ethnic group
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...
s of
West
West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...
East
East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...
, and
North Asia
North Asia or Northern Asia () is the northern region of Asia, which is defined in geography, geographical terms and consists of three federal districts of Russia: Ural Federal District, Ural, Siberian Federal District, Siberian, and the Far E ...
as well as parts of
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
, who speak
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...
.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging to the Turkic subfamily...". "The Turkic peoples represent a diverse collection of ethnic groups defined by the Turkic languages."
According to historians and linguists, the
Proto-Turkic language
Proto-Turkic is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Turkic languages that was spoken by the Proto-Turks before their divergence into the various Turkic peoples. Proto-Turkic separated into Oghur (western) and Common Tu ...
originated in Central-East Asia, potentially in the
Altai-Sayan region
The Altai-Sayan region is an area of Inner Asia proximate to the Altai Mountains and the Sayan Mountains, near to where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together. This region is one of the world centers of Temperate climate, temperate pl ...
,
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
or
Tuva
Tuva (; ) or Tyva (; ), officially the Republic of Tyva,; , is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia. Tuva lies at the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders the Federal subjects of Russia, federal sub ...
.: "The ultimate Proto-Turkic homeland may have been located in a more compact area, most likely in Eastern Mongolia": "The best candidate for the Turkic Urheimat would then be northern and western Mongolia and Tuva, where all these haplogroups could have intermingled, rather than eastern and southern Mongolia..." Initially, Proto-Turkic speakers were potentially both hunter-gatherers and farmers; they later became
nomadic
Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...
pastoralists
Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as "livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The anima ...
. Early and
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...
Turkic groups exhibited a wide range of both East Asian and West-Eurasian physical appearances and genetic origins, in part through long-term contact with neighboring peoples such as
Iranic
Iranian peoples, or Iranic peoples, are the collective ethnolinguistic groups who are identified chiefly by their native usage of any of the Iranian languages, which are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European langu ...
Uralic
The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers abo ...
and
Yeniseian
The Yeniseian languages ( ; sometimes known as Yeniseic, Yeniseyan, or Yenisei-Ostyak;" Ostyak" is a concept of areal rather than genetic linguistics. In addition to the Yeniseian languages it also includes the Uralic languages of Khanty and ...
peoples.
Many vastly differing
ethnic group
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...
s have throughout history become part of the Turkic peoples through
language shift
Language shift, also known as language transfer, language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived ...
,
acculturation
Acculturation refers to the psychological, social, and cultural transformation that takes place through direct contact between two cultures, wherein one or both engage in adapting to dominant cultural influences without compromising their essent ...
,
conquest
Conquest involves the annexation or control of another entity's territory through war or Coercion (international relations), coercion. Historically, conquests occurred frequently in the international system, and there were limited normative or ...
adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, fro ...
, and
religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus "religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliatin ...
. Nevertheless, Turkic peoples share, to varying degrees, non-linguistic characteristics like cultural traits, ancestry from a common
gene pool
The gene pool is the set of all genes, or genetic information, in any population, usually of a particular species.
Description
A large gene pool indicates extensive genetic diversity, which is associated with robust populations that can survi ...
, and historical experiences. Some of the most notable modern Turkic ethnic groups include the
Altai people
The Altai people (, ), also the Altaians (, ), are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group of indigenous peoples of Siberia mainly living in the Altai Republic, Russia. Several thousand of the Altaians also live in Mongolia (Altai Mountains) and C ...
,
Azerbaijanis
Azerbaijanis (; , ), Azeris (, ), or Azerbaijani Turks (, ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group living mainly in the Azerbaijan (Iran), Azerbaijan region of northwestern Iran and the Azerbaijan, Republic of Azerbaijan. They are predomin ...
,
Chuvash people
The Chuvash people (, ; , ) also called Chuvash Tatars, are a Turkic ethnic group, a branch of the Oğurs, inhabiting an area stretching from the Idel-Ural region to Siberia.
Most of them live in the Russian republic of Chuvashia and the ...
,
Gagauz people
The Gagauz (; ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to southern Moldova ( Gagauzia, Taraclia District, Basarabeasca District) and southwestern Ukraine (Budjak). Gagauz are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians. The term Gagauz is also often used ...
,
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs (Kazakh language, Kazakh: , , , ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia and Eastern Europe. They share a common Culture of Kazakhstan, culture, Kazakh language, language and History of Kazakhstan, history ...
,
Kyrgyz people
The Kyrgyz people (also spelled Kyrghyz, Kirgiz, and Kirghiz; or ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia. They primarily reside in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and China. A Kyrgyz diaspora is also found in Russia, Tajik ...
,
Turkmens
Turkmens (, , , ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, living mainly in Turkmenistan, northern and northeastern regions of Iran and north-western Afghanistan. Sizeable groups of Turkmens are found also in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, ...
,
Turkish people
Turks (), or Turkish people, are the largest Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group, comprising the majority of the population of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. They generally speak the various Turkish dialects. In addition, centuries-old Turkish co ...
,
Tuvans
The Tuvans (from Russian ) or Tyvans (from Tuvan ) are a Turkic ethnic group indigenous to Siberia that live in Tuva, Mongolia, and China. They speak the Tuvan language, a Siberian Turkic language. In Mongolia, they are regarded as one ...
,
Uyghurs
The Uyghurs,. alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the ti ...
,
Uzbeks
The Uzbeks () are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, being among the largest Turkic ethnic groups in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to Kazakhs, Kazakh and Karakalpaks, Karakalpak ...
, and
Yakuts
The Yakuts or Sakha (, ; , ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to North Siberia, primarily the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation. They also inhabit some districts of the Krasnoyarsk Krai. They speak Yakut, which belongs to the Si ...
.
Etymology
The first known mention of the term ''Turk'' (
Old Turkic
Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from the Second Turkic Kh ...
: 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 ''Türük'' or 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰:𐰜𐰇𐰛 ''Kök Türük'', ,
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
: Tūjué <
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese language, Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expande ...
*''tɦut-kyat'' < *''dwət-kuɑt'',
Old Tibetan
Old Tibetan refers to the earliest attested form of Tibetan language, reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to the early 9th century.
In 816 CE, during the reign of Tibetan King Sadnaleg ...
: ''drugu'')
Orkhon inscriptions
The Orkhon inscriptions are bilingual texts in Middle Chinese and Old Turkic, the latter written in the Old Turkic alphabet, carved into two memorial steles erected in the early 8th century by the Göktürks in the Orkhon Valley in what is modern- ...
Bain Tsokto inscriptions
The Tonyukuk inscriptions (), also called the Bain Tsokto inscriptions are Turkic inscriptions of the 8th century located in Nalaikh, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. They are one of the oldest written attestations of the Turkic language family, predating ...
applied to only one Turkic group, namely, the
Göktürks
The Göktürks (; ), also known as Türks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks, were a Turkic people in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main powe ...
, who were also mentioned, as ''türüg'' ~ ''török'', in the 6th-century Khüis Tolgoi inscription, most likely not later than 587 AD. A letter by
Ishbara Qaghan
Ishbara Qaghan (, ) (c. 540 – 587) was the first son of Issik Qaghan, grandson of Bumin Qaghan, and the sixth khagan of the Turkic Khaganate (581–587).
Name
His birth name was recorded as either Ashina Shetu or Nietu () in Chinese sourc ...
to
Emperor Wen of Sui
Emperor Wen of Sui (; 21 July 541 – 13 August 604), personal name Yang Jian (), Xianbei name Puliuru Jian (), was the founding Emperor of China, emperor of the Chinese Sui dynasty. As a Buddhist, he encouraged the spread of Buddhism through ...
in 585 described him as "the Great Turk Khan". The Bugut (584 CE) and
Orkhon inscriptions
The Orkhon inscriptions are bilingual texts in Middle Chinese and Old Turkic, the latter written in the Old Turkic alphabet, carved into two memorial steles erected in the early 8th century by the Göktürks in the Orkhon Valley in what is modern- ...
(735 CE) use the terms ''Türküt'', ''Türk'' and ''Türük''.
During the first century CE,
Pomponius Mela
Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest known Roman geographer. He was born at the end of the 1st century BC in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died AD 45.
His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nea ...
refers to the ''Turcae'' in the forests north of the
Sea of Azov
The Sea of Azov is an inland Continental shelf#Shelf seas, shelf sea in Eastern Europe connected to the Black Sea by the narrow (about ) Strait of Kerch, and sometimes regarded as a northern extension of the Black Sea. The sea is bounded by Ru ...
, and
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...
lists the ''Tyrcae'' among the people of the same area. However, English archaeologist Ellis Minns contended that ''Tyrcae'' Τῦρκαι is "a false correction" for ''
Iyrcae The Iyrcae () or Turcae were an ancient nation on the north-east trade route described by Herodotus beyond the Thyssagetae.
They were distinguished by their mode of hunting, climbing a tree to survey their game, and then pursuing it with trained h ...
'' Ἱύρκαι, a people who dwelt beyond the
Thyssagetae
The Thyssagetae () were an ancient tribe described by Herodotus as occupying a district to the north-east of Scythia, separated from the Budini by a "desert" that took seven days to cross.Herodotus. ''Histories'', 4.22.1: "...after the desert, if ...
, according to
Herodotus
Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...
(
Histories
Histories or, in Latin, Historiae may refer to:
* the plural of history
* ''Histories'' (Herodotus), by Herodotus
* ''The Histories'', by Timaeus
* ''The Histories'' (Polybius), by Polybius
* ''Histories'' by Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust) ...
Magyars
Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are an ethnic group native to Hungary (), who share a common culture, language and history. They also have a notable presence in former parts of the Kingdom of Hungary. The Hungarian language belongs to the ...
. 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.
The Chinese
Book of Zhou
The ''Book of Zhou'' () records the official history of the Xianbei-led Western Wei and Northern Zhou dynasties of China, and ranks among the official Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. Compiled by the Tang dynasty
The Tang dy ...
(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
The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central Asia, Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob River, Ob have their headwaters. The ...
. Hungarian scholar
András Róna-Tas
András Róna-Tas (born 30 December 1931) is a Hungarian historian and linguist.
Biography
He was born in 1931 in Budapest. Róna-Tas studied under such preeminent professors as Gyula Ortutay and Lajos Ligeti, and received a degree in folklore ...
(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.
It is generally accepted that the name ''Türk'' is ultimately derived from the Old-Turkic migration-term 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 ''Türük''/''Törük'',"Türk" in ''Turkish Etymological Dictionary'', Sevan Nişanyan. which means 'created, born' or 'strong'. Turkologist Peter B. Golden agrees that the term ''Turk'' has roots in
Old Turkic
Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from the Second Turkic Kh ...
, yet is not convinced by attempts to link ''Dili'', ''Dingling'', ''Chile'', ''Tele'', and ''Tiele'', which possibly transcribed *''tegrek'' (probably meaning '
cart
A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by draught animals such as horses, donkeys, mules and oxen, or even smaller animals such as goats or large dogs.
A handcart ...
'), to ''Tujue'', which transliterated to ''Türküt''.
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''. Even though
Gerhard Doerfer
Gerhard Doerfer (8 March 1920 – 27 December 2003) was a German Turkologist, Altaicist, and philologist best known for his studies of the Turkic languages, especially Khalaj.
