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Turkic peoples

The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.[37][38]

Turkic peoples
The distribution of the Turkic languages
Total population
Over 170 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
 Turkey60,000,000–65,000,000[2][3]
 Uzbekistan31,900,000[4][additional citation(s) needed]
 Iran15,000,000–20,000,000[5][6] (18% of population[7])
 Russia12,751,502[citation needed]
 Kazakhstan12,300,000[8][additional citation(s) needed]
 China11,647,000[9][additional citation(s) needed]
 Azerbaijan10,000,000[10][additional citation(s) needed]
European Union5,876,318[citation needed] (Bulgaria 508,375[11])
 Afghanistan4,600,000–5,300,000 (2017)[12][13]
 Turkmenistan4,233,600[14][15][16][note 1]
 Kyrgyzstan4,500,000[19][additional citation(s) needed]
 Iraq3,000,000[20][21]
 Tajikistan1,200,000[22][additional citation(s) needed]
 United States1,000,000+[23]
 Syria800,000–1,000,000+[24]
 Ukraine398,600[25]
 Northern Cyprus313,626[26]
 Australia59,488[27] (Turkish)
 Mongolia135,618[28][29]
 Lebanon200,000[30][31][32][33]
 Moldova126,010[34]
 North Macedonia81,900[35][36]
Languages
Turkic languages
Religion
Various religions

According to historians and linguists, the Proto-Turkic language originated in Central-East Asia,[39] potentially in Altai-Sayan region, Mongolia or Tuva.[40][41][42] Initially, Proto-Turkic speakers were potentially both hunter-gatherers and farmers; they later became nomadic pastoralists.[43] Early and medieval 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, Mongolic, Tocharian, Uralic and Yeniseian peoples.[44]

Many vastly differing ethnic groups have throughout history become part of the Turkic peoples through language shift, acculturation, conquest, intermixing, adoption, and religious conversion.[1] Nevertheless, Turkic peoples share, to varying degrees, non-linguistic characteristics like cultural traits, ancestry from a common gene pool, and historical experiences.[1] Some of the most notable modern Turkic ethnic groups include the Altai people, Azerbaijanis, Chuvash people, Gagauz people, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz people, Turkmens, Turkish people, Tuvans, Uyghurs, Uzbeks, and Yakuts.

Etymology

 
Map from Kashgari's Diwan (11th century), showing the distribution of Turkic tribes.
 
Bust of Kul Tigin (AD 684–731), prince of the Second Turkic Khaganate, found in Khashaat, Arkhangai Province, Orkhon River valley. National Museum of Mongolia.

The first known mention of the term Turk (Old Turkic: 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 Türük or 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰:𐰜𐰇𐰛 Kök Türük, Chinese: 突厥, Pinyin: Tūjué < Middle Chinese *tɦut-kyat < *dwət-kuɑt, Old Tibetan: drugu)[45][46][47][48] applied to only one Turkic group, namely, the Göktürks,[49] who were also mentioned, as türüg ~ török, in the 6th-century Khüis Tolgoi inscription, most likely not later than 587 AD.[50][51][52] A letter by Ishbara Qaghan to Emperor Wen of Sui in 585 described him as "the Great Turk Khan".[53][54] The Bugut (584 CE) and Orkhon inscriptions (735 CE) use the terms Türküt, Türk and Türük.[55]

During the first century CE, Pomponius Mela refers to the Turcae in the forests north of the Sea of Azov, and Pliny the Elder lists the Tyrcae among the people of the same area.[56][57][58] However, English archaeologist Ellis Minns contended that Tyrcae Τῦρκαι is "a false correction" for Iyrcae Ἱύρκαι, a people who dwelt beyond the Thyssagetae, according to Herodotus (Histories, iv. 22), and were likely Ugric ancestors of Magyars.[59] 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.[60][61]

The Chinese Book of Zhou (7th century) presents an etymology of the name Turk as derived from 'helmet', explaining that this name comes from the shape of a mountain where they worked in the Altai Mountains.[62] Hungarian scholar András Róna-Tas (1991) pointed to a Khotanese-Saka word, tturakä 'lid', semantically stretchable to 'helmet', as a possible source for this folk etymology, yet Golden thinks this connection requires more data.[63]

It is generally accepted that the name Türk is ultimately derived from the Old-Turkic migration-term[64] 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 Türük/Törük,<[65] which means 'created, born'[66] or 'strong'.[67] Turkologist Peter B. Golden agrees that the term Turk has roots in Old Turkic,[68] yet is not convinced by attempts to link Dili, Dingling, Chile, Tele, and Tiele, which possibly transcribed *tegrek (probably meaning 'cart'), to Tujue, which transliterated to Türküt.[69]

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.[70] Even though Gerhard Doerfer supports the proposal that türk means 'strong' in general, Gerard Clauson points out that "the word türk is never used in the generalized sense of 'strong'" and that türk was originally a noun and meant "'the culminating point of maturity' (of a fruit, human being, etc.), but more often used as an [adjective] meaning (of a fruit) 'just fully ripe'; (of a human being) 'in the prime of life, young, and vigorous'".[71] 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 verb *türü "heap up, collect, gather, assemble".[72]

The earliest Turkic-speaking peoples identifiable in Chinese sources are the Yenisei Kyrgyz and Xinli, located in South Siberia.[73][74][note 2] Another example of an early Turkic population would be the Dingling.[79][80][81]

In Late Antiquity itself, as well as in and the Middle Ages, the name "Scythians" was used in Greco-Roman and Byzantine literature for various groups of nomadic "barbarians" living on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe who were not related to the actual Scythians.[82][83] 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.[84]

In the modern Turkish language as used in the Republic of Turkey, a distinction is made between "Turks" and the "Turkic peoples" in loosely speaking: the term Türk corresponds specifically to the "Turkish-speaking" people (in this context, "Turkish-speaking" is considered the same as "Turkic-speaking"), while the term Türki refers generally to the people of modern "Turkic Republics" (Türki Cumhuriyetler or Türk Cumhuriyetleri). However, the proper usage of the term is based on the linguistic classification in order to avoid any political sense. In short, the term Türki can be used for Türk or vice versa.[85]

List of ethnic groups

List of the modern Turkic peoples
Ethnonym Population National-state formation Religion
Turks 60,000,000–65,000,000   Turkey,   Northern Cyprus Sunni Islam, Alevism
Azerbaijanis 31,300,000   Azerbaijan,   Dagestan (Russian Federation) Shia Islam, Sunni Islam
Uzbeks 30,700,000   Uzbekistan Sunni Islam
Kazakhs 15,193,000   Kazakhstan,   Bayan-Ölgii,   Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Barköl Kazakh Autonomous County, Mori Kazakh Autonomous County,   Altai Sunni Islam
Uyghurs 11,900,000   Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (PRC) Sunni Islam
Turkmens 8,000,000   Turkmenistan Sunni Islam
Volga Tatars 6,200,000   Tatarstan (Russian Federation) Sunni Islam, Orthodox Christianity
Kyrgyz 6,000,000   Kyrgyzstan,   Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture Sunni Islam
Bashkirs 1,700,000   Bashkortostan (Russian Federation) Sunni Islam
Chuvashes 1,500,000   Chuvashia (Russian Federation) Orthodox Christianity, Vattisen Yaly
Khorasani Turks 1,000,000 N/A Shia Islam
Qashqai 949,000 Shia Islam
Karakalpaks 796,000   Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan) Sunni Islam
Kumyks 520,000   Dagestan (Russian Federation) Sunni Islam
Crimean Tatars <500,000

  Crimea (disputed by Ukraine and Russia)

Sunni Islam
Yakuts (Sakha) 482,000   Sakha Republic or Yakutia (Russian Federation) Orthodox Christianity, Tengrism
Karachays 346,000   Karachay-Cherkessia (Russian Federation) Sunni Islam
Tuvans 273,000   Tuva (Russian Federation) Tibetan Buddhism, Tengrism
Gagauz 126,000   Gagauzia (Moldova) Orthodox Christianity
Balkars 112,000   Kabardino-Balkaria (Russian Federation) Sunni Islam
Nogais 110,000   Dagestan and   Karachay-Cherkessia (Russian Federation) Sunni Islam
Salar 104,000   Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Jishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County Sunni Islam, Tibetan Buddhism
Khakas 75,000   Khakassia (Russian Federation) Orthodox Christianity, Tengrism
Altaians 74,000   Altai (Russian Federation) Burkhanism, Tengrism, Orthodox Christianity
Äynu >60,000 N/A Alevism
Khalaj 42,000 Shia Islam
Yugurs 13,000

  Sunan Yugur Autonomous County

Tibetan Buddhism, Tengrism
Dolgans 13,000

  Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District (Russian Federation)

Tengrism, Orthodox Christianity
Khotons 10,000 N/A Sunni Islam
Nağaybäk 8,000 Orthodox Christianity
Shors 8,000 Orthodox Christianity, Tengrism
Siberian Tatars 6,000 Sunni Islam
Telengits 3,700 Orthodox Christianity, Burkhanism, shamanism
Soyots 3,600 Tibetan Buddhism, Tengrism
Kumandins 2,900 Orthodox Christianity, Tengrism
Teleuts 2,700 Orthodox Christianity, Tengrism
Crimean Karaites 2,000 Karaite Judaism
Tubalar 1,900 Orthodox Christianity, shamanism
Fuyu Kyrgyz 1,400 Sunni Islam
Chelkans 1,100 Orthodox Christianity, Burkhanism, shamanism
Krymchaks 1,000 Orthodox Judaism
Tofalars 800 Tengrism, Orthodox Christianity
Chulyms 355 Orthodox Christianity
Dukha 282 Tengrism
Ili Turks 177 Sunni Islam
Historical Turkic groups

Possible Proto-Turkic ancestry, at least partial,[88][89][90][91][92][93] has been posited for Xiongnu, Huns and Pannonian Avars, as well as Tuoba and Rouran, who were of Proto-Mongolic Donghu ancestry.[94][95][96][97] as well as Tatars, Rourans' supposed descendants.[98][99][note 6]

Remarks

  1. ^ Figure combines population of Turkmen and Uzbeks only. Population estimates of Turkmenistan's minority groups often widely vary. Some sources have cast doubt on the reliability of official government data for minority population figures.[17][18]
  2. ^ The Xueyantuo were first known as Xinli 薪犁, later Xue 薛 in the 7th century;[75][76] the Yenisei Kyrgyz were first known as Gekun (鬲昆) or Jiankun (堅昆), later known as Jiegu (結骨), Hegu (紇骨), Hegusi (紇扢斯), Hejiasi (紇戛斯), Hugu (護骨), Qigu (契骨), Juwu (居勿), and Xiajiasi (黠戛斯), all being transcriptions of Kyrgyz.[77][78]
  3. ^ Book of Wei vol. 102. quote: "悅般國 [...] 其風俗言語與高車同" translation: "Yueban nation [...] Their customs and language are the same as the Gaoche['s]"; Gaoche (高車; lit. "High-Carts") was another name of the Turkic-speaking Tiele
  4. ^ Merkits were always counted as a part of the Mongols within the Mongol Empire, however, some scholars proposed additional Turkic ancestry for Merkits; Christopher P. Atwood – Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire ISBN 978-0-8160-4671-3, Facts on File, Inc. 2004.
  5. ^ Refers to forest peoples of the North, including the Turkic-speaking Tuvans and Yakuts, and also Mongolic-speaking Altai Uriankhai. The ethnonym Uriankhai is etymologically Mongolic, compare Khalkha uria(n) "war motto" and khai, alternation of khan. Uriankhai people are possibly linked to the Wuluohun tribe of the Shiwei people, who were predominantly Mongolic-speaking.
  6. ^ Even though Chinese historians routinely ascribed Xiongnu origin to various nomadic peoples, such ascriptions do not necessarily indicate the subjects' exact origins; for examples, Xiongnu ancestry was ascribed to Turkic-speaking Göktürks and Tiele as well as Para-Mongolic-speaking Kumo Xi and Khitan.[100]

Language

Distribution

 
Descriptive map of Turkic peoples.

The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some 30 languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, to Siberia and Manchuria and through to the Middle East. Some 170 million people have a Turkic language as their native language;[101] an additional 20 million people speak a Turkic language as a second language. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper, or Anatolian Turkish, the speakers of which account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers.[102] More than one third of these are ethnic Turks of Turkey, dwelling predominantly in Turkey proper and formerly Ottoman-dominated areas of Southern and Eastern Europe and West Asia; as well as in Western Europe, Australia and the Americas as a result of immigration. The remainder of the Turkic people are concentrated in Central Asia, Russia, the Caucasus, China, and northern Iraq.

