of Kyrgyz.[240][241] The Yenisei Kyrgyz are mentioned in the New Book of Tang as having the same script and language as the Uyghurs but "The people are all tall and
big and have red hair, white faces, and green eyes."[242][note 1] The New Book of Tang also states that the neighboring Boma tribe resembled the Kyrgyz but their language was different, which may imply the Kyrgyz were originally a non-Turkic people and was later Turkicized through inter-tribal marriages.[242] According to Gardizi, the Kyrgyz were mixed with "Saqlabs" (Slavs), which explains the red hair and white skin among the Kyrgyz.[247]
Early Chinese histories do not mention special information about the Kipchak tribes; however, the Yuanshi mentioned that Yuan general Tutuha originated from the Kipchak tribe Ölberli.[248] Russian anthropologist Oshanin (1964: 24, 32) notes that "the ‘Mongoloid’ phenotype, characteristic of modern Kazakhs and Qirghiz, prevails among the skulls of the Qipchaq and Pecheneg nomads found in the kurgans in eastern Ukraine"; Lee & Kuang (2017) propose that Oshanin's discovery is explainable by assuming that the historical Kipchaks' modern descendants are Kazakhs of the Lesser Horde, whose men possess a high frequency of haplogroup C2's subclade C2b1b1 (59.7 to 78%). Lee and Kuang also suggest that the high frequency (63.9%) of the Y-DNA haplogroup R-M73 among Karakypshaks (a tribe within the Kipchaks) allows inferrence about the genetics of Karakypshaks' medieval ancestors, thus explaining why some medieval Kipchaks were described as possessing "blue [or green] eyes and red hair.[249]
^9th-century author Duan Chengshi described the Kyrgyz tribe (Jiankun buluo 堅昆部落) as "yellow-haired, green-eyed, red-mustached [and red-]bearded".[243]New Book of Tang (finished in 1060) describes Alats, a medieval Turkic people, as resembling Kyrgyzes[244] who were "all tall, red-haired, pale-faced, green-irised";[245] New Book of Tang also states that Kyrgyzes regarded black hair as "infelicitous" and insisted that black-eyed individuals were descendants of Han general Li Ling.[246]
There are several international organizations created with the purpose of furthering cooperation between countries with Turkic-speaking populations, such as the Joint Administration of Turkic Arts and Culture (TÜRKSOY) and the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking Countries (TÜRKPA) and the Turkic Council.
Türksoy carries out activities to strengthen cultural ties between Turkic peoples. One of the main goals to transmit their common cultural heritage to future generations and promote it around the world.[250]
Every year, one city in the Turkic world is selected as the "Cultural Capital of the Turkic World". Within the framework of events to celebrate the Cultural Capital of the Turkic World, numerous cultural events are held, gathering artists, scholars and intellectuals, giving them the opportunity to exchange their experiences, as well as promoting the city in question internationally.[251]
The member countries are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.[252] The idea of setting up this cooperative council was first put forward by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev back in 2006. Hungary has announced to be interested in joining the Organization of Turkic States. Since August 2018, Hungary has official observer status in the Organization of Turkic States.[253]Turkmenistan also joined as an observer state to the organization at 8th summit.[254]
A small number of Turkic people also live in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Small numbers inhabit eastern Poland and the south-eastern part of Finland.[255] There are also considerable populations of Turkic people (originating mostly from Turkey) in Germany, United States, and Australia, largely because of migrations during the 20th century.
Sometimes ethnographers group Turkic people into six branches: the Oghuz Turks, 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.[citation needed]
The genetic distances between the different populations of Uzbeks scattered across Uzbekistan is no greater than the distance between many of them and the Karakalpaks. This suggests that Karakalpaks and Uzbeks have very similar origins. The Karakalpaks have a somewhat greater bias towards the eastern markers than the Uzbeks.[256]
Historical population:
Year
Population
1 AD
2–2.5 million?