Biography
Doerfer was born on March 8, 1920, in Königsberg (pres ...
supports the proposal that ''türk'' means 'strong' in general,
Gerard Clauson
Sir Gerard Leslie Makins Clauson (28 April 1891 – 1 May 1974) was an English civil servant, businessman, and Orientalist best known for his studies of the Turkic languages. He was born in Malta.
The eldest son of Major Sir John Eugene Clauso ...
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 djectivemeaning (of a fruit) 'just fully ripe'; (of a human being) 'in the prime of life, young, and vigorous'". Hakan Aydemir (2022) also contends that ''Türk'' originally did not mean "strong, powerful" but "gathered; united, allied, confederated" and was derived from Pre-
Proto-Turkic
Proto-Turkic is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Turkic languages that was spoken by the Proto-Turks before their divergence into the various Turkic peoples. Proto-Turkic separated into Oghur (western) and Common Tu ...
verb *''türü'' "heap up, collect, gather, assemble".
The earliest Turkic-speaking peoples identifiable in Chinese sources are the
Yenisei Kyrgyz
The Yenisei Kyrgyz () were an ancient Turkic people who dwelled along the upper Yenisei River in the southern portion of the Minusinsk Depression from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE. The heart of their homeland was the forested T ...
and Xinli, located in South Siberia. Another example of an early Turkic population would be the
Dingling
The Dingling (174 BCE); (200 BCE); Eastern Han Chinese: *''teŋ-leŋ'' < Old Chinese: *''têŋ-rêŋ'' were an ancient people who appear in Chinese historiography in the context of the 1st century BCE.
The Dingling are considered to have been ...
.
In Late Antiquity itself, as well as in and the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
, the name "Scythians" was used in
Greco-Roman
The Greco-Roman world , also Greco-Roman civilization, Greco-Roman culture or Greco-Latin culture (spelled Græco-Roman or Graeco-Roman in British English), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and co ...
and
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
literature for various groups of nomadic "
barbarian
A barbarian is a person or tribe of people that is perceived to be primitive, savage and warlike. Many cultures have referred to other cultures as barbarians, sometimes out of misunderstanding and sometimes out of prejudice.
A "barbarian" may ...
s" living on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe who were not related to the actual Scythians.: "Greek authors ..frequently applied the name Scythians to later nomadic groups who had no relation whatever to the original Scythians" Medieval European chroniclers subsumed various Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppe as "Scythians". Between 400 CE and the 16th century, Byzantine sources use the name Σκύθαι (''Skuthai'') in reference to twelve different Turkic peoples.G. Moravcsik, ''Byzantinoturcica'' II, p. 236–39
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
Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
sense. In short, the term ''Türki'' can be used for ''Türk'' or vice versa.
Dingling
The Dingling (174 BCE); (200 BCE); Eastern Han Chinese: *''teŋ-leŋ'' < Old Chinese: *''têŋ-rêŋ'' were an ancient people who appear in Chinese historiography in the context of the 1st century BCE.
The Dingling are considered to have been ...
*
Bulgars
The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic peoples, Turkic Nomad, semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centu ...
*
Esegel Esegels (aka ''Izgil'' (), ''Äsägel'', ''Askel'', ''Askil'', ''Ishkil'', ''Izgil'') were an Oghur Turkic dynastic tribe in the Middle Ages who joined and would be assimilated into the Volga Bulgars.
Numerous records about Esegels in sources and ...
Basmyl
The Basmyls (''Basmyl''; Basmals, Basmils, , , Middle Chinese ZS: *''bˠɛt̚-siɪt̚-miɪt̚/mˠiɪt̚/miᴇ''; or as 弊剌 ''Bìlà'', MC *''bjiejH-lat'')Golden, Peter B. ''An Introduction to the History of Turkic Peoples'', p. 142-143 were a ...
*
Onogurs
The Onoghurs, Onoğurs, or Oğurs (Ὀνόγουροι, Οὔρωγοι, Οὔγωροι; Onογurs, Ογurs; "ten tribes", "tribes") were a group of Turkic nomadic equestrians who flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region ...
*
Saragurs
The Saragurs or Saraguri (, , Šarağurs) were a Turkic nomadic tribe mentioned in the 5th and 6th centuries. They may be the Sulujie (蘇路羯, ''suoluo-kjɐt'') mentioned in the Chinese '' Book of Sui''. They originated from Western Siberia and ...
*
Sabirs
The Sabirs (Savirs, Suars, Sawar, Sawirk among others; ,) were a nomadic Turkic equestrian people who lived in the north of the Caucasus beginning in the late-5th–7th century, on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, in the Kuban area, and possi ...
*
Shatuo
The Shatuo, or the Shatuo Turks (; also transcribed as Sha-t'o, Sanskrit SartZuev Yu.A., ''"Horse Tamgas from Vassal Princedoms (Translation of Chinese composition "Tanghuyao" of 8-10th centuries)"'', Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences, Alma-Ata, I ...
*
Ongud
The Ongud (also spelled Ongut or Öngüt; Mongolian: Онгуд, Онход; Chinese: 汪古, ''Wanggu''; from Old Turkic ''öng'' "desolate, uninhabited; desert" plus ''güt'' "class marker") were a Turkic tribe that later became Mongolized a ...
(from Shatuo)
*
Göktürks
The Göktürks (; ), also known as Türks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks, were a Turkic people in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main powe ...
*
Oghuz Turks
The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...
Kabar
The Kabars (), also known as Qavars (Qabars) or Khavars, were Khazar rebels who joined Magyar tribes and the Rus' Khaganate confederations in the 9th century CE.
Sources
The Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII is the principal source of the Kaba ...
*
Khazars
The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, a ...
*
Kipchaks
The Kipchaks, also spelled Qipchaqs, known as Polovtsians (''Polovtsy'') in Russian annals, were Turkic nomads and then a confederation that existed in the Middle Ages inhabiting parts of the Eurasian Steppe.
First mentioned in the eighth cent ...
*
Kurykans
The Kurykans (; zh, 骨利干 pinyin: ''Gǔlìgān'' <
Pechenegs
The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks, , Middle Turkic languages, Middle Turkic: , , , , , , ka, პაჭანიკი, , , ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, Pečenezi, separator=/, Печенези, also known as Pecheneg Turks were a semi-nomadic Turkic peopl ...
*
Karluks
The Karluks (also Qarluqs, Qarluks, Karluqs, , Qarluq, Para-Mongolic languages, Para-Mongol: Harluut, zh, s=葛逻禄, t=葛邏祿 ''Géluólù'' ; customary phonetic: ''Gelu, Khololo, Khorlo'', , ''Khallokh'', ''Qarluq'') were a prominent no ...
Tukhsi
The Tuhsis were a medieval Turkic-speaking tribe, who lived alongside the Chigil, Yagma, and other tribes, in Zhetysu and today southern Kazakhstan.
Origins
Tuhsi were considered remnants of the Türgesh people. Turkologist Yury Zuev noted ...
*
Yenisei Kirghiz
The Yenisei Kyrgyz () were an ancient Turkic people who dwelled along the upper Yenisei River in the southern portion of the Minusinsk Depression from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE. The heart of their homeland was the forested T ...
*
Chigils
The Chigil (Chihil, Cihil, or Chiyal) were a Turkic tribe known from the 7th century CE as living around Issyk Kul lake area. They were considered to be descended from the tribe Chuyue, who were of mixed Yueban- Western Turkic origins.
Etymol ...
*
Toquz Oghuz
The Toquz Oghuz (Lit. "''Nine Clan"'') was a political alliance of nine Turkic Tiele tribes in Inner Asia, during the early Middle Ages. The Toquz Oghuz was consolidated and subordinated within the First Turkic Khaganate (552–603) and rema ...
Yagma
The Yagmas (), or Yaghmas, were a medieval tribe of Turkic people that came to the forefront of history after the disintegration of the Western Turkic Kaganate. They were one component of a confederation which consisted of Yagma, the Karluks, t ...
*
Nushibi
Nushibi (Nu-shibi, ; Middle Chinese: *''nuoXɕiɪt̚piɪt̚'') was a Chinese collective name for five tribes of the right (western) wingYu. Zuev, ''"The Strongest tribe - Izgil"''//Historical And Cultural Relations Between Iran And Dasht-i Kipc ...
*
Duolu
Duolu (Wade–Giles: To-lu; c. 603-651 as a minimum) was a tribal confederation in the Western Turkic Khaganate (c. 581-659). The Turgesh Khaganate (699-766) may have been founded by Duolu remnants.
There existed several Chinese transcriptions ...
*
Kutrigurs
The Kutrigurs were a Turkic nomadic equestrian tribe who flourished on the Pontic–Caspian steppe in the 6th century AD. To their east were the similar Utigurs and both possibly were closely related to the Bulgars. They warred with the Byzan ...
*
Utigurs
Utigurs were Turkic nomadic equestrians who flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe in the 6th century AD. They possibly were closely related to the Kutrigurs and Bulgars.
Etymology
The name ''Ut(r)igur'', recorded as , and , is generally c ...
Yueban
Yueban () (Middle Chinese: */jiuᴇt̚-pˠan/ < Late Han Chinese: */jyat-pɑn/), colloquially: "Weak
Bulaqs
The Bulaqs were a Turkic tribe known mainly from Arabic sources, originating from the Lop Nor region. They were a core part of the Karluk confederacy located in the Altai Mountains. Many of them migrated to the Southern Ural, into the neighbourh ...
*
Xueyantuo
The Xueyantuo or Sir Tardush were an ancient Tiele people, Tiele tribe and khaganate in Northeast Asia who were at one point vassals of the Göktürks, later aligning with the Tang dynasty against the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, Eastern Göktürk ...
*
Torks
Torks (Cyrillic: торки, literally "Turkic peoples, Turks", also known as Torkils) were a medieval Turkic peoples, Turkic tribe of Oghuz Turks, Oghuz and/or Kipchaks, Kipchak origins. The Torks, alongsides Kipchaks (e.g. Berendei), and other t ...
Berendei
The Berendei or Berindei (Romanian: ''Berindei''; Ukrainian: ''Берендеї'', ''Berendeyi''; Russian: ''берендеи'', ''berendei'', ''перендеи'', ''perendei'', ''перендичи''; in Hungarian: ''berendek''; in Polish: ''Ber ...
*
Yemek
The Yemek or Kimek were a Turkic tribe constituting the Kimek-Kipchak confederation, whose other six constituent tribes, according to Abu Said Gardizi (d. 1061), were the Imur (or Imi), Tatars, Bayandur, Kipchaks, Lanikaz, and Ajlad.
Ethn ...
s
*
Naimans
The Naiman (; ; Kazakh and , ), meaning The Eight, was a medieval tribe originating in the territory of modern Western Mongolia (possibly during the time of the Uyghur Khaganate), and is one of the 92 tribes of Uzbeks, modern Mongols and in the ...
(partly)
*
Keraites
The Keraites (also ''Kerait, Kereit, Khereid'', Kazakh: керейт; Kyrgyz: керей; Mongolian: Хэрэйд; Nogai: Кереит; Uzbek: ''Kerait''; Chinese: 克烈) were one of the five dominant Turco-Mongol tribal confederations ...