The Turkic language family is traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.[103] Howeover since the 1950s, many comparative linguists have rejected the proposal, after supposed cognates were found not to be valid, hypothesized sound shifts were not found, and Turkic and Mongolic languages were found to be converging rather than diverging over the centuries. Opponents of the theory proposed that the similarities are due to mutual linguistic influences between the groups concerned.[104][105][106][107][108]

Alphabet

 
A page from "Codex Kumanicus". The Codex was designed in order to help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Kumans.

The Turkic alphabets are sets of related alphabets with letters (formerly known as runes), used for writing mostly Turkic languages. Inscriptions in Turkic alphabets were found in Mongolia. Most of the preserved inscriptions were dated to between 8th and 10th centuries CE.

The earliest positively dated and read Turkic inscriptions date from the 8th century, and the alphabets were generally replaced by the Old Uyghur alphabet in the East and Central Asia, Arabic script in the Middle and Western Asia, Cyrillic in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, and Latin alphabet in Central Europe. The latest recorded use of Turkic alphabet was recorded in Central Europe's Hungary in 1699 CE.

The Turkic runiform scripts, unlike other typologically close scripts of the world, do not have a uniform palaeography as do, for example, the Gothic runiform scripts, noted for their exceptional uniformity of language and paleography.[109] 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. It was later used by the Uyghur Empire; a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Kyrgyz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian script of the 10th century. Irk Bitig is the only known complete manuscript text written in the Old Turkic script.[110]

History


Origins

The origins of the Turkic peoples has been a topic of much discussion.[111][112] Peter Benjamin Golden proposes two locations for the Proto-Turkic Urheimat: the southern Altai-Sayan region,[40] and in Southern Siberia, from Lake Baikal to eastern Mongolia.[113] Other studies suggested an early presence of Turkic peoples in Mongolia,[114][41] or Tuva.[42]

A possible genealogical link of the Turkic languages to Mongolic and Tungusic languages, specifically a hypothetical homeland in Manchuria, such as proposed in the Transeurasian hypothesis, by Martine Robbeets, has received support but also criticism, with opponents attributing similarities to long-term contact.[115][116][117] The proto-Turkic-speakers may be linked to Neolithic East Asian agricultural societies in Northeastern China, 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.[118][119][120] 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".[118][119][120] 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, supporting an origin from Northeast Asia rather than Manchuria.[121]

 
Ancestral composition of modern-day Turkic-speaking populations, using three components: blue, Ancient Northeast Asian (Northern Mongolia and exemplified by Empress Ashina); green, West Eurasian‐related ancestry; and yellow, associated with neolithic millet farmers from Yellow River in China.[122]
 
According to Uchiyama et al. 2020 the "ultimate Proto-Turkic homeland may have been located in a more compact area, most likely in Eastern Mongolia, that is, close to the ultimate Proto-Mongolic homeland in Southern Manchuria and the ultimate Proto-Tungusic homeland in the present-day borderlands of China, Russia and North Korea. This hypothesis would explain the tight connections of Proto-Turkic with Proto-Mongolic and Proto-Tungusic, regardless of whether one interprets the numerous similarities between the three Altaic families as partly inherited or obtained owing to long-lasting contact."[120]

Around 2,200 BC, the (agricultural) ancestors of the Turkic peoples probably migrated westwards into Mongolia, where they adopted a pastoral lifestyle, in part borrowed from Iranian peoples. Given nomadic peoples such as Xiongnu, Rouran and Xianbei share underlying genetic ancestry "that falls into or close to the northeast Asian gene pool", the proto-Turkic language likely originated in northeastern Asia.[123]

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 took place during the 5th–16th centuries, partially overlapping with the Mongol Empire 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 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."[112]

 
Population structure of Turkic-speaking populations in the context of their geographic neighbors across Eurasia. Turkic-speaking populations are shown in red. The upper barplot shows only Turkic-speaking populations.

A 2018 autosomal single-nucleotide polymorphism study suggested that the Eurasian Steppe slowly transitioned from Indo European and Iranian-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.[124][120] A 2022 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 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.[125] 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.[126] 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".[121]

A 2023 study analyzed the DNA of Empress Ashina (568–578 AD), a Royal Göktürk, whose remains were recovered from a mausoleum in Xianyang, China.[127] The authors determined that Empress Ashina belonged to the North-East Asian mtDNA 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.[127] This study weakened the "western Eurasian origin and multiple origin hypotheses".[127] 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."[127] The early medieval Türk samples were modelled as having 37.8% West Eurasian ancestry and 62.2% Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry[128] and historic Central Steppe Türk samples were also an admixture of West Eurasian and Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry,[129] 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 farmer ancestry.[130] 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.[131]

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 confederation about 200 BCE[132][133] (contemporaneous with the Chinese Han Dynasty)[134] and later among the Turkic-speaking Tiele[135] as Hegu (紇骨)[136] and Xue (薛).[75][76]

The Tiele (also known as Gaoche 高車, lit. "High Carts"),[137] may be related to the Xiongnu and the Dingling.[138] According to the Book of Wei, the Tiele people were the remnants of the Chidi (赤狄), the red Di people competing with the Jin in the Spring and Autumn period.[139] Historically they were established after the 6th century BCE.[133]

The Tiele were first mentioned in Chinese literature from the 6th to 8th centuries.[140] Some scholars (Haneda, Onogawa, Geng, etc.) proposed that Tiele, Dili, Dingling, Chile, Tele, & Tujue all transliterated underlying Türk; however, Golden proposed that Dili, Dingling, Chile, Tele, & Tiele transliterated Tegrek while Tujue transliterated Türküt, plural of Türk.[141] The appellation Türük (Old Turkic: 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰) ~ Türk (OT: 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰚) (whence Middle Chinese 突厥 *dwət-kuɑt > *tɦut-kyat > standard Chinese: Tūjué) was initially reserved exclusively for the Göktürks by Chinese, Tibetans, and even the Turkic-speaking Uyghurs. In contrast, medieval Muslim writers, including Turkic speakers like Ottoman historian Mustafa Âlî and explorer Evliya Çelebi as well as Timurid scientist Ulugh Beg, often viewed Inner Asian tribes, "as forming a single entity regardless of their linguistic affiliation" commonly used Turk as a generic name for Inner Asians (whether Turkic- or Mongolic-speaking). Only in modern era do modern historians use Turks to refer to all peoples speaking Turkic languages, differentiated from non-Turkic speakers.[142]

According to some researchers (Duan, Xue, Tang, Lung, Onogawa, etc.) the later Ashina tribe descended from the Tiele confederation.[143][144][145][146][147] The Tiele however were probably one of many early Turkic groups, ancestral to later Turkic populations.[148][149] 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.[150]

Xiongnu (3rd c. BCE – 1st c. CE)

 
Territory of the Xiongnu, which included Mongolia, Western Manchuria, Xinjiang, East Kazakhstan, East Kyrgyzstan, Inner Mongolia, and Gansu.

It has even been suggested that the Xiongnu themselves, who were mentioned in Han Dynasty records, were Proto-Turkic speakers.[151][152][153][154] The Turks may ultimately have been of Xiongnu descent.[155] 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.[156] Some scholars believe they were probably a confederation of various ethnic and linguistic groups.[157][158] 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.[159]

Using the only extant possibly Xiongnu writings, the rock art of the Yinshan and Helan Mountains,[160] some scholars argue that the older Xiongnu writings are precursors to the earliest known Turkic alphabet, the Orkhon script. Petroglyphs of this region dates from the 9th millennium BCE to the 19th century, and consists mainly of engraved signs (petroglyphs) and few painted images.[161] Excavations done during 1924–1925 in Noin-Ula kurgans located in the Selenga River in the northern Mongolian hills north of Ulaanbaatar produced objects with over 20 carved characters, which were either identical or very similar to the runic letters of the Turkic Orkhon script discovered in the Orkhon Valley.[162]

Huns (4th–6th c. CE)

 
Huns (c.450 CE)

In the 18th century, the French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people, who were northern neighbours of China in the 3rd century BC.[163] The Hun hordes ruled by Attila, who invaded and conquered much of Europe in the 5th century, might have been, at least partially, Turkic and descendants of the Xiongnu.[134][164][165] Since Guignes' time, considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. The issue remains controversial. Their relationship to other peoples known collectively as the Iranian Huns is generally accepted, but whether these groups are all inter-related remains controversial.[166]

Some scholars claimed Huns as Proto-Mongolian or Yeniseian in origin.[167][168] Linguistic studies by Otto Maenchen-Helfen and others have suggested that the language used by the Huns in Europe was too little documented to be classified. Nevertheless, the majority of the proper names used by Huns appear to be Turkic in origin,[169][170] though they are "far from unambiguous, so no firm conclusion can be drawn from this type of data".[171]

Steppe expansions

Göktürks – Turkic Khaganate (5th–8th c.)

The earliest certain mentioning of the politonym "Turk" was in the Chinese Book of Zhou. 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 dynasty and the Turks in the years 545 and 546.[173]

According to the Book of Sui and the Tongdian, they were "mixed barbarians" (雜胡; záhú) who migrated from Pingliang (now in modern Gansu province, China) to the Rourans seeking inclusion in their confederacy and protection from the prevailing dynasty.[174][175] Alternatively, according to the Book of Zhou, History of the Northern Dynasties, and New Book of Tang, the Ashina clan was a component of the Xiongnu confederation.[176][177][178][179] Göktürks were also posited as having originated from an obscure Suo state (索國), north of the Xiongnu.[180][181] The Ashina tribe were famed metalsmiths and were granted land south of the Altai Mountains (金山 Jinshan), which looked like a helmet, from which they were said to have gotten their name 突厥 (Tūjué),[182][174] 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.[183]

 
A Turkic warrior from the Göktürk period. The horse's tail is knotted in Turkic style. His hair is long, braided and his big-collared caftan and boots are Turkic clothing features.

The original Old Turkic name Kök Türk derives from kök ~ kö:k, "sky, sky-coloured, blue, blue-grey".[184] Unlike its Xiongnu predecessor, the Göktürk Khaganate had its temporary Khagans from the Ashina clan, who were subordinate to a sovereign authority controlled by a council of tribal chiefs. The Khaganate retained elements of its original animistic- shamanistic religion, that later evolved into Tengriism, although it received missionaries of Buddhist monks and practiced a syncretic religion. The Göktürks were the first Turkic people to write Old Turkic in a runic script, the Orkhon script. The Khaganate was also the first state known as "Turk". It eventually collapsed due to a series of dynastic conflicts, but many states and peoples later used the name "Turk".[185][186]

The Göktürks (First Turkic Kaganate) quickly spread west to the Caspian Sea. Between 581 and 603 the Western Turkic Khaganate in Kazakhstan separated from the Eastern Turkic Khaganate in Mongolia and Manchuria during a civil war. The Han-Chinese successfully overthrew the Eastern Turks in 630 and created a military Protectorate until 682. After that time the Second Turkic Khaganate ruled large parts of the former Göktürk area. After several wars between Turks, Chinese and Tibetans, the weakened Second Turkic Khaganate was replaced by the Uyghur Khaganate in the year 744.[187]

Bulgars, Golden Horde and the Siberian Khanate

 
The migration of the Bulgars after the fall of Old Great Bulgaria in the 7th century

The Bulgars established themselves in between the Caspian and Black Seas in the 5th and 6th centuries, followed by their conquerors, the Khazars who converted to Judaism in the 8th or 9th century. After them came the Pechenegs who created a large confederacy, which was subsequently taken over by the Cumans and the Kipchaks. One group of Bulgars settled in the Volga region and mixed with local Volga Finns to become the Volga Bulgars in what is today Tatarstan. These Bulgars were conquered by the Mongols following their westward sweep under Ogedei Khan in the 13th century.[188] Other Bulgars settled in Southeastern Europe in the 7th and 8th centuries, and mixed with the Slavic population, adopting what eventually became the Slavic Bulgarian language. Everywhere, Turkic groups mixed with the local populations to varying degrees.[183]

 
Golden Horde

The Volga Bulgaria became an Islamic state in 922 and influenced the region as it controlled many trade routes. In the 13th century, Mongols invaded Europe and established the Golden Horde in Eastern Europe, western & northern Central Asia, and even western Siberia. The Cuman-Kipchak Confederation and Islamic Volga Bulgaria were absorbed by the Golden Horde in the 13th century; in the 14th century, Islam became the official religion under Uzbeg Khan where the general population (Turks) as well as the aristocracy (Mongols) came to speak the Kipchak language and were collectively known as "Tatars" by Russians and Westerners. This country was also known as the Kipchak Khanate and covered most of what is today Ukraine, as well as the entirety of modern-day southern and eastern Russia (the European section). The Golden Horde disintegrated into several khanates and hordes in the 15th and 16th century including the Crimean Khanate, Khanate of Kazan, and Kazakh Khanate (among others), which were one by one conquered and annexed by the Russian Empire in the 16th through 19th centuries.[189]

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.[190]

Uyghur Khaganate (8th–9th c.)