2013
150–200 million
The following incomplete list of Turkic people shows the respective groups' core areas of settlement and their estimated sizes (in millions):
Markets in the steppe region had a limited range of foodstuffs available—mostly grains, dried fruits, spices, and tea. Turks mostly herded sheep, goats and horses. Dairy was a staple of the nomadic diet and there are many Turkic words for various dairy products such as süt (milk), yagh (butter), ayran, qaymaq (similar to clotted cream), qi̅mi̅z (fermented mare's milk) and qurut (dried yoghurt). During the Middle Ages Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tatars, who were historically part of the Turkic nomadic group known as the Golden Horde, continued to develop new variations of dairy products.[259]
Nomadic Turks cooked their meals in a qazan, a pot similar to a cauldron; a wooden rack called a qasqan can be used to prepare certain steamed foods, like the traditional meat dumplings called manti. They also used a saj, a griddle that was traditionally placed on stones over a fire, and shish. In later times, the Persian tava was borrowed from the Persians for frying, but traditionally nomadic Turks did most of their cooking using the qazan, saj and shish. Meals were served in a bowl, called a chanaq, and eaten with a knife (bïchaq) and spoon (qashi̅q). Both bowl and spoon were historically made from wood. Other traditional utensils used in food preparation included a thin rolling pin called oqlaghu, a colander called süzgu̅çh, and a grinding stone called tāgirmān.[259]
Medieval grain dishes included preparations of whole grains, soups, porridges, breads and pastries. Fried or toasted whole grains were called qawïrmach, while köchä was crushed grain that was cooked with dairy products. Salma were broad noodles that could be served with boiled or roasted meat; cut noodles were called tutmaj in the Middle Ages and are called kesme today.[259]
There are many types of bread doughs in Turkic cuisine. Yupqa is the thinnest type of dough, bawi̅rsaq is a type of fried bread dough, and chälpäk is a deep fried flat bread. Qatlama is a fried bread that may be sprinkled with dried fruit or meat, rolled, and sliced like pinwheel sandwiches. Toqach and chöräk are varieties of bread, and böräk is a type of filled pie pastry.[259]
Herd animals were usually slaughtered during the winter months and various types of sausages were prepared to preserve the meats, including a type of sausage called sujuk. Though prohibited by Islamic dietary restrictions, historically Turkic nomads also had a variety of blood sausage. One type of sausage, called qazi̅, was made from horsemeat and another variety was filled with a mixture of ground meat, offal and rice. Chopped meat was called qïyma and spit-roasted meat was söklünch—from the root sök- meaning "to tear off", the latter dish is known as kebab in modern times. Qawirma is a typical fried meat dish, and kullama is a soup of noodles and lamb.[259]
Most Turkic people today are SunniMuslims, 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. Azeris are traditionally Shiite Muslims. Religious observance is less stricter in the Republic of Azerbaijan compared to Iranian Azerbaijan.
The major Christian-Turkic peoples are the Chuvash of Chuvashia and the Gagauz (Gökoğuz) of Moldova, the vast majority of Chuvash and the Gagauz are Eastern Orthodox Christians.[266][267][268] The traditional religion of the Chuvash of Russia, while containing many ancient Turkic concepts, also shares some elements with Zoroastrianism, Khazar Judaism, and Islam.
The Chuvash converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity for the most part in the second half of the 19th century.[269] As a result, festivals and rites were made to coincide with Orthodox feasts, and Christian rites replaced their traditional counterparts. A minority of the Chuvash still profess their traditional faith.[270] Between the 9th and 14th centuries, Church of the East was popular among Turks such as the Naimans.[271] It even revived in Gaochang and expanded in Xinjiang in the Yuan dynasty period.[272][273][274] It disappeared after its collapse.[275][276]
Kryashens are a sub-group of the Volga Tatars, and the vast majority are Orthodox Christians.[277]Nağaybäk are an indigenous Turkic people in Russia, most Nağaybäk are Christian and were largely converted during the 18th century.[278] Many Volga Tatars were Christianized by Ivan the Terrible during the 16th century, and continued to Christianized under subsequent Russian rulers and Orthodox clergy up to the mid-eighteenth century.[279]
Today there are several groups that support a revival of the ancient traditions. Especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many in Central Asia converted or openly practice animistic and shamanistic rituals. It is estimated that about 60% of Kyrgyz people practice a form of animistic rituals. In Kazakhstan there are about 54,000 followers of the ancient traditions.[280][281]
The non-Muslim Turks' worship of Tengri and other gods was mocked and insulted by the Muslim Turk Mahmud al-Kashgari, who wrote a verse referring to them – The Infidels – May God destroy them![282][283]
The Basmil, Yabāḳu and Uyghur states were among the Turkic peoples who fought against the Kara-Khanids spread of Islam. The Islamic Kara-Khanids were made out of Tukhsi, Yaghma, Çiğil and Karluk.[284]
Kashgari claimed that the Prophet assisted in a miraculous event where 700,000 Yabāqu infidels were defeated by 40,000 Muslims led by Arslān Tegīn claiming that fires shot sparks from gates located on a green mountain towards the Yabāqu.[285] The Yabaqu were a Turkic people.[286]