(partly)
R. Grousset, ''The Empire of the Steppes'', New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1970, p191.
*
Merkits
The Merkit (; ; ) was one of the five major tribal confederations of MongolUriankhai
Uriankhai is a term of address applied by the Mongols to a group of forest peoples of the North, who include the Turkic-speaking Tuvans and Yakuts, while sometimes it is also applied to the Mongolian-speaking Altai Uriankhai. The Uria ...
(partly)
Possible Proto-Turkic ancestry, at least partial,Pritsak O. & Golb. N: ''Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century'', Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982. has been posited for
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...
,
Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...
and
Pannonian Avars
The Pannonian Avars ( ) were an alliance of several groups of Eurasian nomads of various origins. The peoples were also known as the Obri in the chronicles of the Rus' people, Rus, the Abaroi or Varchonitai (), or Pseudo-Avars in Byzantine Empi ...
, as well as
Tuoba
The Tuoba (Chinese language, Chinese) or Tabgatch (, ''Tabγač''), also known by #Names, other names, was an influential Xianbei clan in early imperial China. During the Sixteen Kingdoms after the fall of Han and the Three Kingdoms, the Tuoba e ...
and
Rouran
The Rouran Khaganate ( Chinese: zh, c=, p=Róurán, label=no), also known as Ruanruan or Juan-juan ( zh, c=, p=Ruǎnruǎn, label=no) (or variously ''Jou-jan'', ''Ruruan'', ''Ju-juan'', ''Ruru'', ''Ruirui'', ''Rouru'', ''Rouruan'' or ''Tantan'') ...
Tatars
Tatars ( )Tatar in the Collins English Dictionary are a group of Turkic peoples across Eas ...
, Rourans' supposed descendants.
Remarks
Language
Distribution
The Turkic languages constitute a
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...
of some 30 languages, spoken across a vast area from
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
and the
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
, to
Siberia
Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
and
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
and through to the Middle East. Some 170 million people have a Turkic language as their native language;Turkic Language family tree entries provide the information on the Turkic-speaking populations and regions. an additional 20 million people speak a Turkic language as a
second language
A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to one's first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language.
A speaker's dominant language, which ...
. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper, or
Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
n Turkish, the speakers of which account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers. 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
West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...
; 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
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...
, China, and northern Iraq.
The Turkic language family was traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. Howeover since the 1950s, a majority of linguists have rejected the proposal, after supposed
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language.
Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...
s were found not to be valid, hypothesized sound shifts were not found, and Turkic and
Mongolic languages
The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in North Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this languag ...
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.Asya Pereltsvaig (2012) ''Languages of the World, An Introduction''. Cambridge University Press. Pages 211–216.
Alphabet
The Turkic alphabets are sets of related alphabets with letters (formerly known as
runes
Runes are the Letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see ''#Futharks, futhark'' vs ''#Runic alphabets, runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were ...
), used for writing mostly
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...
. Inscriptions in Turkic alphabets were found in
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
. 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
The Old Uyghur alphabet was a list of alphabets used by Turkic languages, Turkic script used for writing Old Uyghur, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in Turpan and Gansu that is the ancestor of the modern Western Yugur language. The term "Old Uyghu ...
in the
East
East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...
and
Central Asia
Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...
, Arabic script in the Middle and Western Asia,
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, and
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...
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
Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic disciplin ...
as do, for example, the Gothic runiform scripts, noted for their exceptional uniformity of language and paleography. The Turkic alphabets are divided into four groups, the best known of which 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
Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic languages, Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating f ...
. It was later used by the
Uyghur Empire
The Uyghur Khaganate (also Uyghur Empire or Uighur Khaganate, self defined as Toquz-Oghuz country; , Tang-era names, with modern Hanyu Pinyin: or ) was a Turkic empire that existed for about a century between the mid 8th and 9th centuries. It ...
; a
Yenisei
The Yenisey or Yenisei ( ; , ) is the fifth-longest river system in the world, and the largest to drain into the Arctic Ocean.
Rising in Mungaragiyn-gol in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course through Lake Baikal and the Krasnoyarsk Dam b ...
variant is known from 9th-century Kyrgyz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the
Talas Valley
The Talas (; Kyrgyz and ) is a river that rises in the Talas Region of Kyrgyzstan and flows west into Kazakhstan. The river is long and has a basin area of .
Course
It is formed from the confluence of the Karakol and the Uch-Koshoy and flows ...
of
Turkestan
Turkestan,; ; ; ; also spelled Turkistan, is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and East Turkestan (Xinjiang). The region is located in the northwest of modern day China and to the northwest of its ...
and the
Old Hungarian script
The Old Hungarian script or Hungarian runes (, 'székely-magyar runiform', or ) is an alphabetic writing system used for writing the Hungarian language. Modern Hungarian is written using the Latin-based Hungarian alphabet. The term "old" refers ...
of the 10th century.
Irk Bitig
''Irk Bitig'' or ''Irq Bitig'' (), known as the ''Book of Omens'' or ''Book of Divination'' in English, is a 9th-century manuscript book on divination that was discovered in the "Library Cave" of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, China, by Aurel Ste ...
is the only known complete manuscript text written in the Old Turkic script.
History
Origins
The origins of the Turkic peoples has been a topic of much discussion.
Peter Benjamin Golden
Peter Benjamin Golden (born 1941) is an American professor emeritus of History, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University. He has written many books and articles on Turkic peoples, Turkic and Central Asian studies, such as ''An int ...
proposes two locations for the Proto-Turkic Urheimat: the southern Altai-Sayan region, and Southern
Siberia
Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
, from
Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the Federal subjects of Russia, federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia, Oblast to the northwest and the Repu ...
to eastern
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
. Other studies suggested an early presence of Turkic peoples in Mongolia, or
Tuva
Tuva (; ) or Tyva (; ), officially the Republic of Tyva,; , is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia. Tuva lies at the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders the Federal subjects of Russia, federal sub ...
.
A possible genealogical link of the Turkic languages to Mongolic and Tungusic languages, specifically a hypothetical homeland in
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
Martine Robbeets
Martine Irma Robbeets (24 October 1972) is a Belgian comparative linguist and japanologist. She is known for the Transeurasian languages hypothesis, which groups the Japonic, Koreanic, Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic languages together int ...
, has received support but also criticism, with opponents attributing similarities to long-term contact. The proto-Turkic-speakers may be linked to
Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
East Asian
East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...
agricultural societies in
Northeastern China
Northeast China () is a geographical region of China, consisting officially of three provinces Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain, the largest plain in China with an area of over . The regi ...
, which is to be associated with the Xinglongwa culture and the succeeding Hongshan culture, based on varying degrees of specific East Asian genetic substratum among modern Turkic speakers. According to historians, "the Proto-Turkic subsistence strategy included an agricultural component, a tradition that ultimately went back to the origin of millet agriculture in Northeast China". This view is however questioned by other geneticists, who found no evidence for a shared "Neolithic Hongshan ancestry", but in contrary primary Ancient Northeast Asian (ANA) Neolithic ancestry from the
Amur region
Amur Oblast () is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located on the banks of the Amur and Zeya rivers in the Russian Far East. The oblast borders Heilongjiang province of the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the south.
The administrat ...
, supporting an origin from Northeast Asia rather than Manchuria.
Around 2,200 BC, the (agricultural) ancestors of the Turkic peoples probably migrated westwards into
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
, where they adopted a pastoral lifestyle, in part borrowed from
Iranian peoples
Iranian peoples, or Iranic peoples, are the collective ethnolinguistic groups who are identified chiefly by their native usage of any of the Iranian languages, which are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European langu ...
. Given nomadic peoples such as
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...
,
Rouran
The Rouran Khaganate ( Chinese: zh, c=, p=Róurán, label=no), also known as Ruanruan or Juan-juan ( zh, c=, p=Ruǎnruǎn, label=no) (or variously ''Jou-jan'', ''Ruruan'', ''Ju-juan'', ''Ruru'', ''Ruirui'', ''Rouru'', ''Rouruan'' or ''Tantan'') ...
and
Xianbei
The Xianbei (; ) were an ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeastern China. The Xianbei were likely not of a single ethnicity, but rather a multiling ...
share underlying genetic ancestry "that falls into or close to the northeast Asian gene pool", the proto-Turkic language likely originated in northeastern Asia.
Genetic data found that almost all modern Turkic peoples retained at least some shared ancestry associated with populations in "South Siberia and Mongolia" (SSM), supporting this region as the "Inner Asian Homeland (IAH) of the pioneer carriers of Turkic languages" which subsequently expanded into Central Asia. The main
Turkic expansion
Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Asia, West, Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members ...
took place during the 5th–16th centuries, partially overlapping with the
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire was the List of largest empires, largest contiguous empire in human history, history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Euro ...
period. Based on single-path IBD tracts, the common Turkic ancestral population lived prior to these migration events, and likely stem from a similar source population as
Mongolic peoples
The Mongolic peoples are a collection of East Asian people, East Asian-originated ethnic groups in East Asia, North Asia and Eastern Europe, who speak Mongolic languages. Their ancestors are referred to as Proto-Mongols. The largest contempora ...
further East. Historical data suggests that the Mongol Empire period acted as secondary force of "turkification", as the Mongol conquest "did not involve massive re-settlements of Mongols over the conquered territories. Instead, the Mongol war machine was progressively augmented by various Turkic tribes as they expanded, and in this way Turkic peoples eventually reinforced their expansion over the Eurasian steppe and beyond."
There is increasing evidence for a partial continuity from the eastern Scythians to the Turkic-speakers of the Altai region. Turkic-speaking Central Asians can be described as having formed from mixture between
Scythian
The Scythians ( or ) or Scyths (, but note Scytho- () in composition) and sometimes also referred to as the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people who had migrated during the 9th to 8th centuries BC fr ...
-like groups, displaying their highest genetic affinity to modern day
Tajiks
Tajiks (; ; also spelled ''Tadzhiks'' or ''Tadjiks'') is the name of various Persian-speaking Eastern Iranian groups of people native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Even though the term ''Tajik'' ...
, and "Eastern Steppe Xiongnu" groups during the
Iron Age
The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
.
A 2018
autosomal
An autosome is any chromosome that is not a sex chromosome. The members of an autosome pair in a diploid cell have the same morphology, unlike those in allosomal (sex chromosome) pairs, which may have different structures. The DNA in autosome ...
single-nucleotide polymorphism
In genetics and bioinformatics, a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP ; plural SNPs ) is a germline substitution of a single nucleotide at a specific position in the genome. Although certain definitions require the substitution to be present in a ...
study suggested that the
Eurasian Steppe
The Eurasian Steppe, also called the Great Steppe or The Steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Manchuria, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Europea ...
slowly transitioned from
Indo European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...
and
Iranian
Iranian () may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Iran
** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran
** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia
** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...
-speaking groups with largely western Eurasian ancestry to increasing East Asian ancestry with Turkic and Mongolian groups in the past 4000 years, including extensive Turkic migrations out of Mongolia and slow assimilation of local populations. A 2022 report suggested that Turkic and Mongolic populations in Central Asia formed via admixture events during the Iron Age between "local Indo-Iranian and a South-Siberian or Mongolian group with a high East-Asian ancestry (around 60%)". Modern day
Turkmens
Turkmens (, , , ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, living mainly in Turkmenistan, northern and northeastern regions of Iran and north-western Afghanistan. Sizeable groups of Turkmens are found also in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, ...
form an outlier among Central Asian Turkic-speakers with a lower frequency of the Baikal component (c. 22%) and a lack of the Han-like component, being closer to other Indo-Iranian groups. A subsequent study in 2022 also found that the spread of Turkic-speaking populations into Central Asia happened after the spread of Indo-European speakers into the area. Another 2022 study found that all Altaic‐speaking (Turkic, Tungusic, and Mongolic) populations "were a mixture of dominant Siberian Neolithic ancestry and non-negligible YRB ancestry", suggesting their origins were somewhere in Northeast Asia, most likely the Amur river basin. Except Eastern and Southern Mongolic-speakers, all "possessed a high proportion of West Eurasian-related ancestry, in accordance with the linguistically documented language borrowing in Turkic languages".