 
Uyghur Khaganate
 
Uyghur painting from the Bezeklik murals
 
Uyghur royals in Chinese-style dresses

The Uyghur Khaganate had established itself by the year 744 AD.[191] Through trade relations established with China, its capital city of Ordu Baliq in central Mongolia's Orkhon Valley became a wealthy center of commerce,[192] 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.[193]

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.[194] The Uyghur Khaganate was tolerant of religious diversity and practiced variety of religions including Buddhism, Christianity, shamanism and Manichaeism.[195]

During the same time period, the Shatuo 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.[196] The Uyghurs also fought against an alliance of Shatuo and Tibetans at Beshbalik.[197]

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.[198] 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.[199][200][201]

 
The Turkic Later Tang Dynasty

The Shatuo 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.[202][203][204]

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 and 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.[205][206] The Shatuo became the Ongud Turks living in Inner Mongolia after the Song dynasty conquered the last Shatuo dynasty of Northern Han.[207][208] The Ongud assimilated to the Mongols.[209][210][211][208]

The Yenisei Kyrgyz allied with China to destroy the Uyghur Khaganate in the year 840 AD.[187][205] From the Yenisei River, the Kyrgyz pushed south and eastward in to Xinjiang and the Orkhon Valley in central Mongolia, leaving much of the Uyghur civilization in ruins.[212] 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.[213]

Central Asia

Kangar union (659–750)

 
Kangar Union after the fall of Western Turkic Khaganate, 659–750

The Kangar Union (Qanghar Odaghu) was a Turkic state in the former territory of the Western Turkic Khaganate (the entire present-day state of Kazakhstan, without Zhetysu). The capital of the Kangar union was located in the Ulytau mountains. Among the Pechenegs, the Kangar[note 1] formed the elite of the Pecheneg tribes. After being defeated by the Kipchaks, Oghuz Turks, and the Khazars, they migrated west and defeated Magyars,[214] and after forming an alliance with the Bulgars, they defeated the Byzantine Army.[215] 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.[216]

The elite of the Kangar tribes are believed to have had an Iranian origin,[217] and they likely spoke an Iranian language,[218] while most of the Pecheneg population spoke a Turkic language, with a significant percentage speaking 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 Uzbek, Kazakh, and Karakalpak tribes.[219]

Oghuz Yabgu State (766–1055)

 
Oghuz Yabgu State (c.750 CE)

The Oguz Yabgu State (Oguz il, meaning "Oguz Land", "Oguz Country")(750–1055) was a Turkic state, founded by Oghuz Turks in 766, located geographically in an area between the coasts of the Caspian and Aral Seas. Oguz tribes occupied a vast territory in Kazakhstan along the Irgiz, Yaik, Emba, and Uil rivers, the Aral Sea area, the Syr Darya valley, the foothills of the Karatau Mountains in Tien-Shan, and the Chui River valley (see map). The Oguz political association developed in the 9th and 10th centuries in the Syr Darya basin.[220]

Salar Oghuz migration

The Salars are desended 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 women during the early Ming dynasty.[221][222][223][224]

Iranian, Indian, Arabic, and Anatolian expansion

Turkic peoples and related groups migrated west from present-day Northeastern China, Mongolia, Siberia and the Turkestan-region towards the Iranian plateau, South Asia, and Anatolia (modern Turkey) in many waves. The date of the initial expansion remains unknown.

Persia

Ghaznavid dynasty (977–1186)
 
Ghaznavid Empire at its greatest extent in 1030 CE

The Ghaznavid dynasty (Persian: غزنویان ġaznaviyān) was a Persianate[225] Muslim dynasty of Turkic mamluk origin,[226] 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.[227][228][229] The dynasty was founded by Sabuktigin upon his succession to rule of the region of 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.[230]

Although the dynasty was of Central Asian Turkic origin, it was thoroughly Persianised in terms of language, culture, literature and habits[231][232][233][234] and hence is regarded by some as a "Persian dynasty".[235]

Seljuk Empire (1037–1194)
 
A map showing the Seljuk Empire at its height, upon the death of Malik Shah I in 1092.

The Seljuk Empire (Persian: آل سلجوق, romanizedĀl-e Saljuq, lit.'House of Saljuq') or the Great Seljuq Empire[236][237][238] was a high medieval Turko-Persian[239] Sunni Muslim empire, originating from the Qiniq branch of Oghuz Turks.[240] At its greatest extent, the Seljuk Empire controlled a vast area stretching from western Anatolia and the Levant to the Hindu Kush in the east, and from Central Asia 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 Khorasan and then into mainland Persia, before eventually conquering eastern Anatolia. Here the Seljuks won the battle of Manzikert in 1071 and conquered most of Anatolia from the Byzantine Empire, which became one of the reasons for the first crusade (1095–1099). From c. 1150–1250, the Seljuk empire declined, and was invaded by the Mongols around 1260. The Mongols divided Anatolia into emirates. Eventually one of these, the Ottoman, would conquer the rest.[241]

Timurid Empire (1370–1507)
 
Map of the Timurid Empire at its greatest extent under Timur.

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.[242] 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.[243]

Central Asian khanates (1501–1920)
 
Central Asia in 1636

The Bukhara Khanate was an Uzbek[244] 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).[245] 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.[246]

Afsharid dynasty (1736–1796)

The Afsharid dynasty was named after the Turkic Afshar tribe to which they belonged. The Afshars had migrated from Turkestan to Azerbaijan in the 13th century. The dynasty was founded in 1736 by the military commander Nader Shah who deposed the last member of the Safavid dynasty and proclaimed himself King of Iran. Nader belonged to the Qereqlu branch of the Afshars.[247] 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 Qajar tribe, ruling over Iran from 1789 to 1925.[248][249] 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. In 1796, Mohammad Khan Qajar seized Mashhad with ease,[250] putting an end to the Afsharid dynasty, and Mohammad Khan was formally crowned as Shah after his punitive campaign against Iran's Georgian subjects.[251] In the Caucasus, the Qajar dynasty permanently lost many of Iran's integral areas[252] to the Russians over the course of the 19th century, comprising modern-day Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan and Armenia.[253] The dynasty was founded by Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar and continued until Ahmad Shah Qajar.

South Asia

 
Mughal Emperor Jahangir presents Prince Khurram with a turban ornament.
 
Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire and Mughal emperor Humayun.

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 (1206–90) 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 prince named Babur (reigned 1526–30), 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.[254][255] A further distinction was the attempt of the Mughals to integrate Hindus and Muslims into a united Indian state.[254][256][257][258]

Arab world

 
Silver dirham of AH 329 (940/941 CE), with the names of Caliph al-Muttaqi and Amir al-umara Bajkam (de facto ruler of the country)

The Arab Muslim Umayyads and Abbasids fought against the pagan Turks in the Türgesh Khaganate in the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana. Turkic soldiers in the army of the Abbasid 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 Ikhshidids in Egypt. The Oghuz and other tribes captured and dominated various countries under the leadership of the Seljuk dynasty and eventually captured the territories of the Abbasid dynasty and the Byzantine Empire.[183]

Anatolia – Ottomans

 
Ottoman empire in 1683

After many battles, the western Oghuz Turks established their own state and later constructed the Ottoman Empire. The main migration of the Oghuz Turks occurred in medieval times, when they spread across most of Asia and into Europe and the Middle East.[183] They also took part in the military encounters of the Crusades.[259] In 1090–91, the Turkic Pechenegs reached the walls of Constantinople, where Emperor Alexius I with the aid of the Kipchaks annihilated their army.[260]

As the Seljuk Empire declined following the Mongol invasion, the Ottoman Empire emerged as the new important Turkic state, that came to dominate not only the Middle East, but even southeastern Europe, parts of southwestern Russia, and northern Africa.[183]

Islamization

Turkic peoples like the Karluks (mainly 8th century), Uyghurs, Kyrgyz, Turkmens, and Kipchaks 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, Krymchaks, Crimean Karaites), Buddhism, and a small number of Zoroastrians.

Modern history

 
Independent Turkic states shown in red

The Ottoman Empire gradually grew weaker in the face of poor administration, repeated wars with Russia, Austria and Hungary, and the emergence of nationalist movements in the Balkans, and it finally gave way after World War I to the present-day Republic of Turkey.[183] Ethnic nationalism also developed in Ottoman Empire during the 19th century, taking the form of Pan-Turkism or Turanism.

The Turkic peoples of Central Asia were not organized in nation-states during most of the 20th century, after the collapse of the Russian Empire living either in the Soviet Union or (after a short-lived First East Turkestan Republic) in the Chinese Republic. For much of the 20th century, Turkey was the only independent Turkic country.[261]

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, and 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 TÜRKSOY in 1993 and the Turkic Council in 2009, which later was renamed Organization of Turkic States in 2021.[262]

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".[263] However "Chinese histories also depict the Turkic-speaking peoples as typically possessing East/Inner Asian physiognomy, as well as occasionally having West Eurasian physiognomy."[263] According to "fragmentary information on the Xiongnu language that can be found in the Chinese histories, the Xiongnu were Turkic",[264] however historians have been unable to confirm whether or not they were Turkic. Sima Qian's description of their legendary origins suggest their physiognomy was "not too different from that of... Han (漢) Chinese population",[264] but a subset of Xiongnu known as the Jie people were described having "deep-set eyes", "high nose bridges" and "heavy facial hair".[264] The Jie may have been Yeniseian, although others maintaining an Iranian affiliation, and regardless of whether or not the Xiongnu were Turkic, they were a hybrid people.[265] 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."[266] The Tang historian Yan Shigu described the Hu people of his day as "blue-eyed and red bearded"[267] descendants of the Wusun, whereas "no comparable depiction of the Kök Türks or Tiele is found in the official Chinese histories."[267]

 
An early Turk Shahi ruler named Sri Ranasrikari "The Lord who brings excellence through war" (Brahmi script). In this realistic portrait, he wears the Turkic double-lapel caftan. Late 7th to early 8th century CE.[268][269][270]

Historian 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'".[271] Historian Emel Esin and Professor Xue Zongzheng have argued that West Eurasian features were typical of the royal Ashina clan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate and that their appearance shifted to an East Asian one due to intermarriage with foreign nobility. As a result, by the time of Kul Tigin (684 AD), members of the Ashina dynasty had East Asian features.[272][273] A 2023 genetic study found that Empress Ashina (568–578 AD), a Royal Göktürk, had nearly entirely Ancient Northeast Asian origin, weakening the "western Eurasian origin and multiple origin hypotheses".[127] 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."[274] They also suggest that many modern Turkic-speaking populations are not directly descended from early Turkic peoples.[274] 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."[275]

Like Chinese historians, Medieval Muslim writers generally depicted the Turks as having an East Asian appearance.[276] 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,[276] such as the Hephthalites, Rus, Magyars, and Tibetans. In the 13th century, Juzjani referred to the people of Tibet and the mountains between Tibet and Bengal as "Turks" and "people with Turkish features."[277] 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,[278] 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).[279] On Western Turkic coins "the faces of the governor and governess are clearly Mongoloid (a roundish face, narrow eyes), and the portrait have definite old Türk features (long hair, absence of headdress of the governor, a tricorn headdress of the governess)".[280]

 
Ghaznavid portrait, Palace of Lashkari Bazar. Schlumberger noted that the turban, the small mouth and the strongly slanted eyes were characteristically Turkic.[281]

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.[281] 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".[282]