Mahmud al-Kashgari insulted the Uyghur Buddhists as "Uighur dogs" and called them "Tats", which referred to the "Uighur infidels" according to the Tuxsi and Taghma, while other Turks called Persians "tat".[287][288] While Kashgari displayed a different attitude towards the Turks diviners beliefs and "national customs", he expressed towards Buddhism a hatred in his Diwan where he wrote the verse cycle on the war against Uighur Buddhists. Buddhist origin words like toyin (a cleric or priest) and Burxān or Furxan (meaning Buddha, acquiring the generic meaning of "idol" in the Turkic language of Kashgari) had negative connotations to Muslim Turks.[289][283]
Mahmud al-Kashgari in his Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, described a game called "tepuk" among Turks in Central Asia. In the game, people try to attack each other's castle by kicking a ball made of sheep leather.[290] (see also: Cuju)
Horses have been essential and even sacred animals for Turks living as nomadic tribes in the Central Asian steppes. Turks were born, grew up, lived, fought and died on horseback. Jereed became the most important sporting and ceremonial game of Turkish people.[292]
The kokpar began with the nomadic Turkic peoples who have come from farther north and east spreading westward from China and Mongolia between the 10th and 15th centuries.[293]
^"Turkey". The World Factbook. Archived from the original on 10 January 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2014. "Population: 81,619,392 (July 2014 est.)" "Ethnic groups: Turkish 70–75%, Kurdish 18%, other minorities 7–12% (2008 est.)" 70% of 81.6m = 57.1m, 75% of 81.6m = 61.2m
^"Uzbekistan". Statistics Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan. 19 August 2021. Retrieved 13 February 2022. "Population: 34,600,000 (January 2021 est.)" "Ethnic groups: Uzbek 84.6%, Russian 2.1%, Tajik 4.9%, Kazakh 2.4%, Karakalpak 2.2%, other 4.1% (2021 est.)" Assuming Uzbek, Kazakh and Karakalpak are included as Turks, 84.6% + 2.4% + 2.2% = 89.2%. 89.2% of 34.6m = 31.9m
^"Afghanistan". The World Factbook. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
^"Uzbeks and Turkmens – Minorities and indigenous peoples in Afghanistan". World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples. Though their exact number is uncertain and as with other communities are contested, previous estimates have suggested that Uzbeks (9 per cent) and Turkmen (3 per cent) make up a total of around 12 per cent of the population, Both Uzbeks and Turkmen live in the northern part of Afghanistan. In origin, Turkmen, also called Turcoman, Turkman or Turkomen, come from the Turkic-speaking tribes that emerged from Oghuz Khan, back in the seventh and eight centuries. Turkmen are Sunni Muslim of Hanafi tradition and are closely related to the people of modern Turkey to the west, [...] Uzbeks are also a Turkic-speaking ethnic group.
^"Kyrgyzstan". The World Factbook. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
^Triana, María (2017), Managing Diversity in Organizations: A Global Perspective, Taylor & Francis, p. 168, ISBN978-1-317-42368-3, Turkmen, Iraqi citizens of Turkish origin, are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq after Arabs and Kurds and they are said to number about 3 million of Iraq's 34.7 million citizens according to the Iraqi Ministry of Planning.
^Bassem, Wassim (2016). "Iraq's Turkmens call for independent province". Al-Monitor. Archived from the original on 17 October 2016. Turkmens are a mix of Sunnis and Shiites and are the third-largest ethnicity in Iraq after Arabs and Kurds, numbering about 3 million out of the total population of about 34.7 million, according to 2013 data from the Iraqi Ministry of Planning.
^"Tajikistan". The World Factbook. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
^Nahost-Informationsdienst (ISSN0949-1856): Presseausschnitte zu Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Nordafrika und dem Nahen und Mittleren Osten. Autors: Deutsches Orient–Institut; Deutsches Übersee–Institut. Hamburg: Deutsches Orient–Institut, 1996, seite 33.
The number of Turkmens in Syria is not fully known, with unconfirmed estimates ranging between 800,000 and one million.
^Golden, Peter (2018). "The Ethnogonic Tales of the Türks". SAGE. 21 (2): 314. doi:10.1177/0971945818775373. S2CID166026934. "Some DNA tests point to the Iranian connections of the Ashina and Ashide,133 highlighting further that the Turks as a whole ‘were made up of heterogeneous and somatically dissimilar populations’.134"
^Lee & Kuang 2017: "The Chinese histories also depict the Turkic-speaking peoples as typically possessing East/Inner Asian physiognomy, as well as occasionally having West Eurasian physiognomy. DNA studies corroborate such characterisation of the Turkic peoples. However, like Chinese historians, Muslim writers in general depict the ‘Turks’ as possessing East Asian physiognomy.... However, Muslim writers later differentiated the Oghuz Turks from other Turks in terms of physiognomy. Rashīd al-Dīn writes that ‘because of the climate their features gradually changed into those of Tajiks. Since they were not Tajiks, the Tajik peoples called them turkmān, i.e. Turk-like (Turk-mānand)’ (Rashīd al-Dīn Fażlallāh Hamadānī 1988: Vol. 1, 35–6; Rashiduddin Fazlullah 1998–99: Vol. 1, 31). Ḥāfiẓ Tanīsh Mīr Muḥammad Bukhārī (d. c. 1549) also relates that after the Oghuz came to Transoxiana and Iran, their ‘Turkic face did not remain as it was’ (1983: fol. 17a (text), Vol. 1, 61 (trans.)). Abū al-Ghāzī Bahadur Khan similarly writes that ‘their chin started to become narrow, their eyes started to become large, their faces started to become small, and their noses started to become big’ after five or six generations (Abu-l-Gazi 1958: 42 (text), 57 (trans.); Ebülgazî Bahadir Han 1975: 57–8). As a matter of fact, the mixed nature of the Ottomans, belonging to the Oghuz Turkic group, is noted by the Ottoman historian Muṣṭafā ʿĀlī (1541–1600)."
^Golden 2011, Ethnogenesis in the tribal zone: The Shaping of the Turks.
^Lee, Joo-Yup (2016). "The Historical Meaning of the Term Turk and the Nature of the Turkic Identity of the Chinggisid and Timurid Elites in Post-Mongol Central Asia". Central Asiatic Journal. 59 (1–2): 103–108.