A 2023 study analyzed the DNA of
Empress Ashina
Empress Ashina (阿史那皇后) (551 – 30 May 582) was a Göktürk princess, who became an empress of the Xianbei-led Chinese Northern Zhou dynasty. She was the daughter of Göktürk's third khagan Muqan Qaghan, and her husband was Emperor ...
(568–578 AD), a Royal Göktürk, whose remains were recovered from a mausoleum in
Xianyang
Xianyang ( zh, s=咸阳 , p=Xiányáng) is a prefecture-level city in central Shaanxi province, situated on the Wei River a few kilometers upstream (west) from the provincial capital of Xi'an. Once the capital of the Qin dynasty, it is now int ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
. The authors determined that Empress Ashina belonged to the North-East Asian
mtDNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the DNA contained in ...
haplogroup F1d, and that approximately 96-98% of her autosomal ancestry was of Ancient Northeast Asian origin, while roughly 2-4% was of West Eurasian origin, indicating ancient admixture. This study weakened the "western Eurasian origin and multiple origin hypotheses". However, they also noted that "Central Steppe and early Medieval Türk exhibited a high but variable degree of West Eurasian ancestry, indicating there was a genetic substructure of the Türkic empire." The early medieval Türk samples were modelled as having 37.8% West Eurasian ancestry and 62.2% Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry and historic Central Steppe Türk samples were also an admixture of West Eurasian and Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry, while historic Karakhanid, Kipchak and the Turkic Karluk samples had 50.6%-61.1% West Eurasian ancestry and 38.9%–49.4% Iron Age
Yellow River
The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...
farmer ancestry. A 2020 study also found "high genetic heterogeneity and diversity during the Türkic and Uyghur periods" in the early medieval period in Eastern Eurasian Steppe.
Early historical attestation
The earliest separate Turkic peoples, such as the ''Gekun'' (鬲昆) and ''Xinli'' (薪犁), appeared on the peripheries of the late
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...
confederation about 200 BCE
Sima Qian
Sima Qian () was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the ''Shiji'' (sometimes translated into English as ''Records of the Grand Historian''), a general history of China cov ...
''
Records of the Grand Historian
The ''Shiji'', also known as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' or ''The Grand Scribe's Records'', is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st ce ...
' Vol. 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 e wentnorth ndsubjugated the nations of Hunyu, Qushe, Dingling, Gekun, and Xinli. Therefore, the Xiongnu nobles and dignitaries all admired ndregarded
Modun chanyu
Modu () was the son of Touman and the founder of the empire of the Xiongnu. He came to power by ordering his men to kill his father in 209 BCE.
Modu ruled from 209 to 174 BCE. He was a military leader under his father Touman and later ''chanyu ...
as capable" (contemporaneous with the Chinese
Han dynasty
The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...
)Findley (2005), p. 29. and later among the Turkic-speaking Tiele as '' Hegu'' (紇骨)Pulleyblank, E. G. "The Name of the Kirghiz." Central Asiatic Journal 34, no. 1/2 (1990). p. 99 and '' Xue'' (薛).
The Tiele (also known as Gaoche 高車, lit. "High Carts"), may be related to the
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...
and the
Dingling
The Dingling (174 BCE); (200 BCE); Eastern Han Chinese: *''teŋ-leŋ'' < Old Chinese: *''têŋ-rêŋ'' were an ancient people who appear in Chinese historiography in the context of the 1st century BCE.
The Dingling are considered to have been ...
. According to the ''
Book of Wei
The ''Book of Wei'', also known by its Chinese name as the ''Wei Shu'', is a classic Chinese historical text compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and is an important text describing the history of the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to 5 ...
'', 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
The Spring and Autumn period () was a period in History of China, Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou (256 BCE), characterized by the gradual erosion of royal power as local lords nominally subject t ...
. Historically they were established after the 6th century BCE.Peter 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
The Tiele were first mentioned in Chinese literature from the 6th to 8th centuries. 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'', and ''Tiele'' transliterated ''Tegrek'' while Tujue transliterated ''Türküt'', plural of ''Türk''. The appellation ''Türük'' (
Old Turkic
Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from the Second Turkic Kh ...
: 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰) ~ ''Türk'' (OT: 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰚) (whence
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese language, Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expande ...
突厥 *''dwət-kuɑt'' > *''tɦut-kyat'' >
standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...
: ''Tūjué'') was initially reserved exclusively for the
Göktürks
The Göktürks (; ), also known as Türks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks, were a Turkic people in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main powe ...
by Chinese, Tibetans, and even the Turkic-speaking
Uyghurs
The Uyghurs,. alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the ti ...
. In contrast, medieval Muslim writers, including Turkic speakers like Ottoman historian
Mustafa Âlî
Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî bin Ahmed bin Abdülmevlâ Çelebi (lit. ''"Mustafa Ali of Gallipoli son of Ahmed son of Abdülmevla the Godly"''; 28 April 1541 – 1600) was an Ottoman historian, bureaucrat and major literary figure.
Life and work
M ...
and explorer
Evliya Çelebi
Dervish Mehmed Zillî (25 March 1611 – 1682), known as Evliya Çelebi (), was an Ottoman Empire, Ottoman explorer who travelled through his home country during its cultural zenith as well as neighboring lands. He travelled for over 40 years, rec ...
Ulugh Beg
Mīrzā Muhammad Tarāghāy bin Shāhrukh (; ), better known as Ulugh Beg (; 22 March 1394 – 27 October 1449), was a Timurid sultan, as well as an astronomer and mathematician.
Ulugh Beg was notable for his work in astronomy-related ma ...
, 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
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...
, differentiated from non-Turkic speakers.
According to some researchers (Duan, Xue, Tang, Lung, Onogawa, etc.) the later
Ashina tribe Ashina may refer to:
* Ashina tribe, a ruling dynasty of the Turkic Khaganate
* Ashina clan (Japan), one of the Japanese clans
* Ashina District, Hiroshima, a former Japanese district
* Empress Ashina (551–582), empress of the Chinese/Xianbei dyna ...
descended from the Tiele confederation. The Tiele however were probably one of many early Turkic groups, ancestral to later Turkic populations. 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.
Xiongnu (3rd c. BCE – 1st c. CE)
It has even been suggested that the Xiongnu themselves, who were mentioned in Han dynasty records, were
Proto-Turkic
Proto-Turkic is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Turkic languages that was spoken by the Proto-Turks before their divergence into the various Turkic peoples. Proto-Turkic separated into Oghur (western) and Common Tu ...
speakers. The Turks may ultimately have been of Xiongnu descent. 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. Some scholars believe they were probably a confederation of various ethnic and linguistic groups. According to a study by Alexander Savelyev and Choongwon Jeong, published in 2020 in the journal ''Evolutionary Human Sciences'' by Cambridge University Press, "the predominant part of the Xiongnu population is likely to have spoken Turkic". However, genetic studies found a mixture of western and eastern Eurasian ancestries, suggesting a large genetic diversity within the Xiongnu. The Turkic-related component may be brought by eastern Eurasian genetic substratum.
Using the only extant possibly Xiongnu writings, the rock art of the Yinshan and
Helan Mountains
The Helan Mountains, frequently called Alashan Mountains in older sources, are an isolated desert mountain range forming the border of Inner Mongolia's Alxa League and Ningxia. They run north-south parallel to the north-flowing Yellow River in ...
, some scholars argue that the older Xiongnu writings are precursors to the earliest known Turkic alphabet, the
Orkhon script
The Old Turkic script (also known variously as Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script, Turkic runes) was the alphabet used by the Göktürks and other early Turkic khanates from the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old Turki ...
. Petroglyphs of this region dates from the
9th millennium BCE
The 9th millennium BC spanned the years 9000 BC to 8001 BC (11 to 10 thousand years ago). In chronological terms, it is the first full millennium of the current Holocene epoch that is generally reckoned to have begun by 9700 BC (11.7 thousan ...
to the 19th century, and consists mainly of engraved signs (petroglyphs) and few painted images. Excavations done during 1924–1925 in Noin-Ula kurgans located in the
Selenga
The Selenga ( ) or Selenge is a major river in Mongolia and Buryatia, Russia. Originating from its headwater tributaries, the Ider and the Delger mörön, it flows for before draining into Lake Baikal. The Selenga therefore makes up the most d ...
River in the northern
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
n hills north of
Ulaanbaatar
Ulaanbaatar is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities in Mongolia, most populous city of Mongolia. It has a population of 1.6 million, and it is the coldest capital city in the world by average yearly temperature. The municipa ...
produced objects with over 20 carved characters, which were either identical or very similar to the
runic
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see '' futhark'' vs ''runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were primarily used to represent a sound value (a ...
letters of the Turkic Orkhon script discovered in the
Orkhon Valley
The Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape sprawls along the banks of the Orkhon River in Central Mongolia, some 320 km west from the capital Ulaanbaatar. It was inscribed by UNESCO in the World Heritage List as representing the development of ...
.
Steppe expansions
Göktürks – Turkic Khaganate (5th–8th c.)
The earliest certain mentioning of the politonym "Turk" was in the Chinese
Book of Zhou
The ''Book of Zhou'' () records the official history of the Xianbei-led Western Wei and Northern Zhou dynasties of China, and ranks among the official Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. Compiled by the Tang dynasty
The Tang dy ...
. In the 540s AD, this text mentions that the Turks came to China's border seeking silk goods and a trade relationship. A Sogdian diplomat represented China in a series of embassies between the
Western Wei
Wei (), known in historiography as the Western Wei (), was an imperial dynasty of China that followed the disintegration of the Northern Wei. One of the Northern dynasties during the era of the Northern and Southern dynasties, it ruled the weste ...
dynasty and the Turks in the years 545 and 546.
According to the ''Book of Sui'' and the ''
Tongdian
The ''Tongdian'' () is a Chinese institutional history and encyclopedia text. It covers a panoply of topics from high antiquity through the year 756, whereas a quarter of the book focuses on the Tang dynasty. The book was written by Du You from ...
'', they were "mixed barbarians" (; ''záhú'') who migrated from
Pingliang
Pingliang ( zh, s=平凉 , t=平涼 , p=Píngliàng , l="Pacify Liang") is a inner land prefecture-level city in eastern Gansu province, China, bordering Shaanxi province to the south and east and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region to the north. T ...
(now in modern
Gansu province
Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
) to the
Rouran
The Rouran Khaganate ( Chinese: zh, c=, p=Róurán, label=no), also known as Ruanruan or Juan-juan ( zh, c=, p=Ruǎnruǎn, label=no) (or variously ''Jou-jan'', ''Ruruan'', ''Ju-juan'', ''Ruru'', ''Ruirui'', ''Rouru'', ''Rouruan'' or ''Tantan'') ...
s seeking inclusion in their confederacy and protection from the prevailing dynasty.