Al-Masudi writes that the Oghuz Turks in Yengi-kent near the mouth of the Syr Darya "are distinguished from other Turks by their valour, their slanted eyes, and the smallness of their stature."[276] Later Muslim writers noted a change in the physiognomy of Oghuz Turks. According to Rashid al-Din Hamadani, "because of the climate their features gradually changed into those of Tajiks. Since they were not Tajiks, the Tajik peoples called them turkmān, i.e. Turk-like (Turk-mānand)." Ḥāfiẓ Tanīsh Mīr Muḥammad Bukhārī also related that the Oghuz' 'Turkic face did not remain as it was' after their migration into Transoxiana and Iran. Khiva khan Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur wrote in his Chagatai language treatise Shajara-i Tarākima (Genealogy of the Turkmens) that "their chin started to become narrow, their eyes started to become large, their faces started to become small, and their noses started to become big' after five or six generations". Ottoman historian Mustafa Âlî commented in Künhüʾl-aḫbār that Anatolian Turks and Ottoman elites are ethnically mixed: "Most of the inhabitants of Rûm are of confused ethnic origin. Among its notables there are few whose lineage does not go back to a convert to Islam."[283]

Kevin Alan Brook states that like "most nomadic Turks, the Western Turkic Khazars were racially and ethnically mixed."[284] 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."[285] Old East Slavic sources called the Khazars the "White Ugry" and the Magyars the "Black Ugry."[286] Soviet excavated Khazar remains show Slavic-type, European-type, and a minority Mongoloid-type skulls.[285]

The Yenisei Kyrgyz are mentioned in the New Book of Tang as having the same script and language as the Uyghurs but "The people are all tall and big and have red hair, white faces, and green eyes."[287][note 2] 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.[287] 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."[292][293] The Kyrgyz "regarded those with black eyes as descending from [Li] Ling," a Han dynasty general who defected to the Xiongnu.[294]

In a Chinese legal statute from the early period of the Ming dynasty, the Kipchaks 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.[295][296] Russian anthropologist Oshanin (1964: 24, 32) notes that "the 'Mongoloid' phenotype, characteristic of modern Kazakhs and Qirghiz, prevails among the skulls of the Qipchaq and Pecheneg nomads found in the kurgans in eastern Ukraine"; Lee & Kuang (2017) propose that Oshanin's discovery is explainable by assuming that the historical Kipchaks' modern descendants are Kazakhs of the Lesser Horde, whose men possess a high frequency of haplogroup C2's subclade C2b1b1 (59.7 to 78%). Lee and Kuang also suggest that the high frequency (63.9%) of the Y-DNA haplogroup R-M73 among Karakypshaks (a tribe within the Kipchaks) allows 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.[297]

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 Tartar. He has a broad and brown face, high cheek bones, a round beard, a great and crooked nose, with little eyes".[298]

Remarks

  1. ^ For its etymology see Kangar union#Etymology
  2. ^ 9th-century author Duan Chengshi described the Kyrgyz tribe (Jiankun buluo 堅昆部落) as "yellow-haired, green-eyed, red-mustached [and red-]bearded".[288] New Book of Tang (finished in 1060) describes Alats, a medieval Turkic people, as resembling Kyrgyzes[289] who were "all tall, red-haired, pale-faced, green-irised";[290] New Book of Tang also states that Kyrgyzes regarded black hair as "infelicitous" and insisted that black-eyed individuals were descendants of Han general Li Ling.[291]

Archaeology

International organizations

 
Map of TÜRKSOY members.

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.

 
  Members
  Observer States

The TAKM – Organization of the Eurasian Law Enforcement Agencies with Military Status, was established on 25 January 2013. It is an 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.[299]

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.[300]

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.[301] 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.[302] Turkmenistan also joined as an observer state to the organization at 8th summit.[303] Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was admitted to the organization as observer member at the 2022 Samarkand Summit.[304][305]

Demographics

 
Bashkirs, painting from 1812, Paris

The distribution of people of Turkic cultural background ranges from Siberia, across Central Asia, to Southern Europe. As of 2011 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, 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.[306] There are also considerable populations of Turkic people (originating mostly from Turkey) in Germany, United States, and Australia, largely because of migrations during the 20th century.

Sometimes ethnographers group Turkic people into six branches: the Oghuz Turks, Kipchak, Karluk, Siberian, Chuvash, and Sakha/Yakut branches. The Oghuz have been termed Western Turks, while the remaining five, in such a classificatory scheme, are called Eastern Turks.[citation needed]

The genetic distances between the different populations of Uzbeks scattered across Uzbekistan is no greater than the distance between many of them and the Karakalpaks. This suggests that Karakalpaks and Uzbeks have very similar origins. The Karakalpaks have a somewhat greater bias towards the eastern markers than the Uzbeks.[307]

Historical population:

Year Population
1 AD 2–2.5 million?
2013 150–200 million

The following incomplete list of Turkic people shows the respective groups' core areas of settlement and their estimated sizes (in millions):

People Primary homeland Population Modern language Predominant religion and sect
Turkish people Turkey 70 M Turkish Sunni Islam
Azerbaijanis Iranian Azerbaijan, Republic of Azerbaijan 30–35 M Azerbaijani Shia Islam (65%), Sunni Islam (35%)[308][309] (Hanafi).
Uzbeks Uzbekistan 28.3 M Uzbek Sunni Islam
Kazakhs Kazakhstan 13.8 M Kazakh Sunni Islam
Uyghurs Altishahr (China) 9 M Uyghur Sunni Islam
Turkmens Turkmenistan 8 M Turkmen Sunni Islam
Tatars Tatarstan (Russia) 7 M Tatar Sunni Islam
Kyrgyzs Kyrgyzstan 4.5 M Kyrgyz Sunni Islam
Bashkirs Bashkortostan (Russia) 2 M Bashkir Sunni Islam
Crimean Tatars Crimea (Russia/Ukraine) 0.5 to 2 M Crimean Tatar Sunni Islam
Chuvashes Chuvashia (Russia) 1.7 M Chuvash Orthodox Christianity
Qashqai Southern Iran (Iran) 0.9 M Qashqai Shia Islam
Karakalpaks Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan) 0.6 M Karakalpak Sunni Islam
Yakuts Yakutia (Russia) 0.5 M Sakha Orthodox Christianity and Turkic Paganism
Kumyks Dagestan (Russia) 0.4 M Kumyk Sunni Islam
Karachays and Balkars Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria (Russia) 0.4 M Karachay-Balkar Sunni Islam
Tuvans Tuva (Russia) 0.3 M Tuvan Tibetan Buddhism
Gagauzs Gagauzia (Moldova) 0.2 M Gagauz Orthodox Christianity
Turkic Karaites and Krymchaks Ukraine 0.004 M Karaim and Krymchak Judaism

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, qaymaq (similar to clotted cream), qi̅mi̅z (fermented mare's milk) and qurut (dried yoghurt). During the Middle Ages Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tatars, who were historically part of the Turkic nomadic group known as the Golden Horde, continued to develop new variations of dairy products.[310]

Nomadic Turks cooked their meals in a qazan, a pot similar to a cauldron; a wooden rack called a qasqan can be used to prepare certain steamed foods, like the traditional meat dumplings called manti. They also used a saj, a griddle that was traditionally placed on stones over a fire, and shish. In later times, the Persian tava was borrowed from the Persians for frying, but traditionally nomadic Turks did most of their cooking using the qazan, saj and shish. Meals were served in a bowl, called a chanaq, and eaten with a knife (bïchaq) and spoon (qashi̅q). Both bowl and spoon were historically made from wood. Other traditional utensils used in food preparation included a thin rolling pin called oqlaghu, a colander called süzgu̅çh, and a grinding stone called tāgirmān.[310]

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.[310]

There are many types of bread doughs in Turkic cuisine. Yupqa is the thinnest type of dough, bawi̅rsaq is a type of fried bread dough, and chälpäk is a deep fried flat bread. Qatlama is a fried bread that may be sprinkled with dried fruit or meat, rolled, and sliced like pinwheel sandwiches. Toqach and chöräk are varieties of bread, and böräk is a type of filled pie pastry.[310]

Herd animals were usually slaughtered during the winter months and various types of sausages were prepared to preserve the meats, including a type of sausage called sujuk. Though prohibited by Islamic dietary restrictions, historically Turkic nomads also had a variety of blood sausage. One type of sausage, called qazi̅, was made from horsemeat and another variety was filled with a mixture of ground meat, offal and rice. Chopped meat was called qïyma and spit-roasted meat was söklünch—from the root sök- meaning "to tear off", the latter dish is known as kebab in modern times. Qawirma is a typical fried meat dish, and kullama is a soup of noodles and lamb.[310]

Religion

Early Turkic mythology and Tengrism

 
A shaman doctor of Kyzyl.
 
Circle dance of Shamans 1911

Early Turkic mythology was dominated by Shamanism, Animism and Tengrism. The Turkic animistic traditions were mostly focused on ancestor worship, polytheistic-animism and shamanism. Later this animistic tradition would form the more organized Tengrism.[citation needed] 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 in 763.

The wolf symbolizes honour and is also considered the mother of most Turkic peoples. Ashina is the wolf mother of Tumen Il-Qağan, the first Khan of the Göktürks. The horse and predatory birds, such as the eagle or falcon, are also main figures of Turkic mythology.[citation needed]

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 in the Xinjiang region.[311] 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 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.[312]

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. It was gradually replaced by the Mahayana Buddhism.[citation needed] It existed in the Buddhist Uyghur Gaochang up to the 12th century.[313]

Tibetan Buddhism, or Vajrayana was the main religion after Manichaeism.[314] They worshipped Täŋri Täŋrisi Burxan,[315] Quanšï Im Pusar[316] and Maitri Burxan.[317] 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 Sari Uygurs "Yellow Yughurs" of Western China, as well as the Tuvans of Russia are the only remaining Buddhist Turkic peoples.[318]

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. Azeris are traditionally Shiite Muslims. Religious observance is less strict in the Republic of Azerbaijan compared to Iranian Azerbaijan.

Christianity

 
Saint John the Baptist Cathedral in Gagauzia
 
Gravestone from Kirgistan (thirteenth/fourteenth century) with Syriac Christian inscriptions

The major Christian-Turkic peoples are the Chuvash of Chuvashia and the Gagauz (Gökoğuz) of Moldova, the vast majority of Chuvash and the Gagauz are Eastern Orthodox Christians.[319][320][321] The traditional religion of the Chuvash of Russia, while containing many ancient Turkic concepts, also shares some elements with Zoroastrianism, Khazar Judaism, and Islam. The Chuvash converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity for the most part in the second half of the 19th century.[320] 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.[322] Between the 9th and 14th centuries, Church of the East was popular among Turks such as the Naimans.[323] It even revived in Gaochang and expanded in Xinjiang in the Yuan dynasty period.[324][325][326] It disappeared after its collapse.[327][328]

Kryashens are a sub-group of the Volga Tatars, and the vast majority are Orthodox Christians.[329] Nağaybäk are an indigenous Turkic people in Russia, most Nağaybäk are Christian and were largely converted during the 18th century.[330] Many Volga Tatars were Christianized by Ivan the Terrible during the 16th century, and continued to Christianized under subsequent Russian rulers and Orthodox clergy up to the mid-eighteenth century.[331]

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 converted or openly practice animistic and shamanistic rituals. It is estimated that about 60% of Kyrgyz people practice a form of animistic rituals. In Kazakhstan there are about 54,000 followers of the ancient traditions.[332][333]

Muslim Turks and non-Muslim Turks

 
An Old Uyghur Khagan

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 to the slow conversion of Uyghur populations to Islam.[334][335]

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![336][337]

The Basmil, Yabāḳu and Uyghur states were among the Turkic peoples who fought against the Kara-Khanids spread of Islam. The Islamic Kara-Khanids were made out of Tukhsi, Yaghma, Çiğil and Karluk.[338]

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.[339] The Yabaqu were a Turkic people.[340]

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".[341][342] 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.[343][337]

 
Göktürk petroglyphs from Mongolia (6th to 8th century)
 
A Penjikent man dressed in "Turkic" long coats, 6th–8th c.

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.[344] (see also: Cuju)

Kyz kuu

 
Kyz kuu.

Kyz kuu (chase the girl) has been played by Turkic people at festivals since time immemorial.[345]

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.[346]

Kokpar

The kokpar began with the nomadic Turkic peoples who have come from farther north and east spreading westward from China and Mongolia between the 10th and 15th centuries.[347]

Jigit

"jigit" is used in the Caucasus and Central Asia to describe a skillful and brave equestrian, or a brave person in general.[348]

Gallery

Battle, hunting and blacksmithing scenes in Turkic rock art of the early Middle Ages in Altai

Bezeklik caves and Mogao grottoes

Images of Buddhist and Manichean Old Uyghurs from the Bezeklik caves and Mogao grottoes.

