Turks
Total population:	c. 64,600,000
Significant populations in:	Turkey:    58,700,000 Germany:    2,500,000 [1] Bulgaria:    850,000 France:    400,000 [2] Netherlands:    350,000 [3] Austria:    250,000 [4] Cyprus:    230,000 Uzbekistan:    200,000 Macedonia:    200,000 Greece:    152,000 Romania:    150,000 Belgium:    150,000 [5] United Kingdom:    150,000 [6] USA:     117,575 [7] Australia:    90,000 Switzerland:    80,000 [8] Kosovo:    20,000 Kosovo (Serbian: Косово и Метохија / Kosovo i Metohija, Albanian: Kosovë / Kosova) is a province of Serbia. ...
Language:	Turkish
Religion:	Muslim or nominally Muslim. Small numbers of adherents of Christianity, Judaism, atheism/agnosticism, Others
Related ethnic groups:	Other Turkic peoples

The modern Turks of Turkey (or simply Turkish people) are an amalgamation of a wide variety of peoples including indigenous Anatolians and migrants from the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Levant, Central Asia and various other places. Mainly, what is debated about the Turks of Turkey involves how much of a relationship they have with other Turkic peoples and their neighbors which may give insights into the whether or not most Turks are mainly Greek and Armenian converts who were ‘turkified’ over time or invaders from elsewhere, most notably Central Asia. Historians, anthropologists, and geneticists have all made contributions that require some explanation as to who the Turks of Turkey are. Islām is described as a dÄ«n, meaning way of life and/or guidance. Six articles of belief There are six basic beliefs shared by all Muslims: 1. ... See also: Timeline of Christianity Beliefs Jesus crucifixion as portrayed by Diego Velázquez. ... Over at least the last two thousand years, Judaism has not been monolithic in practice, and has not had any centralized authority or binding dogma. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Nontheism. ... Agnosticism is the philosophical view that the truth values of certain claims—particularly theological claims regarding the existence of God, gods, or deities—are unknown, inherently unknowable, or incoherent, and therefore, (some agnostics may go as far to say) irrelevant to life. ... Turkic peoples are Northern and Central Eurasian peoples who speak languages belonging to the Turkic family, and who, in varying degrees, share certain cultural and historical traits. ... Alternate meaning: crucible (science) The melting pot is a metaphor for the way in which heterogenous societies develop, in which the ingredients in the pot (iron, tin; people of different backgrounds and religions, etc. ... The Entholinguistic patchwork of the modern Caucasus - CIA map The Caucasus, a region bordering Asia Minor, is located between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea which includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands. ... The Balkans is the historic and geographic name used to describe a region of south-eastern Europe. ... The Levant Levant is an imprecise geographical term historically referring to a large area in the Middle East south of the Taurus Mountains, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the west, and by the northern Arabian Desert and Upper Mesopotamia to the east. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Turkic peoples are Northern and Central Eurasian peoples who speak languages belonging to the Turkic family, and who, in varying degrees, share certain cultural and historical traits. ...