Wei Zheng
Wei Zheng (580 – 11 February 643), courtesy name Xuancheng, posthumous name Duke Wenzhen of Zheng, was a Chinese politician and historian. He served as a chancellor of the Tang dynasty for about 13 years during the reign of Emperor Taizong. H ...
et al., ''Suishu'' vol. 84 quote: "突厥之先,平涼雜胡也,姓阿史那氏。後魏太武滅沮渠氏,阿史那以五百家奔茹茹,世居金山,工於鐵作。金山狀如兜鍪,俗呼兜鍪為「突厥」,因以為號。"
Du You
Du You () (735 – December 23, 812), courtesy name Junqing (), formally Duke Anjian of Qi (), was a Chinese historian, military general, and politician. He served as chancellor of the Tang dynasty. Du was born to an eminent aristocratic family ...
, ''Tongdian' vol. 197 quote: "突厥之先,平涼今平涼郡雜胡也,蓋匈奴之別種,姓阿史那氏。後魏太武滅沮渠氏,沮渠茂虔都姑臧,謂之北涼,為魏所滅。阿史那以五百家奔蠕蠕,代居金山,狀如兜鍪,俗呼兜鍪為「突厥」,因以為號。" Alternatively, according to the ''
Book of Zhou
The ''Book of Zhou'' () records the official history of the Xianbei-led Western Wei and Northern Zhou dynasties of China, and ranks among the official Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. Compiled by the Tang dynasty
The Tang dy ...
'', ''
History of the Northern Dynasties
The ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the '' Twenty-Four Histories'' canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618 CE: the histories of Northern Wei, Wester ...
'', and ''
New Book of Tang
The ''New Book of Tang'', generally translated as the "New History of the Tang" or "New Tang History", is a work of official history covering the Tang dynasty in ten volumes and 225 chapters. The work was compiled by a team of scholars of the So ...
'', the Ashina clan was a component of the
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...
confederation.
Linghu Defen
Linghu Defen () (583–666), formally Duke Xian of Pengyang (), was a Chinese historian and politician. He was an official of the Chinese Sui and Tang dynasties. During the Tang era, he was a major proponent for the compilation of the histories ...
et al., ''Zhoushu'' vol. 50 quote: "突厥者,蓋匈奴之別種,姓阿史那氏。" Göktürks were also posited as having originated from an obscure Suo state (索國), north of the Xiongnu. The Ashina tribe were famed
metalsmith
A metalsmith or simply smith is a craftsperson fashioning useful items (for example, tools, kitchenware, tableware, jewelry, armor and weapons) out of various metals. Smithing is one of the oldest list of metalworking occupations, metalworking o ...
s and were granted land south of the
Altai Mountains
The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central Asia, Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob River, Ob have their headwaters. The ...
(金山 ''Jinshan''), which looked like a
helmet
A helmet is a form of protective gear worn to protect the head. More specifically, a helmet complements the skull in protecting the human brain. Ceremonial or symbolic helmets (e.g., a policeman's helmet in the United Kingdom) without protecti ...
, from which they were said to have gotten their name 突厥 (''Tūjué''), 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.
The original
Old Turkic
Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from the Second Turkic Kh ...
name ''Kök Türk'' derives from ''kök'' ~ ''kö:k'', "sky, sky-coloured, blue, blue-grey". Unlike its Xiongnu predecessor, the Göktürk Khaganate had its temporary
Khagan
Khagan or Qaghan (Middle Mongol:; or ''Khagan''; ) or zh, c=大汗, p=Dàhán; ''Khāqān'', alternatively spelled Kağan, Kagan, Khaghan, Kaghan, Khakan, Khakhan, Khaqan, Xagahn, Qaghan, Chagan, Қан, or Kha'an is a title of empire, im ...
s from the
Ashina Ashina may refer to:
*Ashina tribe, a ruling dynasty of the Turkic Khaganate
*Ashina clan (Japan)
is a Japanese clans, Japanese clan that emerged during the Sengoku period.Edmond Papinot, Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire ...
clan, who were ''subordinate'' to a
sovereign
''Sovereign'' is a title that can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to ...
authority controlled by a council of tribal chiefs. The
Khaganate
A khanate ( ) or khaganate refers to historic polity, polities ruled by a Khan (title), khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. Khanates were typically nomadic Mongol and Turkic peoples, Turkic or Tatars, Tatar societies located on the Eurasian Steppe, ...
shamanistic
Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
religion, that later evolved into
Tengriism
Tengrism (also known as Tengriism, Tengerism, or Tengrianism) is a belief-system originating in the Eurasian Steppe, Eurasian steppes, based on shamanism and animism. It generally involves the titular sky god Tengri. According to some scholars, ...
, although it received missionaries of Buddhist monks and practiced a syncretic religion. The Göktürks were the first Turkic people to write
Old Turkic
Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from the Second Turkic Kh ...
in a runic script, the
Orkhon script
The Old Turkic script (also known variously as Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script, Turkic runes) was the alphabet used by the Göktürks and other early Turkic khanates from the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old Turki ...
. 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".
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
Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...
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.Haywood, John (1998), ''Historical Atlas of the Medieval World, AD 600–1492'', Barnes & Noble
Bulgars, Golden Horde and the Siberian Khanate
The
Bulgars
The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic peoples, Turkic Nomad, semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centu ...
established themselves in between the Caspian and Black Seas in the 5th and 6th centuries, followed by their conquerors, the
Khazars
The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, a ...
who converted to Judaism in the 8th or 9th century. After them came the
Pechenegs
The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks, , Middle Turkic languages, Middle Turkic: , , , , , , ka, პაჭანიკი, , , ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, Pečenezi, separator=/, Печенези, also known as Pecheneg Turks were a semi-nomadic Turkic peopl ...
who created a large confederacy, which was subsequently taken over by the Cumans and the
Kipchaks
The Kipchaks, also spelled Qipchaqs, known as Polovtsians (''Polovtsy'') in Russian annals, were Turkic nomads and then a confederation that existed in the Middle Ages inhabiting parts of the Eurasian Steppe.
First mentioned in the eighth cent ...
. 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 Ogedei Khan in the 13th century. Other Bulgars settled in Southeastern Europe in the 7th and 8th centuries, and mixed with the Slavs, Slavic population, adopting what eventually became the Slavic Bulgarian language. Everywhere, Turkic groups mixed with the local populations to varying degrees.
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 and 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.
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.
Uyghur Khaganate (8th–9th c.)
The Uyghur Khaganate had established itself by the year 744 AD. Through trade relations established with China, its capital city of Ordu Baliq in central Mongolia's
Orkhon Valley
The Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape sprawls along the banks of the Orkhon River in Central Mongolia, some 320 km west from the capital Ulaanbaatar. It was inscribed by UNESCO in the World Heritage List as representing the development of ...
became a wealthy center of commerce, and a significant portion of the Uyghur population abandoned their nomadic lifestyle for a sedentary one. The Uyghur Khaganate produced extensive literature, and a relatively high number of its inhabitants were literate.
The official state religion of the early Uyghur Khaganate was Manichaeism, which was introduced through the conversion of Bögü Qaghan by the Sogdians after the An Lushan rebellion. The Uyghur Khaganate was tolerant of religious diversity and practiced variety of religions including Buddhism, Christianity, shamanism and Manichaeism.
During the same time period, the
Shatuo
The Shatuo, or the Shatuo Turks (; also transcribed as Sha-t'o, Sanskrit SartZuev Yu.A., ''"Horse Tamgas from Vassal Princedoms (Translation of Chinese composition "Tanghuyao" of 8-10th centuries)"'', Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences, Alma-Ata, I ...
Turks emerged as power factor in Northern and Central China and were recognized by the Tang Empire as allied power.
In 808, 30,000 Shatuo under Zhuye Jinzhong defected from the Tibetans to Tang China and the Tibetans punished them by killing Zhuye Jinzhong as they were chasing them. The Uyghurs also fought against an alliance of Shatuo and Tibetans at Beshbalik.
The Shatuo Turks under Zhuye Chixin (Li Guochang) served the Tang dynasty in fighting against their fellow Turkic people in the Uyghur Khaganate. In 839, when the Uyghur khaganate (Huigu) general Jueluowu (掘羅勿) rose against the rule of then-reigning Zhangxin Khan, he elicited the help from Zhuye Chixin by giving Zhuye 300 horses, and together, they defeated Zhangxin Khan, who then committed suicide, precipitating the subsequent collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate. In the next few years, when Uyghur Khaganate remnants tried to raid Tang borders, the Shatuo participated extensively in counterattacking the Uyghur Khaganate with other tribes loyal to Tang. In 843, Zhuye Chixin, under the command of the Han Chinese officer Shi Xiong with Tuyuhun, Tangut and Han Chinese troops, participated in a raid against the Uyghur khaganate that led to the slaughter of Uyghur forces at Shahu mountain.
The
Shatuo
The Shatuo, or the Shatuo Turks (; also transcribed as Sha-t'o, Sanskrit SartZuev Yu.A., ''"Horse Tamgas from Vassal Princedoms (Translation of Chinese composition "Tanghuyao" of 8-10th centuries)"'', Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences, Alma-Ata, I ...
Turks had founded several short-lived sinicized dynasties in northern China during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period starting with Later Tang. The Shatuo chief Zhuye Chixin's family was adopted by the Tang dynasty and given the title prince of Jin and the Tang dynasty imperial surname of Li, which is why the Shatuo of Later Tang claimed to be restoring the Tang dynasty and not founding a new one. The official language of these dynasties was Chinese and they used Chinese titles and names. Some Shaotuo Turk emperors (of the Later Jin, Later Han and Northern Han) also claimed patrilineal Han Chinese ancestry.According to ''Old History of the Five Dynasties'', :zh:s:舊五代史/卷99, vol. 99, and ''New History of the Five Dynasties'', :zh:s:新五代史/卷10, vol. 10. Liu Zhiyuan was of Shatuo origin. According to ''Wudai Huiyao'' vol. 1 Liu Zhiyuan's great-great-grandfather Liu Tuan (劉湍) (titled as Emperor Mingyuan posthumously, granted the temple name of Wenzu) descended from Liu Bing (劉昞), Prince of Kingdom of Huaiyang, Huaiyang, a son of Emperor Ming of HanAccording to ''Old History of the Five Dynasties'', :zh:s:舊五代史/卷99, vol. 99, and ''New History of the Five Dynasties'', :zh:s:新五代史/卷10, vol. 10. Liu Zhiyuan was of Shatuo origin. According to ''Wudai Huiyao'' vol. 1 Liu Zhiyuan's great-great-grandfather Liu Tuan (劉湍) (titled as Emperor Mingyuan posthumously, granted the temple name of Wenzu) descended from Liu Bing (劉昞), Prince of Huaiyang, a son of Emperor Ming of Han
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 a powerful faction of northern China. They created two other dynasties, including the Later Jin (Five Dynasties), Later Jin and Later Han (Five Dynasties), Later Han and Northern Han (Later Han and Northern Han were ruled by the same family, with the latter being a rump state of the former). The Shatuo Liu Zhiyuan was a Buddhist and he worshipped the Mengshan Giant Buddha in 945. The Shatuo dynasties were replaced by the Han Chinese Song dynasty. The Shatuo became the
Ongud
The Ongud (also spelled Ongut or Öngüt; Mongolian: Онгуд, Онход; Chinese: 汪古, ''Wanggu''; from Old Turkic ''öng'' "desolate, uninhabited; desert" plus ''güt'' "class marker") were a Turkic tribe that later became Mongolized a ...