Medieval times

Modern times

See also

References

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    • Lee 2023, p. 4: "It should also be noted that even the early Turkic peoples, including the Tiele and the Türks, were made up of heterogeneous elements. Importantly, DNA studies demonstrate that the expansion process of the Turkic peoples involved the Turkicization of various non-Turkic-speaking groups. The “Turks” intermixed with and Turkicized various indigenous groups across Eurasia: Uralic hunter-gatherers in northern Eurasia; Mongolic nomads in Mongolia; Indo-European-speaking nomads and sedentary populations in Xinjiang, Transoxiana, Iran, Kazakhstan, and South Siberia; and Indo-European elements (the Byzantine subjects, among others) in Anatolia and the Balkans.11"
    • Findley 2005, p. 18: "Moreover, Turks do not all physically look alike. They never did. The Turks of Turkey are famous for their range of physical types. Given the Turks' ancient Inner Asian origins, it is easy to imagine that they once presented a uniform Mongoloid appearance. Such traits seem to be more characteristic in the eastern Turkic world; however, uniformity of type can never have prevailed there either. Archeological evidence indicates that Indo-Europeans, or certainly Europoid physical types, inhabited the oases of the Tarim basin and even parts of Mongolia in ancient times. In the Tarim basin, persistence of these former inhabitants' genes among the modern Uyghurs is both observable and scientifically demonstrable.32 Early Chinese sources describe the Kirghiz as blue-eyed and blond or red-haired. The genesis of Turkic ethnic groups from earliest times occurred in confederations of diverse peoples. As if to prove the point, the earliest surviving texts in Turkic languages are studded with terms from other languages."
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    • Lee & Kuang 2017: "Both Chinese histories and modern dna studies indicate that the early and medieval Turkic peoples were made up of heterogeneous populations"
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  98. ^ Book of Song. vol 95. "芮芮一號大檀,又號檀檀,亦匈奴別種" tr. "Ruìruì, one appellation is Dàtán, also called Tántán, likewise a Xiōngnú splinter stock"
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  107. ^ Asya Pereltsvaig (2012) Languages of the World, An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. Pages 211–216.
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    The ancient Turkic Urheimat appears to have been located in Southern Siberia from the Lake Baikal region to Eastern Mongolia. The "Proto-Turks" in their Southern Siberian-Mongolian "homeland" were in contact with speakers of Eastern Iranian (Scytho-Sakas, who were also in Mongolia), Uralic and Paleo-Siberian languages.