^Pliny, Natural History – Harvard University Press, vol. II (Libri III-VII); reprinted 1961, p. 351
^Pomponius Mela's Description of the World, Pomponius Mela, University of Michigan Press, 1998, p. 67
^Prof. Dr. Ercümend Kuran, Türk Adı ve Türklük Kavramı, Türk Kültürü Dergisi, Yıl, XV, S. 174, Nisan 1977. s. 18–20.
^Minns, Ellis Hovell (1911). "Iyrcae" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 102.
^Peter B. Golden, Introduction to the History of the Turkic People, p. 12: "... source (Herod.IV.22) and other authors of antiquity, Togarma of the Old Testament, Turukha/Turuska of Indic sources, Turukku of Assyrian..."
^German Archaeological Institute. Department Teheran, Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran, Vol. 19, Dietrich Reimer, 1986, p. 90
^(Bŭlgarska akademii︠a︡ na naukite. Otdelenie za ezikoznanie/ izkustvoznanie/ literatura, Linguistique balkanique, Vol. 27–28, 1984, p. 17
^"Türk" in Turkish Etymological Dictionary, Sevan Nişanyan.
^Faruk Suümer, Oghuzes (Turkmens): History, Tribal organization, Sagas, Turkish World Research Foundation, 1992, p. 16)
^T. Allsen, P. B. Golden, R. K. Kovalev, and A. P. Martinez (2012), ARCHIVUM EURASIAEMEDII AEV, p. 85
^Clauson, G. An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-13th Century Turkish (1972). p. 542-543
^Golden, Peter B. "Some Thoughts on the Origins of the Turks and the Shaping of the Turkic Peoples". (2006) In: Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. Ed. Victor H. Mair. University of Hawai'i Press. p. 143: "Subsequently, "Türk" would find a suitable Turkic etymology, being conflated with the word türk, which means one in the prime of youth, powerful, mighty (Rona-Tas 1991,10–13)."
^Golden, Peter B. (1992), An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples, p. 93-95
^Sinor, Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Page 295
^Golden, Peter B. "Türks and Iranians: Aspects of Türk and Khazaro-Iranian Interaction". Turcologica (105): 25.
^The Peoples of the Steppe Frontier in Early Chinese Sources, Edwin G. Pulleyblank, page 35
^Peter B. Golden: "Some Thoughts on the Origins of the Turks and the Shaping of the Turkic Peoples in Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. Ed. Victor H. Mair. University of Hawaii Press, 2006. p. 140
^Lee & Kuang (2017) "A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples", Inner Asia 19. p. 200-201, 205, 209 of 197–239
^Xin Tangshuvol. 219 "Shiwei" txt: "室韋, 契丹别種, 東胡之北邊, 蓋丁零苗裔也" translation by Xu (2005:176) "The Shiwei, who were a collateral branch of the Khitan inhabited the northern boundary of the Donghu, were probably the descendants of the Dingling ... Their
language was the same as that of the Mohe."
^Tseng, Chin Yin (2012). The Making of the Tuoba Northern Wei: Constructing Material Cultural Expressions in the Northern Wei Pingcheng Period (398–494 CE) (PhD). University of Oxford. p. 1.
^Wei Shou. Book of Wei. vol. 91 "蠕蠕,東胡之苗裔也,姓郁久閭氏。" tr. "Rúrú, offsprings of Dōnghú, surnamed Yùjiŭlǘ"
^Book of Song. vol 95. "芮芮一號大檀,又號檀檀,亦匈奴別種" tr. "Ruìruì, one appellation is Dàtán, also called Tántán, likewise a Xiōngnú splinter stock"
^Lee, Joo-Yup (2016). "The Historical Meaning of the Term Turk and the Nature of the Turkic Identity of the Chinggisid and Timurid Elites in Post-Mongol Central Asia". Central Asiatic Journal. 59 (1–2): 105.
^Lyle Campbell and Mauricio J. Mixco (2007): A Glossary of Historical Linguistics; University of Utah Press. Page 7: "While 'Altaic' is repeated in encyclopedias and handbooks most specialists in these languages no longer believe that the three traditional supposed Altaic groups, Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic, are related."
^Johanna Nichols (1992) Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time. Chicago University Press. Page 4: "When cognates proved not to be valid, Altaic was abandoned and the received view now is that Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic are unrelated."
^R. M. W. Dixon (1997): The Rise and Fall of Languages. Cambridge University Press. Page 32: "Careful examination indicates that the established families, Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic, form a linguistic area (called Altaic)...Sufficient criteria have not been given that would justify talking of a genetic relationship here."
^Asya Pereltsvaig (2012) Languages of the World, An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. Pages 211–216: "[...T]his selection of features does not provide good evidence for common descent" [...] "we can observe convergence rather than divergence between Turkic and Mongolic languages—a pattern than is easily explainable by borrowing and diffusion rather than common descent"
^Uchiyama et al. 2020 "The Proto-Turkic subsistence strategy included an agricultural component, a tradition that may have been inherited from the earlier Proto-Altaic stage and ultimately went back to the origin of millet agriculture in Northeast China (Robbeets, 2017; Savelyev, 2017). The agricultural vocabulary reconstructed to Proto-Turkic includes terms for cultivated cereals (*ügür 'broomcorn millet', *arba 'barley' and *budgaj 'wheat'), bread production (*i̯unk 'flour'), farming techniques (*tarï- 'to cultivate land', *ek- 'to sow', *or- 'to reap' and *sabur- 'to winnow grain') and tools (*kerki 'a type of mattock' and *ek-eg 'plough')."