A brief historical overview

The country of Turkey has been the site of wide variety of empires and has literally been a crossroads for much of Eurasia. Some of the earliest known inhabitants include the Hattians also known as Hattis, 2500-2000 BCE, who were quite possibly an aboriginal people of Anatolia. They were followed by the Hittites, 2000-1750 BCE, an Indo-European people from the steppes of modern Russia and the Ukraine, who merged with the local population. Later invaders included Phrygians, Lydians, Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds, Greeks, Romans, Galatians, Byzantines, Mongols, and of course Turkic tribes. It is perhaps not inconceivable that each of these invaders and groups contributed to the modern identity of the Turks, but not in an equitable manner. African-Eurasian aspect of Earth Eurasia is the landmass composed of the continents of Europe and Asia. ... The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the land of Hatti in Asia Minor in the 3rd to 2nd millennia BC. They spoke a non-Indo-European language of uncertain affiliation called Hattic (now believed by some to be related to the Northwest Caucasian language group). ... Hatti is the reconstructed ancient name of a region in Anatolia inhabited by the Hattians between the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, and later by the Hittites, who were at the height of their power ca 1400 BC–1200 BC. The capital city of both peoples was Hattusa (modern Bogazköy... Relief of Suppiluliuma II, last known king of the Hittite Empire “Hittites” is the conventional English-language term for an ancient people who spoke an Indo-European language and established a kingdom centered in Hattusa (Hittite Hattushash) where today is the village of BoÄŸazköy in north-central Turkey... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies Indo-European is originally a linguistic term, referring to the Indo-European language family. ... In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of the Anatolian highlands, part of modern Turkey. ... See 110 Lydia for the asteroid. ... It has been suggested that Assyrian people be merged into this article or section. ... Kurds are one of the Iranian peoples and speak Kurdish, a north-Western Iranian language related to Persian. ... The Roman Forum was the central area around which ancient Rome developed. ... The Epistle to Galatians is a book of the Bible New Testament. ... Byzantine Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered around its capital in Constantinople. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Turkic peoples are Northern and Central Eurasian peoples who speak languages belonging to the Turkic family, and who, in varying degrees, share certain cultural and historical traits. ...

Ultimately, the linguistic contribution of the Turkic tribes cannot be ignored. The Oğuz were the main Turkic people who moved into Anatolia after 1072 CE (following the Battle of Manzikert that resulted in victory for the forces of Alp Arslan and defeat for the Byzantines) as they gained political and military dominance in the region but remained for centuries (demographically speaking) a relatively small part of the population. Anatolia, which was formerly a part of the Byzantine Empire, was (and still is) especially an ethnically very mixed region where the official religion was Greek Orthodox, with many adherents of other Christian churches or syncretist movements, as well as Jews and the formerly Zoroastrian and Christian Kurds. Over time, as word spread regarding the victory of the Turks in Anatolia, more Turkic ghazis arrived from the Caucasus, Arab lands, and Central Asia. These groups in turn merged with the local inhabitants (who were, at the time, largely Greek, Armenian, and Kurdish) as a slow process of conversion to Islam took place, thanks in large measure to the efforts of the sufis, that helped to bolster the Turkish-speaking population. While most historians believe that the actual migration of Turks was relatively small, genetic testing has revealed that as much as 30% of the gene pool is derived from Central Asian Turks.[9] These migrations and later populations movements would continue to impact the modern Turkish people as the rise of the Ottoman Empire made Turkey into a world power and a focal point for a wide variety of peoples. Following invasions of Europe, numerous Balkan peoples either moved to Turkey or were brought to Turkey as slaves as were people from throughout the Arab world, the Caucasus, Eurasia, and North Africa. Fairly limited sub-Saharan ancestry appears to have penetrated Turkey due to the use of eunuchs but is not by any means absent, while the contribution of the Roma appears more substantial following their migration into and through the region. The Oghuz Turks (also with various alternate spellings, including Oguz, OÄŸuz, Ouz, Okuz, Oufoi, Guozz and Ghuzz) are regarded as one of the major branches of Turkic peoples. ... The Battle of Manzikert (Turkish Malazgirt Savaşı) occurred on August 26, 1071 between the Byzantine Empire and Seljuk Turkish forces led by Alp Arslan, resulting in the defeat of the Byzantine Empire and the capture of Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes. ... Muhammed ben Daud (1029 – December 15, 1072), the second sultan of the dynasty of Seljuk Turks, in Persia, and great-grandson of Seljuk, the founder of the dynasty. ... Zoroastrianism was adapted from an earlier, polytheistic faith by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) in Persia very roughly around 1000 BC (although, in the absence of written records, some scholars estimates are as late as 600 BC). ... As a noun, Christian is an appellation and moniker deriving from the appellation Christ, which many people associate exclusively with Jesus of Nazareth. ... Ghazi (March 21, 1912 - April 4, 1939) was king of Iraq from 1933 to 1939. ... Sufism (Arabic تصوف taṣawwuf) is a system of esoteric philosophy commonly associated with Islam. ... Imperial motto (Ottoman Turkish) Devlet-i Ebed-müddet (the Eternal State) The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power Official language Ottoman Turkish Capital Bursa (1335 - 1365), Edirne (1365-1453), Ä°stanbul (Constantinople) (1453-1922) Imperial anthem Ottoman imperial anthem Sovereigns Padishah of the Osmanli Dynasty Population ca 40... A eunuch is a castrated human male. ... This article needs copyediting (checking for proper English spelling, grammar, usage, tone, style, and voice). ...