  114. ^ Janhunen 2003, p. 203: "There is, indeed, reason to assume that Mongolia is primarily the source region of the Turkic language family, while the Mongolic homeland was located further to the east, in western Manchuria."
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  117. ^ Dybo, Anna (1 January 2017). "New trends in European studies on the Altaic problem". Journal of Language Relationship. 14 (1–2): 71–106. doi:10.31826/jlr-2017-141-208. ISSN 2219-4029. S2CID 212688205.
  118. ^ a b Nelson et al. 2020.
  119. ^ a b Li et al. 2020.
  120. ^ a b c d Uchiyama et al. 2020.
  121. ^ a b He, Guang-Lin; Wang, Meng-Ge; Zou, Xing; Yeh, Hui-Yuan; Liu, Chang-Hui; Liu, Chao; Chen, Gang; Wang, Chuan-Chao (January 2022). "Extensive ethnolinguistic diversity at the crossroads of North China and South Siberia reflects multiple sources of genetic diversity". Journal of Systematics and Evolution. 61 (1): 230–250. doi:10.1111/jse.12827. ISSN 1674-4918. S2CID 245849003. All Altaic-speaking populations were a mixture of dominant Siberian Neolithic ancestry and non-negligible YRB ancestry, suggesting that Altaic-people and their language were more likely to originate from the Northeast Asia (mostly likely the ARB and surrounding regions as the primary common ancestry identified here) and further experienced influence from Neolithic YRB farmers. All Altaic people but eastern and southern Mongolic-speaking populations possessed a high proportion of West Eurasian-related ancestry, in accordance with the linguistically documented language borrowing in Turkic language.
  122. ^ Yang, Meng & Zhang 2023.
  123. ^ Uchiyama et al. 2020: "Although current genetic evidence is not adequate to track the exact time and location for the origin of the proto-Turkic language, it is clear that it probably originated somewhere in northeastern Asia given the fact that the nomadic groups, such as the Rouran, Xiongnu and the Xianbei, all share a substratum genetic ancestry that falls into or close to the northeast Asian gene pool (Ning et al., Reference Ning, Li, Wang, Zhang, Li, Wu and Cuiin press; Li et al., Reference Li, Zhang, Zhao, Chen, Ochir, Sarenbilige and Zhou2018)."
  124. ^ Damgaard, Peter de Barros; Marchi, Nina; Rasmussen, Simon; Peyrot, Michaël; Renaud, Gabriel; Korneliussen, Thorfinn; Moreno-Mayar, J. Víctor; Pedersen, Mikkel Winther; Goldberg, Amy; Usmanova, Emma; Baimukhanov, Nurbol; Loman, Valeriy; Hedeager, Lotte; Pedersen, Anders Gorm; Nielsen, Kasper (May 2018). "137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes". Nature. 557 (7705): 369–374. Bibcode:2018Natur.557..369D. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0094-2. hdl:1887/3202709. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 29743675. S2CID 13670282. The diversification within the Turkic languages suggests that several waves of migrations occurred35, and on the basis of the impact of local languages gradual assimilation to local populations were already assumed36. The East Asian migration starting with the Xiongnu complies well with the hypothesis that early Turkic was their major language37. Further migrations of East Asians westwards find a good linguistic correlate in the influence of Mongolian on Turkic and Iranian in the last millennium38. As such, the genomic history of the Eurasian steppe is the story of a gradual transition from Bronze Age pastoralists of western Eurasian ancestry, towards mounted warriors of increased East Asian ancestry – a process that continued well into historical times.
  125. ^ Guarino-Vignon, Perle; Marchi, Nina; Bendezu-Sarmiento, Julio; Heyer, Evelyne; Bon, Céline (14 January 2022). "Genetic continuity of Indo-Iranian speakers since the Iron Age in southern Central Asia". Scientific Reports. 12 (1): 733. Bibcode:2022NatSR..12..733G. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-04144-4. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 8760286. PMID 35031610. Modern DNA studies suggested that the Indo-Iranian group was present in Central Asia before the Turko-Mongol group11, maybe as early as Neolithic times; the Turko-Mongol group emerged later from the admixture between a group related to local Indo-Iranian and a South-Siberian or Mongolian group11,13,14 with a high East-Asian ancestry (around 60%).
  126. ^ Dai, Shan-Shan; Sulaiman, Xierzhatijiang; Isakova, Jainagul; Xu, Wei-Fang; Abdulloevich, Najmudinov Tojiddin; Afanasevna, Manilova Elena; Ibrohimovich, Khudoidodov Behruz; Chen, Xi; Yang, Wei-Kang; Wang, Ming-Shan; Shen, Quan-Kuan; Yang, Xing-Yan; Yao, Yong-Gang; Aldashev, Almaz A; Saidov, Abdusattor (25 August 2022). "The Genetic Echo of the Tarim Mummies in Modern Central Asians". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 39 (9). doi:10.1093/molbev/msac179. ISSN 0737-4038. PMC 9469894. PMID 36006373. By contrast, the Kyrgyz, together with other Turkic-speaking populations, originated from the admixture since the Iron Age. The Historical Era gene flow derived from the Eastern Steppe with the representative of Mongolia_Xiongnu_o1 made a more substantial contribution to Kyrgyz and other Turkic-speaking populations (i.e., Kazakh, Uyghur, Turkmen, and Uzbek; 34.9–55.2%) higher than that to the Tajik populations (11.6–18.6%; fig. 4A), suggesting Tajiks suffer fewer impacts of the recent admixtures (Martínez-Cruz et al. 2011). Consequently, the Tajik populations generally present patterns of genetic continuity of Central Asians since the Bronze Age. Our results are consistent with linguistic and genetic evidence that the spreading of Indo-European speakers into Central Asia was earlier than the expansion of Turkic speakers (Kuz′mina and Mallory 2007; Yunusbayev et al. 2015).
  127. ^ a b c d e Yang, Meng & Zhang 2023
  128. ^ Yang, Meng & Zhang 2023: "The early Medieval Türk (earlyMed_Turk) derived the major ancestry from ANA at a proportion of 62.2%, the remainder from BMAC (10.7%) and Western Steppe Afanasievo nomad (27.1%) (Figs. 1C, 1D; Table S2E)."
  129. ^ Yang, Meng & Zhang 2023: "Central Steppe Türk (Kyrgyzstan_Turk and Kazakhstan_Turk) could be modeled as an admixture of ANA (Mongolia_N_North), BMAC, and West Steppe pastoralists (Afanasievo) (P = 0.0196)"
  130. ^ Yang, Meng & Zhang 2023: "In contrast, the early West Xiongnu (earlyXiongnu_west) and late Sarmatian Xiongnu (lateXiongnu_Sarmatian) derived ancestry mainly from West Eurasian; for example, early West Xiongnu exhibited 68.4% Afanasievo‐related ancestry. Among the Central Steppe pastoralists, Wusun, Kangju, and Tianshan Hun derived a majority of their ancestry (62.4%–73%) from Western Steppe nomadic Afanasievo groups with the remainder (37.6%–27%) characterized as BMAC (the Bactria‐Margiana Archaeological Complex) and East Eurasian. The Turkic Karluk, Kipchak, and Karakhanid could be modeled derived 35%–50.6% of ancestry from Afanasievo, 10.5%–21.7% from BMAC, and 38.9%–49.4% from YR_IA."
  131. ^ Jeong C, Wang K, Wilkin S, Taylor WT, Miller BK, Bemmann JH, et al. (2020). "A Dynamic 6,000-Year Genetic History of Eurasia's Eastern Steppe". Cell. 183 (4): 890–904.e29. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2020.10.015. PMC 7664836. PMID 33157037. From the late first millennium BCE onward, a series of hierarchical and centrally organized empires arose on the Eastern Steppe, notably the Xiongnu (209 BCE–98 CE), Türkic (552–742 CE), Uyghur (744–840 CE), and Khitan (916–1125 CE) empires...Genetic data for the subsequent Early Medieval period are relatively sparse and uneven, and few Xianbei or Rouran sites have yet been identified during the 400-year gap between the Xiongnu and Türkic periods. We observed high genetic heterogeneity and diversity during the Türkic and Uyghur periods...
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  172. ^ Haug, Robert (27 June 2019). The Eastern Frontier: Limits of Empire in Late Antique and Early Medieval Central Asia. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-78831-722-1. The collapse of the Hephthalite domains made neighbours of the Türk Khāqānate and the Sasanian Empire, both sharing a border that ran the length of the River Oxus. Further Turkish expansion to the west and around the Caspian Sea saw them dominate the western steppes and its people and extend this frontier down to the Caucasus where they also shared a border with the Sasanians. Khusrow is noted at the time for improving the fortifications on either side of the Caspian, Bāb al-Abwāb at Derbent and the Great Wall of Gorgān.
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  174. ^ a b Wei Zheng 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。"
  175. ^ Du You, 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。"
  176. ^ Linghu Defen et al., Zhoushu, vol. 50 quote: "突厥者,蓋匈奴之別種,姓阿史那氏。"
  177. ^ Beishi "vol. 99 – section Tujue" quote: "突厥者,其先居西海之右,獨為部落,蓋匈奴之別種也。" translation: "The Tujue, their ancestors dwelt on the right bank of the Western Sea; a lone tribe, probably a separate branch of the Xiongnu"
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  181. ^ Beishi "vol. 99 – section Tujue" quote: "又曰突厥之先,出於索國,在匈奴之北。"
  182. ^ Zhoushu, "vol. 50" quote: "居金山之陽,為茹茹鐵工。金山形似兜鍪,其俗謂兜鍪為「突厥」,遂因以為號焉。"
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turkic, peoples, confused, with, turkish, people, collection, diverse, ethnic, groups, west, central, east, north, asia, well, parts, europe, speak, turkic, languages, distribution, turkic, languagestotal, populationover, million, regions, with, significant, p. Not to be confused with Turkish people The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Central East and North Asia as well as parts of Europe who speak Turkic languages 37 38 Turkic peoplesThe distribution of the Turkic languagesTotal populationOver 170 million 1 Regions with significant populations Turkey60 000 000 65 000 000 2 3 Uzbekistan31 900 000 4 additional citation s needed Iran15 000 000 20 000 000 5 6 18 of population 7 Russia12 751 502 citation needed Kazakhstan12 300 000 8 additional citation s needed China11 647 000 9 additional citation s needed Azerbaijan10 000 000 10 additional citation s needed European Union5 876 318 citation needed Bulgaria 508 375 11 Afghanistan4 600 000 5 300 000 2017 12 13 Turkmenistan4 233 600 14 15 16 note 1 Kyrgyzstan4 500 000 19 additional citation s needed Iraq3 000 000 20 21 Tajikistan1 200 000 22 additional citation s needed United States1 000 000 23 Syria800 000 1 000 000 24 Ukraine398 600 25 Northern Cyprus313 626 26 Australia59 488 27 Turkish Mongolia135 618 28 29 Lebanon200 000 30 31 32 33 Moldova126 010 34 North Macedonia81 900 35 36 LanguagesTurkic languagesReligionVarious religions According to historians and linguists the Proto Turkic language originated in Central East Asia 39 potentially in Altai Sayan region Mongolia or Tuva 40 41 42 Initially Proto Turkic speakers were potentially both hunter gatherers and farmers they later became nomadic pastoralists 43 Early and medieval 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 Mongolic Tocharian Uralic and Yeniseian peoples 44 Many vastly differing ethnic groups have throughout history become part of the Turkic peoples through language shift acculturation conquest intermixing adoption and religious conversion 1 Nevertheless Turkic peoples share to varying degrees non linguistic characteristics like cultural traits ancestry from a common gene pool and historical experiences 1 Some of the most notable modern Turkic ethnic groups include the Altai people Azerbaijanis Chuvash people Gagauz people Kazakhs Kyrgyz people Turkmens Turkish people Tuvans Uyghurs Uzbeks and Yakuts Contents 1 Etymology 2 List of ethnic groups 2 1 Remarks 3 Language 3 1 Distribution 3 2 Alphabet 4 History 4 1 Origins 4 2 Early historical attestation 4 2 1 Xiongnu 3rd c BCE 1st c CE 4 2 2 Huns 4th 6th c CE 4 3 Steppe expansions 4 3 1 Gokturks Turkic Khaganate 5th 8th c 4 3 2 Bulgars Golden Horde and the Siberian Khanate 4 3 3 Uyghur Khaganate 8th 9th c 4 4 Central Asia 4 4 1 Kangar union 659 750 4 4 2 Oghuz Yabgu State 766 1055 4 4 3 Salar Oghuz migration 4 5 Iranian Indian Arabic and Anatolian expansion 4 5 1 Persia 4 5 1 1 Ghaznavid dynasty 977 1186 4 5 1 2 Seljuk Empire 1037 1194 4 5 1 3 Timurid Empire 1370 1507 4 5 1 4 Central Asian khanates 1501 1920 4 5 1 5 Afsharid dynasty 1736 1796 4 5 1 6 Qajar dynasty 1789 1925 4 5 2 South Asia 4 5 3 Arab world 4 5 4 Anatolia Ottomans 4 5 5 Islamization 4 6 Modern history 5 Physiognomy 5 1 Remarks 6 Archaeology 7 International organizations 7 1 TURKSOY 7 2 Organization of Turkic States 8 Demographics 9 Cuisine 10 Religion 10 1 Early Turkic mythology and Tengrism 10 2 Religious conversions 10 2 1 Buddhism 10 2 2 Islam 10 2 3 Christianity 10 2 4 Animism 10 2 5 Muslim Turks and non Muslim Turks 11 Old sports 11 1 Tepuk 11 2 Kyz kuu 11 3 Jereed 11 4 Kokpar 11 5 Jigit 12 Gallery 12 1 Battle hunting and blacksmithing scenes in Turkic rock art of the early Middle Ages in Altai 12 2 Bezeklik caves and Mogao grottoes 12 3 Medieval times 12 4 Modern times 13 See also 14 References 15 Sources 16 Further reading 17 External linksEtymology nbsp Map from Kashgari s Diwan 11th century showing the distribution of Turkic tribes nbsp Bust of Kul Tigin AD 684 731 prince of the Second Turkic Khaganate found in Khashaat Arkhangai Province Orkhon River valley National Museum of Mongolia The first known mention of the term Turk Old Turkic 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 Turuk or 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 𐰜𐰇𐰛 Kok Turuk Chinese 突厥 Pinyin Tujue lt Middle Chinese tɦut kyat lt dwet kuɑt Old Tibetan drugu 45 46 47 48 applied to only one Turkic group namely the Gokturks 49 who were also mentioned as turug torok in the 6th century Khuis Tolgoi inscription most likely not later than 587 AD 50 51 52 A letter by Ishbara Qaghan to Emperor Wen of Sui in 585 described him as the Great Turk Khan 53 54 The Bugut 584 CE and Orkhon inscriptions 735 CE use the terms Turkut Turk and Turuk 55 During the first century CE Pomponius Mela refers to the Turcae in the forests north of the Sea of Azov and Pliny the Elder lists the Tyrcae among the people of the same area 56 57 58 However English archaeologist Ellis Minns contended that Tyrcae Tῦrkai is a false correction for Iyrcae Ἱyrkai a people who dwelt beyond the Thyssagetae according to Herodotus Histories iv 22 and were likely Ugric ancestors of Magyars 59 There are references to certain groups in antiquity whose names might have been foreign transcriptions of Tur u k such as Togarma Turukha Turuska 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 60 61 The Chinese Book of Zhou 7th century presents an etymology of the name Turk as derived from helmet explaining that this name comes from the shape of a mountain where they worked in the Altai Mountains 62 Hungarian scholar Andras Rona Tas 1991 pointed to a Khotanese Saka word tturaka lid semantically stretchable to helmet as a possible source for this folk etymology yet Golden thinks this connection requires more data 63 It is generally accepted that the name Turk is ultimately derived from the Old Turkic migration term 64 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 Turuk Toruk lt 65 which means created born 66 or strong 67 Turkologist Peter B Golden agrees that the term Turk has roots in Old Turkic 68 yet is not convinced by attempts to link Dili Dingling Chile Tele and Tiele which possibly transcribed tegrek probably meaning cart to Tujue which transliterated to Turkut 69 Scholars including Toru Haneda Onogawa Hidemi and Geng Shimin believed that Di Dili Dingling Chile and Tujue all came from the Turkic word Turk which means powerful and strength and its plural form is Turkut 70 Even though Gerhard Doerfer supports the proposal that turk means strong in general Gerard Clauson points out that the word turk is never used in the generalized sense of strong and that turk was originally a noun and meant the culminating point of maturity of a fruit human being etc but more often used as an adjective meaning of a fruit just fully ripe of a human being in the prime of life young and vigorous 71 Hakan Aydemir 2022 also contends that Turk originally did not mean strong powerful but gathered united allied confederated and was derived from Pre Proto Turkic verb turu heap up collect gather assemble 72 The earliest Turkic speaking peoples identifiable in Chinese sources are the Yenisei Kyrgyz and Xinli located in South Siberia 73 74 note 2 Another example of an early Turkic population would be the Dingling 79 80 81 In Late Antiquity itself as well as in and the Middle Ages the name Scythians was used in Greco Roman and Byzantine literature for various groups of nomadic barbarians living on the Pontic Caspian Steppe who were not related to the actual Scythians 82 83 