^Uchiyama et al. 2020 "A nomadic, pastoralist lifestyle reached the eastern steppe by the end of the second millennium BCE (Taylor et al., 2017; Janz et al., 2017), and it became the basis of the Late Proto-Turkic subsistence in the first millennium BCE. Consequently, the Proto-Turkic language has developed extensive nomadic pastoralist vocabulary, including terms for domestic animals (e.g. *sïgïr 'cattle', *toklï 'lamb', *adgïr 'stallion' and *kulum 'foal'), horse-riding (*at 'riding horse'and *edŋer 'saddle') anddairy products (*ajran 'a kind of salty yoghurt' and *torak 'a kind of cheese or quark')."
^Damgaard et al. 2018, pp. 4–5. "These results suggest that Turkic cultural customs were imposed by an East Asian minority elite onto central steppe nomad populations... The wide distribution of the Turkic languages from Northwest China, Mongolia and Siberia in the east to Turkey and Bulgaria in the west implies large-scale migrations out of the homeland in Mongolia.
^Uchiyama, Junzo; Gillam, J. Christopher; Savelyev, Alexander; Ning, Chao (2020). "Populations dynamics in Northern Eurasian forests: a long-term perspective from Northeast Asia". Evolutionary Human Sciences. 2. doi:10.1017/ehs.2020.11. ISSN2513-843X. S2CID219470000. Recent DNA studies show that starting from the end of the second millennium BCE, the East Asian-related components were already found in numerous populations in Central Asia and Eastern Europe (Narasimhan et al., 2019). By the Iron Age, populations (e.g. Xiongnu) with primarily East Asian ancestry moved westward on a large scale, which combined in different proportions with local populations who were originally Indo-European speakers with largely west Eurasian ancestry that shifted their languages to Turkic (Damgaard et al., 2018). Modern DNA of multiple Turkic populations showed that the Turkic peoples shared their ancestry with populations from southern Siberia and Mongolia, supporting the hypothesis that they originated there (Yunusbayev et al., 2015; Tambets et al. 2018). Although current genetic evidence is not adequate to track the exact time and location for the origin of the proto-Turkic language, it is clear that it probably originated somewhere in northeastern Asia given the fact that the nomadic groups, such as the Rouran, Xiongnu and the Xianbei, all share a substratum genetic ancestry that falls into or close to the northeast Asian gene pool (Ning et al., in press; Li et al., 2018).
^Damgaard, Peter de Barros; Marchi, Nina; Rasmussen, Simon; Peyrot, Michaël; Renaud, Gabriel; Korneliussen, Thorfinn; Moreno-Mayar, J. Víctor; Pedersen, Mikkel Winther; Goldberg, Amy; Usmanova, Emma; Baimukhanov, Nurbol (May 2018). "137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes". Nature. 557 (7705): 369–374. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0094-2. ISSN1476-4687. PMID29743675. S2CID13670282. pp. 4–5. "The wide distribution of the Turkic languages from Northwest China, Mongolia and Siberia in the east to Turkey and Bulgaria in the west implies large-scale migrations out of the homeland in Mongolia.
^Sima QianRecords of the Grand HistorianVol. 110 "後北服渾庾、屈射、丁零、鬲昆、薪犁之國。於是匈奴貴人大臣皆服,以冒頓單于爲賢。" tr. "Later [he went] north [and] subjugated the nations of Hunyu, Qushe, Dingling, Gekun, and Xinli. Therefore, the Xiongnu nobles and dignitaries all admired [and] regarded Modun chanyu as capable"
^ abPeter Zieme: The Old Turkish Empires in Mongolia. In: Genghis Khan and his heirs. The Empire of the Mongols. Special tape for Exhibition 2005/2006, p. 64
^Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1991). "The 'High Carts': A Turkish-Speaking People before the Türks". Asia Major. Third series. Academia Sinica. 3 (1): 21–22.
^Weishu, vol. 103 "高車,蓋古赤狄之餘種也,初號為狄歷,北方以為勑勒,諸夏以為高車、丁零。其語略與匈奴同而時有小異,或云其先匈奴之甥也" tr. "The Gaoche are probably remnants of the ancient Red Di. Initially they had been called Dili. Northerners consider them to be Chile. Chinese consider them to be Gaoche Dingling. Their language, in brief, and Xiongnu [language] are the same yet occasionally there are small differences. Or one may say that they are the junior relatives [lit. sisters' sons ~ sons-in-law] of the Xiongnu in former times."
^Lee, Joo-Yup (2016). "The Historical Meaning of the Term Turk and the Nature of the Turkic Identity of the Chinggisid and Timurid Elites in Post-Mongol Central Asia". Central Asiatic Journal. 59 (1–2): 101–32. doi:10.13173/centasiaj.59.1-2.0101.