Turks living in Inner Mongolia after the Song dynasty conquered the last Shatuo dynasty of Northern Han.Paulillo, Mauricio. "White Tatars: The Problem of the Öngũt conversion to Jingjiao and the Uighur Connection" in ''From the Oxus River to the Chinese Shores: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia (orientalia - patristica - oecumenica)'' Ed. Tang, Winkler. (2013) pp. 237-252 The Ongud assimilated to the Mongols.
The Yenisei Kyrgyz allied with China to destroy the Uyghur Khaganate in the year 840 AD. From the Yenisei River, the Kyrgyz pushed south and eastward in to Xinjiang and the
Orkhon Valley
The Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape sprawls along the banks of the Orkhon River in Central Mongolia, some 320 km west from the capital Ulaanbaatar. It was inscribed by UNESCO in the World Heritage List as representing the development of ...
in central Mongolia, leaving much of the Uyghur civilization in ruins. Much of the Uyghur population relocated to the southwest of Mongolia, establishing the Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom in Gansu where their descendants are the modern day Yugurs and Qocho Kingdom in Turpan, Xinjiang.
Central Asia
Kangar union (659–750)
The Kangar Union (''Qanghar Odaghu'') was a Turkic people, Turkic state in the former territory of the Western Turkic Khaganate (the entire present-day state of Kazakhstan, without Jetisu, Zhetysu). The capital of the Kangar union was located in the Ulytau mountains. Among the Pechenegs, the Kangar formed the elite of the Pecheneg tribes. After being defeated by the
Kipchaks
The Kipchaks, also spelled Qipchaqs, known as Polovtsians (''Polovtsy'') in Russian annals, were Turkic nomads and then a confederation that existed in the Middle Ages inhabiting parts of the Eurasian Steppe.
First mentioned in the eighth cent ...
,
Oghuz Turks
The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...
, and the
Khazars
The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, a ...
, they migrated west and defeated
Magyars
Hungarians, also known as Magyars, are an ethnic group native to Hungary (), who share a common culture, language and history. They also have a notable presence in former parts of the Kingdom of Hungary. The Hungarian language belongs to the ...
, and after forming an alliance with the
Bulgars
The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic peoples, Turkic Nomad, semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centu ...
, they defeated the Byzantine Army. The Pecheneg state was established by the 11th century and at its peak carried a population of over 2.5 million, composed of many different ethnic groups.
The elite of the Kangar tribes are believed to have had an Indo-Iranians, Iranian origin, and they likely spoke an Iranian language, while most of the Pecheneg population spoke a Turkic language, with a significant percentage speaking Hunno-Bulgar languages, Hunno-Bulgar dialects.
The Yatuks, a tribe within the Kangar state who could not accompany the Kangars as they migrated West, remained in the old lands, where they are known as the Kangly people, who are now part of the Uzbeks, Uzbek, Kazakhs, Kazakh, and Karakalpaks, Karakalpak tribes.
Oghuz Yabgu State (766–1055)
The Oguz Yabgu State (''Oguz il'', meaning "Oguz Land", "Oguz Country")(750–1055) was a Turkic people, Turkic state, founded by
Oghuz Turks
The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...
in 766, located geographically in an area between the coasts of the Caspian Sea, Caspian and Aral Seas. Oguz tribes occupied a vast territory in Kazakhstan along the Irgiz River (Kazakhstan), Irgiz, Yaik, Emba River, Emba, and Uil River, Uil rivers, the Aral Sea area, the Syr Darya valley, the foothills of the Karatau Mountains in Tian Shan, Tien-Shan, and the Chui River valley (see map). The Oguz political association developed in the 9th and 10th centuries in the Syr Darya basin.
Salar Oghuz migration
The Salar people, Salars are descended from Turkmen who migrated from Central Asia and settled in a Tibetan area of Qinghai under Ming Chinese rule. The Salar ethnicity formed and underwent ethnogenesis from a process of male Turkmen migrants from Central Asia marrying Amdo Tibetan people, Tibetan women during the early Ming dynasty.
Iranian, Indian, Arabic, and Anatolian expansion
Turkic peoples and related groups migrated west from present-day
Northeastern China
Northeast China () is a geographical region of China, consisting officially of three provinces Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain, the largest plain in China with an area of over . The regi ...
,
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
,
Siberia
Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
and the
Turkestan
Turkestan,; ; ; ; also spelled Turkistan, is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and East Turkestan (Xinjiang). The region is located in the northwest of modern day China and to the northwest of its ...
-region towards the Iranian plateau, South Asia, and
Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
(modern Turkey) in many waves. The date of the initial expansion remains unknown.
Persia
= Ghaznavid dynasty (977–1186)
=
The Ghaznavid dynasty ( ''ġaznaviyān'') was a Persianate society, Persianate Muslim dynasty of Turkic ''mamluk'' origin, at their greatest extent ruling large parts of Iran, Afghanistan, much of Transoxiana and the northwest Indian subcontinent (part of Pakistan) from 977 to 1186.C.E. Bosworth: ''The Ghaznavids''. Edinburgh, 1963Clifford Edmund Bosworth, C.E. Bosworth, "Ghaznavids", in ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'', Online Edition; Brill, Leiden; 2006/2007 The dynasty was founded by Sabuktigin upon his succession to rule of the region of Ghazni Province, Ghazna after the death of his father-in-law, Alp Tigin, who was a breakaway ex-general of the Samanid Empire from Balkh, north of the Hindu Kush in Greater Khorasan.Encyclopædia Britannica "Ghaznavid Dynasty" Online Edition 2007
Although the dynasty was of Central Asian Turkic origin, it was thoroughly Persianised in terms of language, culture, literature and habits and hence is regarded by some as a "Persian dynasty".
= Seljuk Empire (1037–1194)
=
The Seljuk Empire () or the Great Seljuq Empire was a high medieval Turko-Persian tradition, Turko-Persian Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim empire, originating from the Kınık (tribe), Qiniq branch of
Oghuz Turks
The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...
. At its greatest extent, the Seljuk Empire controlled a vast area stretching from western
Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
and the Levant to the Hindu Kush in the east, and from
Central Asia
Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...
to the Persian Gulf in the south.
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 Greater Khorasan, 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 Mongol Empire, Mongols around 1260. The Mongols divided Anatolia into emirates. Eventually one of these, the Ottoman, would conquer the rest.
= Timurid Empire (1370–1507)
=
The Timurid Empire was a Turko-Mongol empire founded in the late 14th century through military conquests led by Timurlane. The establishment of a cosmopolitan empire was followed by the Timurid Renaissance, a period of local enrichment in mathematics, astronomy, architecture, as well as newfound economic growth. The cultural progress of the Timurid period ended as soon as the empire collapsed in the early 16th century, leaving many intellecuals and artists to turn elsewhere in search of employment.
= Central Asian khanates (1501–1920)
=
The Bukhara Khanate was an Uzbek 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). 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.
= Afsharid dynasty (1736–1796)
=
The Afsharid dynasty was named after the Turkic Afshar tribe to which they belonged. The Afshars had migrated from
Turkestan
Turkestan,; ; ; ; also spelled Turkistan, is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and East Turkestan (Xinjiang). The region is located in the northwest of modern day China and to the northwest of its ...
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. During Nader's reign, Iran reached its greatest extent since the Sassanid Empire.
= Qajar dynasty (1789–1925)
=
The Qajar dynasty was created by the Turkic Qajars (tribe), Qajar tribe, ruling over Iran from 1789 to 1925.Abbas Amanat, ''The Pivot of the Universe: Nasir Al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–1896'', I. B. Tauris, pp 2–3. The Qajar family took full control of Iran in 1794, deposing Lotf 'Ali Khan, the last Shah of the Zand dynasty, and re-asserted Iranian sovereignty over large parts of the
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...
. In 1796, Mohammad Khan Qajar seized Mashhad with ease, putting an end to the Afsharid dynasty, and Mohammad Khan was formally crowned as Shah after his Battle of Krtsanisi, punitive campaign against Iran's Georgian subjects.Michael Axworthy ''Iran: Empire of the Mind: A History from Zoroaster to the Present Day'' Penguin UK, 6 November 2008. In the Caucasus, the Qajar dynasty permanently lost many of Iran's integral areas to the Imperial Russia, Russians over the course of the 19th century, comprising modern-day Georgia (country), Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan and Armenia.Timothy C. Dowling ''Russia at War: From the Mongol Conquest to Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Beyond'' pp 728–730 ABC-CLIO, 2 December 2014 The dynasty was founded by Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar and continued until Ahmad Shah Qajar.
South Asia
The Delhi Sultanate is a term used to cover five short-lived, Delhi-based kingdoms, two of which were of Turkic origins: the Mamluk dynasty (Delhi), Mamluk dynasty (1206–1290) and the Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1414). Southern India saw rise of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, one of the Deccan sultanates.
The Mughal Empire was a Turko-Mongol 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 Turko-Mongol tradition, Turko-Mongol prince named Babur (reigned 1526–1530), who was descended from Timur (Tamerlane) on his father's side and from Chagatai, second son of the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan, on his mother's side.''Encyclopædia Britannica'' articl Mughal Dynasty /ref> A further distinction was the attempt of the Mughals to integrate Hindus and Muslims into a united Indian state.
Arab world
The Arab Muslim Umayyad Caliphate, 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 Abbasids, Abbasid Caliphate, caliphs 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 Ikhshidid dynasty, Ikhshidids in Egypt. The Oghuz Turks, Oghuz and other tribes captured and dominated various countries under the leadership of the Seljuk Turks, Seljuk dynasty and eventually captured the territories of the Abbasid dynasty and the Byzantine Empire.
Anatolia – Ottomans
After many battles, the western
Oghuz Turks
The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...
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.Carter V. Findley, ''The Turks in World History'' (Oxford University Press, October 2004) They also took part in the military encounters of the Crusades. In 1090–91, the Turkic Pechenegs reached the walls of Constantinople, where Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, Alexius I with the aid of the Kipchaks annihilated their army.
As the Seljuk Empire declined following the Mongol invasions, 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.
Islamization
Turkic peoples like the
Karluks
The Karluks (also Qarluqs, Qarluks, Karluqs, , Qarluq, Para-Mongolic languages, Para-Mongol: Harluut, zh, s=葛逻禄, t=葛邏祿 ''Géluólù'' ; customary phonetic: ''Gelu, Khololo, Khorlo'', , ''Khallokh'', ''Qarluq'') were a prominent no ...
Turkmens
Turkmens (, , , ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, living mainly in Turkmenistan, northern and northeastern regions of Iran and north-western Afghanistan. Sizeable groups of Turkmens are found also in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, ...
, and
Kipchaks
The Kipchaks, also spelled Qipchaqs, known as Polovtsians (''Polovtsy'') in Russian annals, were Turkic nomads and then a confederation that existed in the Middle Ages inhabiting parts of the Eurasian Steppe.