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 Sky8ai Skuthai in reference to twelve different Turkic peoples 84 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 Turk corresponds specifically to the Turkish speaking people in this context Turkish speaking is considered the same as Turkic speaking while the term Turki refers generally to the people of modern Turkic Republics Turki Cumhuriyetler or Turk Cumhuriyetleri However the proper usage of the term is based on the linguistic classification in order to avoid any political sense In short the term Turki can be used for Turk or vice versa 85 List of ethnic groupsList of the modern Turkic peoples Ethnonym Population National state formation Religion Turks 60 000 000 65 000 000 nbsp Turkey nbsp Northern Cyprus Sunni Islam Alevism Azerbaijanis 31 300 000 nbsp Azerbaijan nbsp Dagestan Russian Federation Shia Islam Sunni Islam Uzbeks 30 700 000 nbsp Uzbekistan Sunni Islam Kazakhs 15 193 000 nbsp Kazakhstan nbsp Bayan Olgii nbsp Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture Barkol Kazakh Autonomous County Mori Kazakh Autonomous County nbsp Altai Sunni Islam Uyghurs 11 900 000 nbsp Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region PRC Sunni Islam Turkmens 8 000 000 nbsp Turkmenistan Sunni Islam Volga Tatars 6 200 000 nbsp Tatarstan Russian Federation Sunni Islam Orthodox Christianity Kyrgyz 6 000 000 nbsp Kyrgyzstan nbsp Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture Sunni Islam Bashkirs 1 700 000 nbsp Bashkortostan Russian Federation Sunni Islam Chuvashes 1 500 000 nbsp Chuvashia Russian Federation Orthodox Christianity Vattisen Yaly Khorasani Turks 1 000 000 N A Shia Islam Qashqai 949 000 Shia Islam Karakalpaks 796 000 nbsp Karakalpakstan Uzbekistan Sunni Islam Kumyks 520 000 nbsp Dagestan Russian Federation Sunni Islam Crimean Tatars lt 500 000 nbsp Crimea disputed by Ukraine and Russia Sunni Islam Yakuts Sakha 482 000 nbsp Sakha Republic or Yakutia Russian Federation Orthodox Christianity Tengrism Karachays 346 000 nbsp Karachay Cherkessia Russian Federation Sunni Islam Tuvans 273 000 nbsp Tuva Russian Federation Tibetan Buddhism Tengrism Gagauz 126 000 nbsp Gagauzia Moldova Orthodox Christianity Balkars 112 000 nbsp Kabardino Balkaria Russian Federation Sunni Islam Nogais 110 000 nbsp Dagestan and nbsp Karachay Cherkessia Russian Federation Sunni Islam Salar 104 000 nbsp Xunhua Salar Autonomous County Jishishan Bonan Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County Sunni Islam Tibetan Buddhism Khakas 75 000 nbsp Khakassia Russian Federation Orthodox Christianity Tengrism Altaians 74 000 nbsp Altai Russian Federation Burkhanism Tengrism Orthodox Christianity Aynu gt 60 000 N A Alevism Khalaj 42 000 Shia Islam Yugurs 13 000 nbsp Sunan Yugur Autonomous County Tibetan Buddhism Tengrism Dolgans 13 000 nbsp Taymyrsky Dolgano Nenetsky District Russian Federation Tengrism Orthodox Christianity Khotons 10 000 N A Sunni Islam Nagaybak 8 000 Orthodox Christianity Shors 8 000 Orthodox Christianity Tengrism Siberian Tatars 6 000 Sunni Islam Telengits 3 700 Orthodox Christianity Burkhanism shamanism Soyots 3 600 Tibetan Buddhism Tengrism Kumandins 2 900 Orthodox Christianity Tengrism Teleuts 2 700 Orthodox Christianity Tengrism Crimean Karaites 2 000 Karaite Judaism Tubalar 1 900 Orthodox Christianity shamanism Fuyu Kyrgyz 1 400 Sunni Islam Chelkans 1 100 Orthodox Christianity Burkhanism shamanism Krymchaks 1 000 Orthodox Judaism Tofalars 800 Tengrism Orthodox Christianity Chulyms 355 Orthodox Christianity Dukha 282 Tengrism Ili Turks 177 Sunni Islam Historical Turkic groups Az Dingling Bulgars Esegel Barsils Alat Basmyl Onogurs Saragurs Sabirs Shatuo Ongud from Shatuo Gokturks Oghuz Turks Kanglys Khazars Kipchaks Kurykans Kumans Pechenegs Karluks Tiele Turgesh Tukhsi Yenisei Kirghiz Chigils Toquz Oghuz Orkhon Uyghurs Yagma Nushibi Duolu Kutrigurs Utigurs Yabaku Yueban note 3 Bulaqs Xueyantuo Torks Chorni Klobuky Berendei Yemeks Karamanlides partly 86 87 Naimans partly Keraites partly Merkits partly note 4 Uriankhai partly note 5 Possible Proto Turkic ancestry at least partial 88 89 90 91 92 93 has been posited for Xiongnu Huns and Pannonian Avars as well as Tuoba and Rouran who were of Proto Mongolic Donghu ancestry 94 95 96 97 as well as Tatars Rourans supposed descendants 98 99 note 6 Remarks Figure combines population of Turkmen and Uzbeks only Population estimates of Turkmenistan s minority groups often widely vary Some sources have cast doubt on the reliability of official government data for minority population figures 17 18 The Xueyantuo were first known as Xinli 薪犁 later Xue 薛 in the 7th century 75 76 the Yenisei Kyrgyz were first known as Gekun 鬲昆 or Jiankun 堅昆 later known as Jiegu 結骨 Hegu 紇骨 Hegusi 紇扢斯 Hejiasi 紇戛斯 Hugu 護骨 Qigu 契骨 Juwu 居勿 and Xiajiasi 黠戛斯 all being transcriptions of Kyrgyz 77 78 Book of Wei vol 102 quote 悅般國 其風俗言語與高車同 translation Yueban nation Their customs and language are the same as the Gaoche s Gaoche 高車 lit High Carts was another name of the Turkic speaking Tiele Merkits were always counted as a part of the Mongols within the Mongol Empire however some scholars proposed additional Turkic ancestry for Merkits Christopher P Atwood Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire ISBN 978 0 8160 4671 3 Facts on File Inc 2004 Refers to forest peoples of the North including the Turkic speaking Tuvans and Yakuts and also Mongolic speaking Altai Uriankhai The ethnonym Uriankhai is etymologically Mongolic compare Khalkha uria n war motto and khai alternation of khan Uriankhai people are possibly linked to the Wuluohun tribe of the Shiwei people who were predominantly Mongolic speaking Even though Chinese historians routinely ascribed Xiongnu origin to various nomadic peoples such ascriptions do not necessarily indicate the subjects exact origins for examples Xiongnu ancestry was ascribed to Turkic speaking Gokturks and Tiele as well as Para Mongolic speaking Kumo Xi and Khitan 100 LanguageMain articles Turkic languages and Proto Turkic language Further information List of alphabets used by Turkic languages Distribution nbsp Descriptive map of Turkic peoples The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some 30 languages spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Manchuria and through to the Middle East Some 170 million people have a Turkic language as their native language 101 an additional 20 million people speak a Turkic language as a second language The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper or Anatolian Turkish the speakers of which account for about 40 of all Turkic speakers 102 More than one third of these are ethnic Turks of Turkey dwelling predominantly in Turkey proper and formerly Ottoman dominated areas of Southern and Eastern Europe and West Asia as well as in Western Europe Australia and the Americas as a result of immigration The remainder of the Turkic people are concentrated in Central Asia Russia the Caucasus China and northern Iraq The Turkic language family is traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family 103 Howeover since the 1950s many comparative linguists have rejected the proposal after supposed cognates were found not to be valid hypothesized sound shifts were not found and Turkic and Mongolic languages were found to be converging rather than diverging over the centuries Opponents of the theory proposed that the similarities are due to mutual linguistic influences between the groups concerned 104 105 106 107 108 Alphabet nbsp A page from Codex Kumanicus The Codex was designed in order to help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Kumans The Turkic alphabets are sets of related alphabets with letters formerly known as runes used for writing mostly Turkic languages Inscriptions in Turkic alphabets were found in Mongolia Most of the preserved inscriptions were dated to between 8th and 10th centuries CE The earliest positively dated and read Turkic inscriptions date from the 8th century and the alphabets were generally replaced by the Old Uyghur alphabet in the East and Central Asia Arabic script in the Middle and Western Asia Cyrillic in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans and Latin alphabet in Central Europe The latest recorded use of Turkic alphabet was recorded in Central Europe s Hungary in 1699 CE The Turkic runiform scripts unlike other typologically close scripts of the world do not have a uniform palaeography as do for example the Gothic runiform scripts noted for their exceptional uniformity of language and paleography 109 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 Gokturks from the 8th century to record the Old Turkic language It was later used by the Uyghur Empire a Yenisei variant is known from 9th century Kyrgyz inscriptions and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian script of the 10th century Irk Bitig is the only known complete manuscript text written in the Old Turkic script 110 HistoryMain article Turkic history See also Timeline Turkic expansion Confederations Nomadic empire Genetic history and Liao civilization Origins The origins of the Turkic peoples has been a topic of much discussion 111 112 Peter Benjamin Golden proposes two locations for the Proto Turkic Urheimat the southern Altai Sayan region 40 and in Southern Siberia from Lake Baikal to eastern Mongolia 113 Other studies suggested an early presence of Turkic peoples in Mongolia 114 41 or Tuva 42 A possible genealogical link of the Turkic languages to Mongolic and Tungusic languages specifically a hypothetical homeland in Manchuria such as proposed in the Transeurasian hypothesis by Martine Robbeets has received support but also criticism with opponents attributing similarities to long term contact 115 116 117 The proto Turkic speakers may be linked to Neolithic East Asian agricultural societies in Northeastern China 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 118 119 120 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 118 119 120 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 supporting an origin from Northeast Asia rather than Manchuria 121 nbsp Ancestral composition of modern day Turkic speaking populations using three components blue Ancient Northeast Asian Northern Mongolia and exemplified by Empress Ashina green West Eurasian related ancestry and yellow associated with neolithic millet farmers from Yellow River in China 122 nbsp According to Uchiyama et al 2020 the ultimate Proto Turkic homeland may have been located in a more compact area most likely in Eastern Mongolia that is close to the ultimate Proto Mongolic homeland in Southern Manchuria and the ultimate Proto Tungusic homeland in the present day borderlands of China Russia and North Korea This hypothesis would explain the tight connections of Proto Turkic with Proto Mongolic and Proto Tungusic regardless of whether one interprets the numerous similarities between the three Altaic families as partly inherited or obtained owing to long lasting contact 120 Around 2 200 BC the agricultural ancestors of the Turkic peoples probably migrated westwards into Mongolia where they adopted a pastoral lifestyle in part borrowed from Iranian peoples Given nomadic peoples such as Xiongnu Rouran and Xianbei share underlying genetic ancestry that falls into or close to the northeast Asian gene pool the proto Turkic language likely originated in northeastern Asia 123 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 took place during the 5th 16th centuries partially overlapping with the Mongol Empire 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 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 112 nbsp Population structure of Turkic speaking populations in the context of their geographic neighbors across Eurasia Turkic speaking populations are shown in red The upper barplot shows only Turkic speaking populations A 2018 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphism study suggested that the Eurasian Steppe slowly transitioned from Indo European and Iranian 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 124 120 A 2022 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 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 125 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 126 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 121 A 2023 study analyzed the DNA of Empress Ashina 568 578 AD a Royal Gokturk whose remains were recovered from a mausoleum in Xianyang China 127 The authors determined that Empress Ashina belonged to the North East Asian mtDNA 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 127 This study weakened the western Eurasian origin and multiple origin hypotheses 127 However they also noted that Central Steppe and early Medieval Turk exhibited a high but variable degree of West Eurasian ancestry indicating there was a genetic substructure of the Turkic empire 127 The early medieval Turk samples were modelled as having 37 8 West Eurasian ancestry and 62 2 Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry 128 and historic Central Steppe Turk samples were also an admixture of West Eurasian and Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry 129 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 farmer ancestry 130 A 2020 study also found high genetic heterogeneity and diversity during the Turkic and Uyghur periods in the early medieval period in Eastern Eurasian Steppe 131 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 confederation about 200 BCE 132 133 contemporaneous with the Chinese Han Dynasty 134 and later among the Turkic speaking Tiele 135 as Hegu 紇骨 136 and Xue 薛 75 76 The Tiele also known as Gaoche 高車 lit High Carts 137 may be related to the Xiongnu and the Dingling 138 According to the Book of Wei the Tiele people were the remnants of the Chidi 赤狄 the red Di people competing with the Jin in the Spring and Autumn period 139 Historically they were established after the 6th century BCE 133 The Tiele were first mentioned in Chinese literature from the 6th to 8th centuries 140 Some scholars Haneda Onogawa Geng etc proposed that Tiele Dili Dingling Chile Tele amp Tujue all transliterated underlying Turk however Golden proposed that Dili Dingling Chile Tele amp Tiele transliterated Tegrek while Tujue transliterated Turkut plural of Turk 141 The appellation Turuk Old Turkic 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 Turk OT 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰚 whence Middle Chinese 突厥 dwet kuɑt gt tɦut kyat gt standard Chinese Tujue was initially reserved exclusively for the Gokturks by Chinese Tibetans and even the Turkic speaking Uyghurs In contrast medieval Muslim writers including Turkic speakers like Ottoman historian Mustafa Ali and explorer Evliya Celebi as well as Timurid scientist Ulugh Beg often viewed Inner Asian tribes as forming a single entity regardless of their linguistic affiliation commonly used Turk as a generic name for Inner Asians whether Turkic or Mongolic speaking Only in modern era do modern historians use Turks to refer to all peoples speaking Turkic languages differentiated from non Turkic speakers 142 According to some researchers Duan Xue Tang Lung Onogawa etc the later Ashina tribe descended from the Tiele confederation 143 144 145 146 147 The Tiele however were probably one of many early Turkic groups ancestral to later Turkic populations 148 149 However according to Lee amp Kuang 2017 Chinese histories do not describe the Ashina and the Gokturks as descending from the Dingling or the Tiele confederation 150 Xiongnu 3rd c BCE 1st c CE Main article Xiongnu nbsp Territory of the Xiongnu which included Mongolia Western Manchuria Xinjiang East Kazakhstan East Kyrgyzstan Inner Mongolia and Gansu It has even been suggested that the Xiongnu themselves who were mentioned in Han Dynasty records were Proto Turkic speakers 151 152 153 154 The Turks may ultimately have been of Xiongnu descent 155 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 156 Some scholars believe they were probably a confederation of various ethnic and linguistic groups 157 158 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 159 Using the only extant possibly Xiongnu writings the rock art of the Yinshan and Helan Mountains 160 some scholars argue that the older Xiongnu writings are precursors to the earliest known Turkic alphabet the Orkhon script Petroglyphs of this region dates from the 9th millennium BCE to the 19th century and consists mainly of engraved signs petroglyphs and few painted images 161 Excavations done during 1924 1925 in Noin Ula kurgans located in the Selenga River in the northern Mongolian hills north of Ulaanbaatar produced objects with over 20 carved characters which were either identical or very similar to the