^Rachel Lung, Interpreters in Early Imperial China, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011, p. 48 "Türk, or Türküt, refers to a state of Ašina clan (of Tiele [鐵勒] tribe by ancestral lineage)"
^Hucker, Charles O. (1975). China's Imperial Past: An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture. Stanford University Press. ISBN0-8047-2353-2. The proto-Turkic Hsiung-nu were now challenged by other alien groups — proto-Tibetans, proto-Mongol tribes called the Hsien-pi, and separate proto-Turks called To-pa (Toba).
^Keyser-Tracqui, Crubezy & Ludes 2003, p. 258. "A majority (89%) of the Xiongnu sequences can beclassified as belonging to an Asian haplogroup (A, B4b, C, D4, D5 or D5a, or F1b) and nearly 11% belong to European haplogroups (U2, U5a1a, and J1)."
^N. Ishjatms, "Nomads In Eastern Central Asia", in the "History of civilizations of Central Asia", Volume 2, Fig 6, p. 166, UNESCO Publishing, 1996, ISBN92-3-102846-4
^VAJDA, Edward J. (2008). "Yeniseic" a chapter in the book Language isolates and microfamilies of Asia, Routledge, to be co-authored with Bernard Comrie; 53 pages.
^Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen. The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture. University of California Press, 1973
^Beishi"vol. 99 – section Tujue" quote: "突厥者,其先居西海之右,獨為部落,蓋匈奴之別種也。" translation: "The Tujue, their ancestors dwelt on the right bank of the Western Sea; a lone tribe, probably a separate branch of the Xiongnu"
^Golden, Peter B. (August 2018). "The Ethnogonic Tales of the Türks". The Medieval History Journal, 21 (2): p. 298 of 291–327, fn. 36. quote: "‘Western Sea’ (xi hai 西海) has many possible meanings designating different bodies of water from the Mediterranean, Caspian and Aral Seas to Kuku-nor. In the Sui era (581–618) it was viewed as being near Byzantium (Sinor, ‘Legendary Origin’: 226). Taşağıl, Gök-Türkler, vol. 1: 95, n. 553 identies it with Etsin-Gol, which is more likely."
^Xin Tangshu, vol. 215A. "突厥阿史那氏, 蓋古匈奴北部也." "The Ashina family of the Turk probably were the northern tribes of the ancient Xiongnu." quoted and translated in Xu (2005), Historical Development of the Pre-Dynastic Khitan, University of Helsinki, 2005
^West, Barbara A. (19 May 2010). Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. Infobase Publishing. p. 829. ISBN978-1-4381-1913-7. "The first people to use the ethnonym Turk to refer to themselves were the Turuk people of the Gokturk Khanate in the mid sixth-century"
^ abHaywood, John (1998), Historical Atlas of the Medieval World, AD 600–1492, Barnes & Noble
^Wudai Shi, ch. 75. Considering the father was originally called Nieliji without a surname, the fact that his patrilineal ancestors all had Chinese names here indicates that these names were probably all created posthumously after Shi Jingtang became a "Chinese" emperor. Shi Jingtang actually claimed to be a descendant of Chinese historical figures Shi Que and Shi Fen, and insisted that his ancestors went westwards towards non-Han Chinese area during the political chaos at the end of the Han Dynasty in the early 3rd century.
^Mote, F.W.: Imperial China: 900–1800, Harvard University Press, 1999
^Tolstoi V.P. Origin of the Karakalpak people//KSIE, Moscow, 1947. p.75
^Böwering, Gerhard; Crone, Patricia; Mirza, Mahan (1 January 2012). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton University Press. pp. 410–411.
^Islamic Central Asia: an anthology of historical sources, Ed. Scott Cameron Levi and Ron Sela, (Indiana University Press, 2010), 83;The Ghaznavids were a dynasty of Turkic slave-soldiers..., "Ghaznavid Dynasty"Encyclopædia BritannicaJonathan M. Bloom, Sheila Blair, The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, Oxford University Press, 2009, Vol.2, p.163, Online Edition, "Turkish dominated mamluk regiments...dynasty of mamluk origin (the GHAZNAVID line) carved out an empire..."
^David Christian: A History of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia; Blackwell Publishing, 1998; pg. 370: "Though Turkic in origin [...] Alp Tegin, Sebuk Tegin, and Mahmud were all thoroughly Persianized".
^J. Meri (Hg.), Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, "Ghaznavids", London u.a. 2006, p. 294: "The Ghaznavids inherited Samanid administrative, political, and cultural traditions and laid the foundations for a Persianate state in northern India. ..."
^Sydney Nettleton Fisher and William Ochsenwald, The Middle East: a history: Volume 1, (McGraw-Hill, 1997); "Forced to flee from the Samanid domain, he captured Ghaznah and in 961 established the famed Persianate Sunnite Ghaznavid empire of Afghanistan and the Punjab in India".
^Meisami, Julie Scott, Persian historiography to the end of the twelfth century, (Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 143. Nizam al-Mulk also attempted to organise the Saljuq administration according to the Persianate Ghaznavid model..