First mentioned in the eighth cent ...
later came into contact with Muslims, and most of them gradually adopted Islam. Some groups of Turkic people practice other religions, including their original animistic-shamanistic religion, Christianity, Burkhanism, Judaism (
Khazars
The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, a ...
, Krymchaks, Crimean Karaites), Buddhism, and a small number of Zoroastrianism, Zoroastrians.
Modern history
The Ottoman Empire gradually grew weaker in the face of poor administration, repeated wars with Imperial Russia, 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.
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 Republic of China (1912–49), Chinese Republic. For much of the 20th century, Turkey was the only independent Turkic country.
In 1991, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, five Turkic states gained their independence. These were Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Other Turkic regions such as Tatarstan,
Tuva
Tuva (; ) or Tyva (; ), officially the Republic of Tyva,; , is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia. Tuva lies at the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders the Federal subjects of Russia, federal sub ...
, and Sakha Republic, Yakutia remained in the Russian Federation. Chinese Turkestan remained part of the People's Republic of China. Immediately after the independence of the Turkic states, Turkey began seeking diplomatic relations with them. Over time political meetings between the Turkic countries increased and led to the establishment of International Organization of Turkic Culture, TÜRKSOY in 1993 and the Turkic Council in 2009, which later was renamed Organization of Turkic States in 2021.
Physiognomy
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". However "Chinese histories also depict the Turkic-speaking peoples as typically possessing East/Inner Asian physiognomy, as well as occasionally having West Eurasian physiognomy." According to "fragmentary information on the Xiongnu language that can be found in the Chinese histories, the Xiongnu were Turkic", however historians have been unable to confirm whether or not they were Turkic.
Sima Qian
Sima Qian () was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the ''Shiji'' (sometimes translated into English as ''Records of the Grand Historian''), a general history of China cov ...
's description of their legendary origins suggest their physiognomy was "not too different from that of... Han (漢) Chinese population", but a subset of Xiongnu known as the Jie people were described having "deep-set eyes", "high nose bridges" and "heavy facial hair". The Jie may have been
Yeniseian
The Yeniseian languages ( ; sometimes known as Yeniseic, Yeniseyan, or Yenisei-Ostyak;" Ostyak" is a concept of areal rather than genetic linguistics. In addition to the Yeniseian languages it also includes the Uralic languages of Khanty and ...
, although others maintaining an Iranian peoples, Iranian affiliation, and regardless of whether or not the Xiongnu were Turkic, they were a hybrid people. 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." The Tang dynasty, Tang historian Yan Shigu described the Hu people of his day as "blue-eyed and red bearded" descendants of the Wusun, whereas "no comparable depiction of the Kök Türks or Tiele is found in the official Chinese histories."
Historian Peter Benjamin Golden, Peter Golden has reported that genetic testing of the proposed descendants of the Ashina tribe does seem to confirm a link to the Indo-Iranians, emphasizing that "''the Turks as a whole 'were made up of heterogeneous and somatically dissimilar populations". Historian :tr:Emel Esin, Emel Esin and Professor Xue Zongzheng have argued that West Eurasian features were typical of the royal Ashina tribe, Ashina clan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate and that their appearance shifted to an East Asian one due to intermarriage with foreign nobility. As a result, by the time of Bust of Kul Tigin, Kul Tigin (684 AD), members of the Ashina dynasty had East Asian features. "The Chinese sources of the Göktürk, Kök-Türk period describe the turcophone Kirgiz with green eyes and red hair. They must have been in majority Europeoids although intermarriages with the Chinese had begun long ago. The Kök-Türk kagan Muqan Qaghan, Mu-kan was also depicted with blue eyes and an elongated ruddy face. Probably as a result of the repeated marriages, the members of the Kök-Türk dynasty (pl. XLVII/a), and particularly Kul Tigin, Köl Tigin, had frankly Mongoloid features. Perhaps in the hope of finding an occasion to claim rulership over China, or because the high birth of the mother warranted seniority, the Inner Asian monarchs sought alliances165 with dynasties reigning in China." A 2023 genetic study found that
Empress Ashina
Empress Ashina (阿史那皇后) (551 – 30 May 582) was a Göktürk princess, who became an empress of the Xianbei-led Chinese Northern Zhou dynasty. She was the daughter of Göktürk's third khagan Muqan Qaghan, and her husband was Emperor ...
(568–578 AD), a Royal Göktürk, had nearly entirely Ancient Northeast Asian origin, weakening the "western Eurasian origin and multiple origin hypotheses". 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." They also suggest that many modern Turkic-speaking populations are not directly descended from early Turkic peoples. 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."
Like Chinese historians, Medieval Muslim writers generally depicted the Turks as having an East Asian appearance. Unlike Chinese historians, Medieval Muslim writers used the term "Turk" broadly to refer to not only Turkic-speaking peoples but also various non-Turkic speaking peoples, such as the Hephthalites, Rus' people, Rus, Hungarians, Magyars, and Tibetans. In the 13th century, Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani, Juzjani referred to the people of Tibet and the mountains between Tibet and Bengal as "Turks" and "people with Turkish features." 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", having light-colored, often reddish hair, and with pink skin,: "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." 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 (Ziyarid), Keikavus).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." On Western Turkic Khaganate, 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)". 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. 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".
Al-Masudi writes that the
Oghuz Turks
The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...
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." 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. Khanate of Khiva, 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
Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî bin Ahmed bin Abdülmevlâ Çelebi (lit. ''"Mustafa Ali of Gallipoli son of Ahmed son of Abdülmevla the Godly"''; 28 April 1541 – 1600) was an Ottoman historian, bureaucrat and major literary figure.
Life and work
M ...
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."
Kevin Alan Brook states that like "most nomadic Turks, the Western Turkic
Khazars
The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, a ...
were racially and ethnically mixed." 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." Old East Slavic sources called the Khazars the "White Ugry" and the Magyars the "Black Ugry." Soviet excavated Khazar remains show Slavic-type, European-type, and a minority Mongoloid-type skulls.
The
Yenisei Kyrgyz
The Yenisei Kyrgyz () were an ancient Turkic people who dwelled along the upper Yenisei River in the southern portion of the Minusinsk Depression from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE. The heart of their homeland was the forested T ...
are mentioned in the ''
New Book of Tang
The ''New Book of Tang'', generally translated as the "New History of the Tang" or "New Tang History", is a work of official history covering the Tang dynasty in ten volumes and 225 chapters. The work was compiled by a team of scholars of the So ...
'' as having the same script and language as the
Uyghurs
The Uyghurs,. alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the ti ...
but "The people are all tall and
big and have red hair, white faces, and green eyes." 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, who were later Turkicized through inter-tribal marriages. According to Gardizi, the Kyrgyz were mixed with "Saqlabs" (Slavs), which explains the red hair and white skin among the Kyrgyz, while the ''New Book'' states that the Kyrgyz "intermixed with the Dingling." The Kyrgyz "regarded those with black eyes as descending from [Li] Ling," a
Han dynasty
The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...
general who defected to the Xiongnu.
In a Chinese legal statute from the early period of the Ming dynasty, the
Kipchaks
The Kipchaks, also spelled Qipchaqs, known as Polovtsians (''Polovtsy'') in Russian annals, were Turkic nomads and then a confederation that existed in the Middle Ages inhabiting parts of the Eurasian Steppe.
First mentioned in the eighth cent ...
are described as having blond hair and blue eyes. It also states that they had a "vile" and "peculiar" appearance, and that some Chinese people would not want to marry them. 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
The Kazakhs (Kazakh language, Kazakh: , , , ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia and Eastern Europe. They share a common Culture of Kazakhstan, culture, Kazakh language, language and History of Kazakhstan, history ...
of the Zhuz#Junior zhuz, 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 inference about the genetics of Karakypshaks' medieval ancestors, thus explaining why some medieval Kipchaks were described as possessing "blue [or green] eyes and red hair.
Byzantine historians of the 11th-12th centuries provided description of Turkmens as very different from the Greeks. Bertrandon de la Broquière, a French traveller to the Ottoman Empire, met with sultan Murad II in Adrianople, and described him in the following terms: "In the first place, as I have seen him frequently, I shall say that he is a little, short, thick man, with the physiognomy of a Tatars, Tartar. He has a broad and brown face, high cheek bones, a round beard, a great and crooked nose, with little eyes".
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.
The TAKM – Organization of the Eurasian Law Enforcement Agencies with Military Status, was established on 25 January 2013. It is an Intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental military law enforcement (gendarmerie) organization of currently three Turkic countries (Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey) and Kazakhstan as observer.
TÜRKSOY
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.
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.
Organization of Turkic States
The Organization of Turkic States, founded on 3 November 2009, by the ''Nakhchivan Agreement'' confederation, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey, aims to integrate these organizations into a tighter geopolitical framework.
The member countries are Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. 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. Turkmenistan also joined as an observer state to the organization at 8th summit. Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was admitted to the organization as observer member at the 2022 Organization of Turkic States summit, 2022 Samarkand Summit.
Demographics
The distribution of people of Turkic cultural background ranges from
Siberia
Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
, across Central Asia, to Southern Europe. the largest groups of Turkic people live throughout Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan, in addition to Turkey and Iran. Additionally, Turkic people are found within Crimea, Altishahr region of western
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, northern Iraq, Israel, Russia, Afghanistan, Cyprus, and the Balkans: Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and former Yugoslavia.
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. 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
The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...
, Kipchaks, Kipchak, Karluks, Karluk,
Siberia
Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
n, Chuvash people, Chuvash, and Sakha language, Sakha/Yakut branches. The Oghuz have been termed Western Turks, while the remaining five, in such a classificatory scheme, are called Eastern Turks.
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.
Historical population:
The following incomplete list of Turkic people shows the respective groups' core areas of settlement and their estimated sizes (in millions):
Cuisine
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, ''kaymak, qaymaq'' (similar to clotted cream), Kumis, qi̅mi̅z (fermented mare's milk) and ''qurut'' (dried yoghurt). During the Middle Ages Kazakh cuisine, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tatar cuisine, Tatars, who were historically part of the Turkic nomadic group known as the Golden Horde, continued to develop new variations of dairy products.
Nomadic Turks cooked their meals in a ''Kazan (cookware), 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 (food), manti''. They also used a ''saj'', a griddle that was traditionally placed on stones over a fire, and ''skewer, 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''.
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.
There are many types of bread doughs in Turkic cuisine. ''Saj bread, Yupqa'' is the thinnest type of dough, ''Bawirsaq, bawi̅rsaq'' is a type of fried bread dough, and ''Shelpek, 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 Börek, böräk is a type of filled pie pastry.
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 halal, Islamic dietary restrictions, historically Turkic nomads also had a variety of blood sausage. One type of sausage, called ''Qazı, 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. ''Kavurma, Qawirma'' is a typical fried meat dish, and ''kullama'' is a soup of noodles and lamb.
Religion
Early Turkic mythology and Tengrism
Early Turkic mythology was dominated by Shamanism in Central Asia, Shamanism, Animism and Tengrism. The Turkic animistic traditions were mostly focused on ancestor worship, Polytheism, polytheistic-animism and shamanism. Later this animistic tradition would form the more organized Tengrism. The chief deity was Tengri, a sky god, worshipped by the upper classes of early Turkic society until Manichaeism was introduced as the official religion of the
Uyghur Empire
The Uyghur Khaganate (also Uyghur Empire or Uighur Khaganate, self defined as Toquz-Oghuz country; , Tang-era names, with modern Hanyu Pinyin: or ) was a Turkic empire that existed for about a century between the mid 8th and 9th centuries. It ...
in 763.