While perhaps less than one-third of those who self-identify as ethnic Turks in Turkey today are predominantly of Altaic origin, the remainder are actually an amalgamation of Turkified Greeks, Armenians, Roma, Georgians, Kurds, Slavs, Assyrians and other peoples. Islam spread slowly over many generations either through voluntary or forced conversions; many poor families chose to become Muslims in order to escape a special tax levied on conquered millet peoples or for reasons of upward mobility. Another common motivation was to escape the devşirme system for recruiting Janissaries to the Ottoman forces, and the similar institution of using dhimmi children to serve as odalisques or köçeks in the Ottoman harems or as tellaks in the hammams. Conversion to Islam was usually accompanied by the adoption of Ottoman-Turkish language and identity and eventual acceptance into the mainstream population, because conversion was generally irreversible and resulted in ostracism from the original ethnic group. Altaic is a putative language family which would include 60 languages spoken by about 250 million people, mostly in and around central Asia. ... Alternate meaning: crucible (science) The melting pot is a metaphor for the way in which heterogenous societies develop, in which the ingredients in the pot (iron, tin; people of different backgrounds and religions, etc. ... Assimilation is the process of integration whereby immigrants, or other minority groups, are absorbed into a generally larger community. ... This article needs copyediting (checking for proper English spelling, grammar, usage, tone, style, and voice). ... Kurds are one of the Iranian peoples and speak Kurdish, a north-Western Iranian language related to Persian. ... The Slavic peoples are the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe. ... It has been suggested that Assyrian people be merged into this article or section. ... Islām is described as a dÄ«n, meaning way of life and/or guidance. Six articles of belief There are six basic beliefs shared by all Muslims: 1. ... Religious conversion is the adoption of new religious beliefs that differ from the converts previous beliefs; in some cultures (e. ... In states ruled by Islamic law, jizya or jizyah (Arabic: جزْية) is a per capita tax imposed on non-Muslim adult males. ... Millet (stress on the e) is an Ottoman Turkish term for a legally protected religious minority. ... Devshirmeh (Turkish devÅŸirme) refers to the system used by the Ottoman sultans to tax newly conquered states, and build a loyal slave army and class of administrators: the Janissaries. ... YOUNG GREEKS AT THE MOSQUE - This oil painting done by Jean Léon Gérôme portrays Greek Christian Youths who were taken from their parents and converted to Islam and given the finest training to became the elite of the army (Turkish yeniceri, “recruit”) Janissaries - oil painting on canvas... A Dhimmi, or Zimmi (Arabic ذمّي), as defined in classical Islamic legal and political literature, is a person living in a Muslim state who is a member of an officially tolerated non-Islamic religion. ... Odalisque with a slave by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, painted 1840. ... The köçek phenomenon is considered to be one of the most significant symbols of Ottoman Empire culture. ... The Ottoman Turks were the ethnic subdivision of the Turkish people who dominated the ruling class of the Ottoman Empire. ... In traditional Arab culture, the harîm حريم (cf. ... Tellak Detail of an illustration from the Hubanname (The Book of the Handsome Ones), an 18th century homoerotic work by the Turkish poet Fazyl bin Tahir Enderuni. ... The Turkish hammam (also Turkish bath or hamam) is the Turkish variant of a steam bath, which can be categorized as a wet relative of the sauna. ... Shunning is the act of deliberately avoiding association with an individual. ...