^B. Spuler, "The Disintegration of the Caliphate in the East", in the Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. IA: The Central islamic Lands from Pre-Islamic Times to the First World War, ed. by P.M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). pg 147: One of the effects of the renaissance of the Persian spirit evoked by this work was that the Ghaznavids were also Persianized and thereby became a Persian dynasty.
^* A. C. S. Peacock, Great Seljuk Empire, (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 1–378.
Christian Lange; Songül Mecit, eds., Seljuqs: Politics, Society and Culture (Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 1–328.
P.M. Holt; Ann K.S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis, The Cambridge History of Islam (Volume IA): The Central Islamic Lands from Pre-Islamic Times to the First World War, (Cambridge University Press, 1977), 151, 231–234.
^Mecit 2014, p. 128. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMecit2014 (help)
^* "Aḥmad of Niǧde's al-Walad al-Shafīq and the Seljuk Past", A. C. S. Peacock, Anatolian Studies, Vol. 54, (2004), 97; "With the growth of Seljuk power in Rum, a more highly developed Muslim cultural life, based on the Persianate culture of the Seljuk court, was able to take root in Anatolia."
Meisami, Julie Scott, Persian Historiography to the End of the Twelfth Century, (Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 143; "Nizam al-Mulk also attempted to organise the Saljuq administration according to the Persianate Ghaznavid model k..."
Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Šahrbānu", Online Edition: "here one might bear in mind that non-Persian dynasties such as the Ghaznavids, Saljuqs and Ilkhanids were rapidly to adopt the Persian language and have their origins traced back to the ancient kings of Persia rather than to Turkmen heroes or Muslim saints ..."
Josef W. Meri, Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, 2005, p. 399.
Jonathan Dewald, Europe 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004, p. 24: "Turcoman armies coming from the East had driven the Byzantines out of much of Asia Minor and established the Persianized sultanate of the Seljuks."
Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes, (Rutgers University Press, 1991), 161, 164; "renewed the Balls of ur dad
attempt to found a great Turko-Persian empire in eastern Iran." "It is to be noted that the Seljuks, those Turkomans who became sultans of Persia, did not Turkify Persia-no doubt because they did not wish to do so. On the contrary, it was they who voluntarily became Persians and who, in the manner of the great old Sassanid kings, strove to protect the Iranian populations from the plundering of Ghuzz bands and save Iranian culture from the Turkoman menace."
Wendy M. K. Shaw, Possessors and possessed: museums, archaeology, and the visualization of history in the late Ottoman Empire. University of California Press, 2003, ISBN0-520-23335-2, ISBN978-0-520-23335-5; p. 5.
Bosworth, C. E. (2001). 0Notes on Some Turkish Names in Abu 'l-Fadl Bayhaqi's Tarikh-i Mas'udi". Oriens, Vol. 36, 2001 (2001), pp. 299–313.
Dani, A. H., Masson, V. M. (Eds), Asimova, M. S. (Eds), Litvinsky, B. A. (Eds), Boaworth, C. E. (Eds). (1999). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers (Pvt. Ltd).
Asimov, M. S., Bosworth, C. E. (eds.). (1998). History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol. IV: "The Age of Achievement: AD 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century", Part One: "The Historical, Social and Economic Setting". Multiple History Series. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
Dani, A. H., Masson, V. M. (Eds), Asimova, M. S. (Eds), Litvinsky, B. A. (Eds), Boaworth, C. E. (Eds). (1999). History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers (Pvt. Ltd).
^Peter B.Golden (2011) Central Asia in World History, p.115
^Soucek, Svat. A History of Inner Asia (2000), p. 180.
^Bregel, Y. The new Uzbek states: Bukhara, Khiva and Khoqand: C. 1750–1886. In N. Di Cosmo, A. Frank, & P. Golden (Eds.), The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age (pp. 392–411). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009
^Aptin Khanbaghi (2006) The Fire, the Star and the Cross: Minority Religions in Medieval and Early. London & New York. IB Tauris. ISBN1-84511-056-0, pp. 130–1
^Anthony Bryer. "Greeks and Türkmens: The Pontic Exception", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 29 (1975), Appendix II "Genealogy of the Muslim Marriages of the Princesses of Trebizond"
^Savory, Roger (2007). Iran Under the Safavids. Cambridge University Press. p. 213. ISBN978-0-521-04251-2. qizilbash normally spoke Azari brand of Turkish at court, as did the Safavid shahs themselves; lack of familiarity with the Persian language may have contributed to the decline from the pure classical standards of former times
^E. Yarshater, "Iran", . Encyclopædia Iranica. "The origins of the Safavids are clouded in obscurity. They may have been of Kurdish origin (see R. Savory, Iran Under the Safavids, 1980, p. 2; R. Matthee, "Safavid Dynasty" at iranica.com), but for all practical purposes they were Turkish-speaking and Turkified. "
^John L. Esposito, The Oxford History of Islam, Oxford University Press US, 1999. pp 364: "To support their legitimacy, the Safavid dynasty of Iran (1501–1732) devoted a cultural policy to establish their regime as the reconstruction of the historic Iranian monarchy. To the end, they commissioned elaborate copies of the Shahnameh, the Iranian national epic, such as this one made for Tahmasp in the 1520s."