The gray wolf, wolf symbolizes honour and is also considered the mother of most Turkic peoples.
Ashina Ashina may refer to:
*Ashina tribe, a ruling dynasty of the Turkic Khaganate
*Ashina clan (Japan)
is a Japanese clans, Japanese clan that emerged during the Sengoku period.Edmond Papinot, Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire ...
is the wolf mother of Tumen Il-Qağan, the first Khan of the
Göktürks
The Göktürks (; ), also known as Türks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks, were a Turkic people in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main powe ...
. The horse and bird of prey, predatory birds, such as the eagle or falcon, are also main figures of Turkic mythology.
Religious conversions
Buddhism
Buddhism played an important role in the history of Turkic peoples, with the first Turkic state adopting and supporting the spread of Buddhism being the Turkic Shahis and the Göktürks. The Göktürks syncretized Buddhism with their traditional religion Tengrism and also incorporated elements of the Iranian traditional religions, such as Zoroastrianism. Buddhism had its height among the
Uyghurs
The Uyghurs,. alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the ti ...
in the Xinjiang region. Buddhism had also considerable impact and influence onto various other historical Turkic groups. In pre-Islamic times, Buddhism and Tengrism coexisted, with several Buddhist temples, monasteries, figures and steles, with images of Buddhist characters and sceneries, were constructed by various Turkic tribes. Throughout Kazakhstan, there exist various historical Buddhist sites, including an underground Buddhist cave monastery. After the Arab expansion, Arab conquest of Central Asia, and the spread of Islam among locals, Buddhism (and Tengrism) started to lose ground, however a certain influence of the Buddhist teachings remained during the next centuries.
Tengri Bögü Khan initially made the now extinct Manichaeism the state religion of the Uyghur Khaganate in 763 and it was also popular among the
Karluks
The Karluks (also Qarluqs, Qarluks, Karluqs, , Qarluq, Para-Mongolic languages, Para-Mongol: Harluut, zh, s=葛逻禄, t=葛邏祿 ''Géluólù'' ; customary phonetic: ''Gelu, Khololo, Khorlo'', , ''Khallokh'', ''Qarluq'') were a prominent no ...
. It was gradually replaced by the Mahayana Buddhism. It existed in the Buddhist Uyghur Gaochang up to the 12th century.
Tibetan Buddhism, or Vajrayana was the main religion after Manichaeism. They worshipped Buddha, Täŋri Täŋrisi Burxan, Guanyin, Quanšï Im Pusar and Maitreya, Maitri Burxan. Turkic Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent and west Xinjiang attributed with a rapid and almost total disappearance of it and other religions in North India and Central Asia. The Yugur, Sari Uygurs "Yellow Yughurs" of Western China, as well as the
Tuvans
The Tuvans (from Russian ) or Tyvans (from Tuvan ) are a Turkic ethnic group indigenous to Siberia that live in Tuva, Mongolia, and China. They speak the Tuvan language, a Siberian Turkic language. In Mongolia, they are regarded as one ...
of Russia are the only remaining Buddhist Turkic peoples.
Islam
Most Turkic people today are Sunni Muslims, although a significant number in Turkey are Alevis. Alevi Turks, who were once primarily dwelling in eastern Anatolia, are today concentrated in major urban centers in western Turkey with the increased urbanism. Turkic Sunni Muslims generally follow the Hanafi rite. Azeris are traditionally Shiite Muslims. Religious observance is less strict in the Republic of Azerbaijan compared to Iranian Azerbaijan.
Islam first made contact with the Turkic peoples in 642, when Muslim armies crossed the Amu Darya after toppling the Sassanid Empire the year before. Some of the earliest rulers to convert to Islam were the Turkic princes of the city-states in the region of Sogdiana. Mass conversions did not take place until the Battle of Talas in 751, in which Turkic tribes sided with the Arabs against Chinese forces, which marked a significant milestone in the history of Islam in the region. From then onwards much of the Turkic heartland became Muslim. In the 19th century, Turkic Muslim progressives in the Russian Empire spearheaded a reformist movement called Jadidism, calling for a return to basic Islamic beliefs while simultaneously accepting modernist trends.
Christianity
The major Christian-Turkic peoples are the Chuvash people, Chuvash of Chuvash Republic, Chuvashia and the Gagauz people, Gagauz (''Gökoğuz'') of Moldova, the vast majority of Chuvash people, Chuvash and the Gagauz people, Gagauz are Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christians. The traditional religion of the Chuvash people, 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. 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. Between the 9th and 14th centuries, Church of the East was popular among Turks such as the
Naimans
The Naiman (; ; Kazakh and , ), meaning The Eight, was a medieval tribe originating in the territory of modern Western Mongolia (possibly during the time of the Uyghur Khaganate), and is one of the 92 tribes of Uzbeks, modern Mongols and in the ...
. It even revived in Gaochang and expanded in Xinjiang in the Yuan dynasty period. It disappeared after its collapse.
Kryashens are a sub-group of the Volga Tatars, and the vast majority are Russian Orthodoxy, Orthodox Christians. Nağaybäk are an indigenous Turkic people in Russia, most Nağaybäk are Christian and were largely converted during the 18th century. Many Volga Tatars were Christianized by Ivan IV of Russia, Ivan the Terrible during the 16th century, and continued to Christianized under subsequent Russian rulers and Orthodox clergy up to the mid-eighteenth century.
Animism
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
Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...
converted or openly practice animistic and shamanistic rituals. It is estimated that about 60% of
Kyrgyz people
The Kyrgyz people (also spelled Kyrghyz, Kirgiz, and Kirghiz; or ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia. They primarily reside in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and China. A Kyrgyz diaspora is also found in Russia, Tajik ...
practice a form of animistic rituals. In Kazakhstan there are about 54,000 followers of the ancient traditions.
Muslim Turks and non-Muslim Turks
The Uyghur Turks, who once belonged to a variety of religions, were gradually Islamized during a period spanning the 10th and 13th centuries. Some scholars have linked the phenomenon of recently Islamized Uyghur soldiers recruited by the
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire was the List of largest empires, largest contiguous empire in human history, history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Euro ...
to the slow conversion of Uyghur populations to Islam.
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!''
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
The Tuhsis were a medieval Turkic-speaking tribe, who lived alongside the Chigil, Yagma, and other tribes, in Zhetysu and today southern Kazakhstan.
Origins
Tuhsi were considered remnants of the Türgesh people. Turkologist Yury Zuev noted ...
, Yaghma, Çiğil and Karluk.
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. The Yabaqu were a Turkic people.
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". 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.
Old sports
Tepuk
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. (see also: Cuju)
Kyz kuu
Kyz kuu (chase the girl) has been played by Turkic people at festivals since time immemorial.
Jereed
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.
Kokpar
The Buzkashi, 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.
Jigit
"Dzhigit, jigit" is used in the Caucasus and Central Asia to describe a skillful and brave equestrian, or a brave person in general.
Gallery
Battle, hunting and blacksmithing scenes in Turkic rock art of the early Middle Ages in Altai
File:Turk_vassal_blacksmiths_under_Mongolian_rule.jpg, Turk vassal blacksmiths under Mongolian rule
File:Turkic hunting scene, Gokturk period Altai.png, Turkic hunting scene, Gokturk period Altai
File:Battle scene of a Turkic horseman with typical long hair (Gokturk period, Altai).png, Battle scene of a Turkic horseman with typical long hair (Gokturk period, Altai)
Bezeklik caves and Mogao grottoes
Images of Buddhist and Manichean Uyghur Khanate, Old Uyghurs from the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, Bezeklik caves and Mogao Caves, Mogao grottoes.
File:Dunhuang Uighur king.jpg, Old Uyghur king from Turfan, from the murals at the Dunhuang Mogao Caves.
File:Uighur prince from Bezeklik murals.jpg, Old Uyghur prince from the Bezeklik murals.
File:Uighur woman from Bezeklik murals.jpg, Old Uyghur woman from the Bezeklik murals.
File:UighurPrincess.png, Old Uyghur Princess.
File:Museum für Indische Kunst Dahlem Berlin Mai 2006 064.jpg, Old Uyghur Princesses from the Bezeklik murals.
File:Museum für Indische Kunst Dahlem Berlin Mai 2006 063.jpg, Old Uyghur Princes from the Bezeklik murals.
File:Uigure-bezeklik-17.jpg, Old Uyghur Prince from the Bezeklik murals.
File:Uigure-bezeklik-19.jpg, Old Uyghur noble from the Bezeklik murals.
File:Manichaean Temple Banner (MIK III 6283).jpg, Old Uyghur Manichaeism, Manichaean Elect depicted on a temple banner from Qocho.
File:Museum für Indische Kunst Dahlem Berlin Mai 2006 067.jpg, Old Uyghur donor from the Bezeklik murals.
File:ManichaeanElectaeKocho10thCentury.jpg, Old Uyghur Manichaean Electae from Qocho.
File:Museum für Indische Kunst Dahlem Berlin Mai 2006 066.jpg, Old Uyghur Manichaean clergymen from Qocho.
File:Museum für Indische Kunst Dahlem Berlin Mai 2006 061.jpg, Murals from the Christian temple at Qocho, Fresco of Palm Sunday from Qocho.
File:Manicheans.jpg, Manicheans from Qocho
Medieval times
File:Omurtag1.jpg, Khan Omurtag of Old Great Bulgaria, Bulgaria, from the Chronicle of John Skylitzes.
File:Portrait from the Palace courtroom, Lashkari Bazar.jpg, Ghaznavid portrait, Palace of Lashkari Bazar.
Modern times
File:Azerigirls.JPG, Azerbaijani people, Azerbaijani girls in traditional dress.
File:Young bashqorts.jpg, Bashkirs, Bashkir boys in national dress.
File:Головной убор чувашской девушки тухъя. XIX век. Средненизовая этнографическая группы (анат енчи).jpg, A Chuvashes, Chuvash girl in traditional dress.
File:Хакасы.JPG, Khakas people with traditional instruments.
File:Ногайцы 01.jpg, Nogais, Nogai man in national costume.
File:Dursunbey yerelkıyafeti.JPG, Turkish girls in their traditional clothes, Dursunbey, Balikesir Province.
File:Turkman girl in national dress.jpg, Turkmens, Turkmen girl in national dress.
File:Мөгелер биле Даңгыналар2. 2016.jpg, Tuvans, Tuvan men and women in Kyzyl,
Tuva
Tuva (; ) or Tyva (; ), officially the Republic of Tyva,; , is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia. Tuva lies at the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders the Federal subjects of Russia, federal sub ...
.
File:Kazakh man in traditional costume.jpg, Kazakhs, Kazakh man in traditional clothing.
File:Samsa or Somsa in Uzbekistan.jpg, Uzbeks, Uzbek with traditional cuisine.
File:KyrgyzEagleHuntsman.jpg, Kyrgyz traditional eagle hunter.
File:Tuvan shamans19.jpg, Tuvans, Tuvan traditional shaman.
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*
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External links
at University of Michigan
{{Authority control
Turkic peoples,
Ethnic groups in China
Central Asian people
Nomadic groups in Eurasia