An exception is the the Hamshenis, Armenian Christians converted to Islam in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries, still keep some Christian traditions and retain the use of two distinct Armenian dialects but reject Armenian ethnic or national identity whereas their Laz neighbours name them "Ermeni", the Turkish term for Armenians. There are also some Pontic Greek-speaking Muslims. Hamsheni elder from BaÅŸ HemÅŸin Hamshenis (Turkish HemÅŸinli(ler)) are a distinct ethnic group (of Armenian origin) in the Black Sea region of Turkey. ... The term Greek-speaking Muslims corresponds to three diverse groups of people currently living in Turkey: 1. ...

Throughout its history, the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish republic welcomed altogether USSR and later the war-torn Afghanistan, Balkan Muslims, either Turkish-speaking or Bosniaks, Pomaks, Albanians, Greek Muslims etc., fleeing either the new Christian states hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of

• Spanish and Portuguese Jews after 1492;
• political and confessional refugees from Central Europe: Russian schismatics in XVII-XVIIIth centuries, Polish and Hungarian revolutionaries after 1848, Jews escaping the pogroms and later the Shoah, White Russians fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Russian and other socialist or communist revolutionaries, Trotskyists fleeing the USSR in the 1930's;
• Muslim refugees (Muhajir) from formerly Muslim-dominated regions invaded by Christian States, like Tatars, Circassians and Chechens from the Russian Empire, Algerian followers of Abd-el-Kader, Mahdists from Sudan, Turkmens, Kazakhs, Kirghizs and other Central Asian Turkic-speaking peoples fleeing the or later the Communist regimes, in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria for instance.

The Modern Turks

Ultimately, it is absurd to speak of any ‘Turkish race’ in the tangled ethnic web of Anatolia. Race as a genetic-based social category that is in any case a concept of the XIXth century, no longer accepted by social scientists.

As a matter of fact, most present-day Turks are the offspring of all sorts of populations whose original languages have sometimes been extinct several centuries ago. Among the Black Sea Turkish intellectuals there have been in the last few years a revival of interest for the forgotten ethnic and religious identities of many ancesters who feared to pass on any non-Turkish or non-Muslim traditions to their children from fear of a rehearsal of past massacres and genocides. The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Black Sea website based on the research by Özhan Öztürk, but also the books of Ömer Asan and Selma Koçiva (see also her site at http://www.lazuri.com/ only in Turkish and Laz languages) are good illustrations ot this trend, unthinkable 5 years ago and still under attack of (right- and left-wing) Turkish nationalists who label it as pure "national treason" and "betrayal of Atatürk's heritage".

There have also been through the XIXth and XXth centuries, and still nowadays, rumors of the existence, mostly in rural and small town areas, of large populations of Crypto-Christians and Crypto-Jews, notably among the Dönme, descendents of Sabbatai Zevi's followers who had to convert en masse following Zevi's example.

The Turks of Turkey can be broken down into a variety of segments and the majority of self-identifying Turks include four main groupings: Rumelian Turks who are mostly of Balkan origin, Anatolian Turks who compose the bulk of ethnic Turks found in Anatolia, Central Asian Turks who remain a large segment of the population that has been moving to Turkey for centuries, and Eurasian Turks from Russia and the Caucasus such as the Tatars and Azerbaijanis. These Turks share similar languages and cultures, while individual Turks may identify with distinct parentage as well such as being part-Circassian or part-Arab etc. Turks of Bulgaria The Turks of Bulgaria have lived in the Balkans since the end of the 14 century, after the Ottoman Empire began to establish its existance on the Rumelian soil. ... Anatolian can refer to: Someone or something from Anatolia The Anatolian Shepherd Dog This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Tatar dance - Tatar (left) fighting with the soldier of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (right). ...