^Ira Marvin Lapidus, A history of Islamic Societies, Cambridge University Press, 2002, 2nd edition. pg 445: To bolster the prestige of the state, the Safavid dynasty sponsored an Iran-Islamic style of culture concentrating on court poetry, painting, and monumental architecture that symbolized not only the Islamic credentials of the state but also the glory of the ancient Persian traditions."
^Helen Chapin Metz, ed., Iran, a Country study. 1989. University of Michigan, p. 313.
^Emory C. Bogle. Islam: Origin and Belief. University of Texas Press. 1989, p. 145.
^Stanford Jay Shaw. History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge University Press. 1977, p. 77.
^Andrew J. Newman, Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire, IB Tauris (30 March 2006).
^Abbas Amanat, The Pivot of the Universe: Nasir Al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896, I. B. Tauris, pp 2–3; "In the 126 years between the fall of the Safavid state in 1722 and the accession of Nasir al-Din Shah, the Qajars evolved from a shepherd-warrior tribe with strongholds in northern Iran into a Persian dynasty."
^Choueiri, Youssef M., A companion to the history of the Middle East, (Blackwell Ltd., 2005), 231,516.
^H. Scheel; Jaschke, Gerhard; H. Braun; Spuler, Bertold; T Koszinowski; Bagley, Frank (1981). Muslim World. Brill Archive. pp. 65, 370. ISBN978-90-04-06196-5. Retrieved 28 September 2012.
^Reuven Amitai; Michal Biran (2005). Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World. Brill. pp. 222–223. ISBN978-90-04-14096-7.: "One of the issues that most occupied the travelers was the physiognomy of the Turks.120 Both mentally and physically, Turks appeared to the Arab authors as very different from themselves.121 The shape of these "broad faced people with small eyes" and their physique impressed the travelers crossing the Eurasian lands." "According to this explanation: Because of the Turks' distance from the course of the sun and from the sun's rising and descending, the snow in their lands is abundant and coldness and humidity dominate it. This caused the bodies of this land's inhabitants to become mellow and their epidermis thick.124 Their sleek hair is spare and its colour is pale with an inclination to red. Due to the cold weather of their surroundings, coldness dominates their temper. In effect, the cold climate breeds abundant flesh. The arctic temperature compresses the heat and makes it visible. This gives them their pink skin. It is noticeable among the people who have bulky bodies and pale colour. Whilst a chilly wind hits them, their faces, lips, fingers and legs became red. This is because while they were warm their blood expanded, and then the cold temperature caused it to amass."
^Lee & Kuang (2017) "A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples", Inner Asia 19. p. 207-208 of 197–239 Quote: "The Chinese histories also depict the Turkic-speaking peoples as typically possessing East/Inner Asian physiognomy, as well as occasionally having West Eurasian physiognomy. DNA studies corroborate such characterisation of the Turkic peoples."
^Lee & Kuang (2017) "A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples", Inner Asia 19. p. 208 of 197–239
^Xin Tangshu, "vol. 217b" txt: "又有駁馬者,或曰弊剌,曰遏羅支,[...] 人貌多似結骨,而語不相通。" tr: "There are also Piebald-Horse folk, also called either Bila or Eluozhi [...]. [Those] peoples' faces much resemble Kyrghyzes', yet the languages are not mutually intelligible."
^Substantial numbers (possibly several millions) of maghrebis of the former Ottoman colonies in North Africa are of Ottoman Turkish descent. Finnish Tatars
^The Karakalpak Gene Pool (Spencer Wells, 2001); and discussion and conclusions at www.karakalpak.com/genetics.html
^"Religion"(PDF). Administrative Department of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan — Presidential Library. Archived(PDF) from the original on 23 November 2011. Религия. Управление делами Президента Азербайджанской Республики — Президентская библиотека
^Lipka, Michael (22 May 2022). "The Gagauz: 'Christian Turks' between two worlds". TRT World. The Gagauz, a Turkic-Orthodox Christian people, have lived in the Balkans for hundreds of years, managing to preserve their language and culture.
^Akiner, Shirin (1986). Islamic peoples of the Soviet Union : with an appendix on the non-Muslim Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union : an historical and statistical handbook (2nd ed.). London: KPI. pp. 431–432. ISBN0-7103-0188-X.<
^ abDankoff, Robert (January–March 1975). "Kāšġarī on the Beliefs and Superstitions of the Turks". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 95 (1): 68–80. doi:10.2307/599159. JSTOR599159.
^Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb; Bernard Lewis; Johannes Hendrik Kramers; Charles Pellat; Joseph Schacht (1998). The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Brill. p. 689.
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1 The Turkmen people living in Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Iran are not to be confused with the Turkmen/Turkoman minorities in the Levant (i.e. Iraq and Syria) as the latter minorities mostly adhere to a Ottoman-Turkish heritage and identity.
2 This list only includes traditional areas of Turkish settlement (i.e. Turks still living in the former Ottoman territories).
1These are traditional areas of settlement; the Turkic group has been living in the listed country/region for centuries and should not be confused with modern diasporas. 2State with limited international recognition.