Turkish phenotypes and diversity

While the majority of Turks do bear a common brunette Mediterranean appearance similar to that of neighboring countries, there are large visible exceptions that are a testament to the legacy of population movements into the region. People walking in a Turkish street or watching a Turkish movie can see Turks of about all physical types prevalent in the country, from the blond haired and-blue-eyed to the Asiatic Mongol individuals, and even people with some partial black African roots, from the times when the Ottoman Empire stretched into Sudan. Turkey, like so many other vast former imperialist powers such as the Romans and the British, in part reflects its imperial past. The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ...

Proving the difficulty of classifying ethnicities living in Turkey, there are as many classifications as the number of scientific attempts to make these classifications. Turkey is not a unique example for that and many European countries (e.g. France, Germany) bear a similar ethnic diversity. So, the immense variety observed in the published figures for the percentages of Turkish people living in Turkey (ranging from 75 to 97%) totally depends on the method used to classify the ethnicities. Complicating the matter even more is the fact that the last official and country-wide classification of spoken languages (which do not exactly coincide with ethnic groups) in Turkey that was performed in 1965 and many of the figures published after that time are remain static estimates. It is necessary to take into account all these difficulties and be cautious while evaluating the ethnic identity of the Turks of Turkey. A possible comprehensive list of ethnic origins for Turks living in Turkey could be as follows (based on the classification of P.A. Andrews (1), however this book is more like a review and depends on other people's publications):

1. Turkic-speaking peoples: Kirghizs, Karakalpaks, Turkmens, Kazakhs, Kumyks, Yürüks, Uzbeks, Tatars, Azeris, Balkars, Uighurs, Karachays.
2. Kurds and Zazas
3. Arabs and Assyrians
4. Georgians and Laz
5. Armenians and Hamshenis
6. Greeks, Pontic Greeks and Greek-speaking Muslims
7. Other Muslim groups originally from the Balkans (Bulgarians, Albanians, Serbians, Croatians, Romanians and Bosniaks): These people migrated to Anatolia during the Ottoman Era as well as following recent upheaveals in Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia and most have been assumed to accept a Turkish-Muslim identity.
8. Circassians and Chechens
9. Others: There are small groups and individuals from all over the world living in Turkey, either remnants of past migrations (there is for instance a village near the Bosphorus named Adampol in Polish, Polonezköy, "the Polish village", in Turkish) or witnesses of contemporary mass migrations towards the European Union and its periphery (there are also illegal migrants camps with thousands of Africans and others intercepted while trying to embark, or swimming from the wreckage of overpopulated small boats, for the Greek or Italian shores).

Yugoslavia (Jugoslavija in all south Slavic languages, in Cyrillic Југославија) is a term used for three separate but successive political entities that existed during most of the 20th century on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe. ...

References

• Bosworth, Clifford E. The History of the Seljuq Turks: From the Jami al-Tawarikh.
• Findley, Carter Vaughn. The Turks in World History.
• Petkova, Lilia. The Ethnic Turks in Bulgaria: Social Integration and Impact on Bulgaria-Turkish Relations, 1947-2000.
• Shaw, George Stanford. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey.
• Ethnologue report for the Turkish language
• DNA Diversity in Turkey
• Germany's Second Doubts Abouts its Turkish population
• Mitochondrial DNA sequence variation in the Anatolian Peninsula (Turkey)
• The NGM Study "Who were the Phoenicians" and the Return of the Phoenicians (includes links of modern Turks and some ties to the Ancient Phoencians)
• Turkey: Country Studies from the US Library of Congress
• BBC News Country Profile for Turkey
• Council of Europe's Turkey Page

See also

• Balkan Turks
• Turkish Cypriots
• Oghuz Turks
• Ottoman Turks
• Ottoman Turkish language
• History of ethnic Turks of Turkey
• Demographics of Germany
• Demographics of Bulgaria
• Demographics of Cyprus
• Demographics of Greece
• Demographics of Macedonia