runic letters of the Turkic Orkhon script discovered in the Orkhon Valley 162 Huns 4th 6th c CE nbsp Huns c 450 CE Main article Huns In the 18th century the French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people who were northern neighbours of China in the 3rd century BC 163 The Hun hordes ruled by Attila who invaded and conquered much of Europe in the 5th century might have been at least partially Turkic and descendants of the Xiongnu 134 164 165 Since Guignes time considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection The issue remains controversial Their relationship to other peoples known collectively as the Iranian Huns is generally accepted but whether these groups are all inter related remains controversial 166 Some scholars claimed Huns as Proto Mongolian or Yeniseian in origin 167 168 Linguistic studies by Otto Maenchen Helfen and others have suggested that the language used by the Huns in Europe was too little documented to be classified Nevertheless the majority of the proper names used by Huns appear to be Turkic in origin 169 170 though they are far from unambiguous so no firm conclusion can be drawn from this type of data 171 Steppe expansions Gokturks Turkic Khaganate 5th 8th c nbsp nbsp KyrgyzsCHAM PA576CHENLAFIRST TURKIC KHAGANATESASANIANEMPIREALCHONHUNSCHALU KYASLATERGUPTASNORTH ZHOUNORTH QIZHANGZHUNGCHENBYZANTINEEMPIREAVARKHAGANATETUYUHUNKhitansPaleo SiberiansTungusGOGU RYEOTOCHA RIANS class notpageimage The First Turkic Khaganate at its greatest extent in 576 with neighbouring contemporary polities 172 Main articles Gokturks and First Turkic Khaganate The earliest certain mentioning of the politonym Turk was in the Chinese Book of Zhou 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 dynasty and the Turks in the years 545 and 546 173 According to the Book of Sui and the Tongdian they were mixed barbarians 雜胡 zahu who migrated from Pingliang now in modern Gansu province China to the Rourans seeking inclusion in their confederacy and protection from the prevailing dynasty 174 175 Alternatively according to the Book of Zhou History of the Northern Dynasties and New Book of Tang the Ashina clan was a component of the Xiongnu confederation 176 177 178 179 Gokturks were also posited as having originated from an obscure Suo state 索國 north of the Xiongnu 180 181 The Ashina tribe were famed metalsmiths and were granted land south of the Altai Mountains 金山 Jinshan which looked like a helmet from which they were said to have gotten their name 突厥 Tujue 182 174 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 183 nbsp A Turkic warrior from the Gokturk period The horse s tail is knotted in Turkic style His hair is long braided and his big collared caftan and boots are Turkic clothing features The original Old Turkic name Kok Turk derives from kok ko k sky sky coloured blue blue grey 184 Unlike its Xiongnu predecessor the Gokturk Khaganate had its temporary Khagans from the Ashina clan who were subordinate to a sovereign authority controlled by a council of tribal chiefs The Khaganate retained elements of its original animistic shamanistic religion that later evolved into Tengriism although it received missionaries of Buddhist monks and practiced a syncretic religion The Gokturks were the first Turkic people to write Old Turkic in a runic script the Orkhon script The Khaganate was also the first state known as Turk It eventually collapsed due to a series of dynastic conflicts but many states and peoples later used the name Turk 185 186 The Gokturks First Turkic Kaganate quickly spread west to the Caspian Sea Between 581 and 603 the Western Turkic Khaganate in Kazakhstan separated from the Eastern Turkic Khaganate in Mongolia and Manchuria during a civil war The Han Chinese successfully overthrew the Eastern Turks in 630 and created a military Protectorate until 682 After that time the Second Turkic Khaganate ruled large parts of the former Gokturk area After several wars between Turks Chinese and Tibetans the weakened Second Turkic Khaganate was replaced by the Uyghur Khaganate in the year 744 187 Bulgars Golden Horde and the Siberian Khanate nbsp The migration of the Bulgars after the fall of Old Great Bulgaria in the 7th century The Bulgars established themselves in between the Caspian and Black Seas in the 5th and 6th centuries followed by their conquerors the Khazars who converted to Judaism in the 8th or 9th century After them came the Pechenegs who created a large confederacy which was subsequently taken over by the Cumans and the Kipchaks One group of Bulgars settled in the Volga region and mixed with local Volga Finns to become the Volga Bulgars in what is today Tatarstan These Bulgars were conquered by the Mongols following their westward sweep under Ogedei Khan in the 13th century 188 Other Bulgars settled in Southeastern Europe in the 7th and 8th centuries and mixed with the Slavic population adopting what eventually became the Slavic Bulgarian language Everywhere Turkic groups mixed with the local populations to varying degrees 183 nbsp Golden Horde 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 amp 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 189 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 190 Uyghur Khaganate 8th 9th c nbsp Uyghur Khaganate nbsp Uyghur painting from the Bezeklik murals Main article Uyghur Khaganate nbsp Uyghur royals in Chinese style dresses The Uyghur Khaganate had established itself by the year 744 AD 191 Through trade relations established with China its capital city of Ordu Baliq in central Mongolia s Orkhon Valley became a wealthy center of commerce 192 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 193 The official state religion of the early Uyghur Khaganate was Manichaeism which was introduced through the conversion of Bogu Qaghan by the Sogdians after the An Lushan rebellion 194 The Uyghur Khaganate was tolerant of religious diversity and practiced variety of religions including Buddhism Christianity shamanism and Manichaeism 195 During the same time period the Shatuo 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 196 The Uyghurs also fought against an alliance of Shatuo and Tibetans at Beshbalik 197 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 198 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 199 200 201 nbsp The Turkic Later Tang Dynasty The Shatuo 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 202 203 204 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 and 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 205 206 The Shatuo became the Ongud Turks living in Inner Mongolia after the Song dynasty conquered the last Shatuo dynasty of Northern Han 207 208 The Ongud assimilated to the Mongols 209 210 211 208 The Yenisei Kyrgyz allied with China to destroy the Uyghur Khaganate in the year 840 AD 187 205 From the Yenisei River the Kyrgyz pushed south and eastward in to Xinjiang and the Orkhon Valley in central Mongolia leaving much of the Uyghur civilization in ruins 212 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 213 Central Asia Kangar union 659 750 nbsp Kangar Union after the fall of Western Turkic Khaganate 659 750 The Kangar Union Qanghar Odaghu was a Turkic state in the former territory of the Western Turkic Khaganate the entire present day state of Kazakhstan without Zhetysu The capital of the Kangar union was located in the Ulytau mountains Among the Pechenegs the Kangar note 1 formed the elite of the Pecheneg tribes After being defeated by the Kipchaks Oghuz Turks and the Khazars they migrated west and defeated Magyars 214 and after forming an alliance with the Bulgars they defeated the Byzantine Army 215 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 216 The elite of the Kangar tribes are believed to have had an Iranian origin 217 and they likely spoke an Iranian language 218 while most of the Pecheneg population spoke a Turkic language with a significant percentage speaking 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 Uzbek Kazakh and Karakalpak tribes 219 Oghuz Yabgu State 766 1055 nbsp Oghuz Yabgu State c 750 CE The Oguz Yabgu State Oguz il meaning Oguz Land Oguz Country 750 1055 was a Turkic state founded by Oghuz Turks in 766 located geographically in an area between the coasts of the Caspian and Aral Seas Oguz tribes occupied a vast territory in Kazakhstan along the Irgiz Yaik Emba and Uil rivers the Aral Sea area the Syr Darya valley the foothills of the Karatau Mountains in Tien Shan and the Chui River valley see map The Oguz political association developed in the 9th and 10th centuries in the Syr Darya basin 220 Salar Oghuz migration The Salars are desended 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 women during the early Ming dynasty 221 222 223 224 Iranian Indian Arabic and Anatolian expansion Main articles Ghaznavids Seljuk Empire Delhi Sultanate Mamluk Sultanate Timurid Empire Bahri dynasty Deccan sultanates Safavid Iran Ottoman Empire Mughal Empire and Afsharid dynasty Turkic peoples and related groups migrated west from present day Northeastern China Mongolia Siberia and the Turkestan region towards the Iranian plateau South Asia and Anatolia modern Turkey in many waves The date of the initial expansion remains unknown Persia Ghaznavid dynasty 977 1186 nbsp Ghaznavid Empire at its greatest extent in 1030 CE Main articles Ghaznavids and Uzbeks The Ghaznavid dynasty Persian غزنویان ġaznaviyan was a Persianate 225 Muslim dynasty of Turkic mamluk origin 226 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 227 228 229 The dynasty was founded by Sabuktigin upon his succession to rule of the region of 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 230 Although the dynasty was of Central Asian Turkic origin it was thoroughly Persianised in terms of language culture literature and habits 231 232 233 234 and hence is regarded by some as a Persian dynasty 235 Seljuk Empire 1037 1194 Main article Seljuk Empire This section needs expansion You can help by adding to it May 2019 nbsp A map showing the Seljuk Empire at its height upon the death of Malik Shah I in 1092 The Seljuk Empire Persian آل سلجوق romanized Al e Saljuq lit House of Saljuq or the Great Seljuq Empire 236 237 238 was a high medieval Turko Persian 239 Sunni Muslim empire originating from the Qiniq branch of Oghuz Turks 240 At its greatest extent the Seljuk Empire controlled a vast area stretching from western Anatolia and the Levant to the Hindu Kush in the east and from Central Asia 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 Khorasan and then into mainland Persia before eventually conquering eastern Anatolia Here the Seljuks won the battle of Manzikert in 1071 and conquered most of Anatolia from the Byzantine Empire which became one of the reasons for the first crusade 1095 1099 From c 1150 1250 the Seljuk empire declined and was invaded by the Mongols around 1260 The Mongols divided Anatolia into emirates Eventually one of these the Ottoman would conquer the rest 241 Timurid Empire 1370 1507 nbsp Map of the Timurid Empire at its greatest extent under Timur Main article Timurid Empire 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 242 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 243 Central Asian khanates 1501 1920 Main articles Khanate of Bukhara Khanate of Khiva Khanate of Kokand and Emirate of Bukhara nbsp Central Asia in 1636 The Bukhara Khanate was an Uzbek 244 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 245 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 246 Afsharid dynasty 1736 1796 The Afsharid dynasty was named after the Turkic Afshar tribe to which they belonged The Afshars had migrated from Turkestan to Azerbaijan in the 13th century The dynasty was founded in 1736 by the military commander Nader Shah who deposed the last member of the Safavid dynasty and proclaimed himself King of Iran Nader belonged to the Qereqlu branch of the Afshars 247 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 Qajar tribe ruling over Iran from 1789 to 1925 248 249 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 In 1796 Mohammad Khan Qajar seized Mashhad with ease 250 putting an end to the Afsharid dynasty and Mohammad Khan was formally crowned as Shah after his punitive campaign against Iran s Georgian subjects 251 In the Caucasus the Qajar dynasty permanently lost many of Iran s integral areas 252 to the Russians over the course of the 19th century comprising modern day Georgia Dagestan Azerbaijan and Armenia 253 The dynasty was founded by Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar and continued until Ahmad Shah Qajar South Asia nbsp Mughal Emperor Jahangir presents Prince Khurram with a turban ornament nbsp Babur founder of the Mughal Empire and Mughal emperor Humayun 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 1206 90 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 prince named Babur reigned 1526 30 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 254 255 A further distinction was the attempt of the Mughals to integrate Hindus and Muslims into a united Indian state 254 256 257 258 Arab world nbsp Silver dirham of AH 329 940 941 CE with the names of Caliph al Muttaqi and Amir al umara Bajkam de facto ruler of the country The Arab Muslim Umayyads and Abbasids fought against the pagan Turks in the Turgesh Khaganate in the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana Turkic soldiers in the army of the Abbasid 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 Ikhshidids in Egypt The Oghuz and other tribes captured and dominated various countries under the leadership of the Seljuk dynasty and eventually captured the territories of the Abbasid dynasty and the Byzantine Empire 183 Anatolia Ottomans nbsp Ottoman empire in 1683 After many battles the western Oghuz Turks established their own state and later constructed the Ottoman Empire The main migration of the Oghuz Turks occurred in medieval times when they spread across most of Asia and into Europe and the Middle East 183 They also took part in the military encounters of the Crusades 259 In 1090 91 the Turkic Pechenegs reached the walls of Constantinople where Emperor Alexius I with the aid of the Kipchaks annihilated their army 260 As the Seljuk Empire declined following the Mongol invasion the Ottoman Empire emerged as the new important Turkic state that came to dominate not only the Middle East but even southeastern Europe parts of southwestern Russia and northern Africa 183 Islamization Turkic peoples like the Karluks mainly 8th century Uyghurs Kyrgyz Turkmens and Kipchaks 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 Krymchaks Crimean Karaites Buddhism and a small number of Zoroastrians Modern history nbsp Independent Turkic states shown in red The Ottoman Empire gradually grew weaker in the face of poor administration repeated wars with Russia Austria and Hungary and the emergence of nationalist movements in the Balkans and it finally gave way after World War I to the present day Republic of Turkey 183 Ethnic nationalism also developed in Ottoman Empire during the 19th century taking the form of Pan Turkism or Turanism The Turkic peoples of Central Asia were not organized in nation states during most of the 20th century after the collapse of the Russian Empire living either in the Soviet Union or after a short lived First East Turkestan Republic in the Chinese Republic For much of the 20th century Turkey was the only independent Turkic country 261 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 and 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 TURKSOY in 1993 and the Turkic Council in 2009 which later was renamed Organization of Turkic States in 2021 262 PhysiognomyAccording 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 263 However Chinese histories also depict the Turkic speaking peoples as typically possessing East Inner Asian physiognomy as well as occasionally having West Eurasian physiognomy 263 According to fragmentary information on the Xiongnu language that can be found in the Chinese histories the Xiongnu were Turkic 264 however historians have been unable to confirm whether or not they were Turkic Sima Qian s description of their legendary origins suggest their physiognomy was not too different from that of Han 漢 Chinese population 264 but a subset of Xiongnu known as the Jie people were described having deep set eyes high nose bridges and heavy facial hair 264 The Jie may have been Yeniseian although others maintaining an Iranian affiliation and regardless of whether or not the Xiongnu were Turkic they were a hybrid people 265 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 266 The Tang historian Yan Shigu described the Hu people of his day as blue eyed and red bearded 267 descendants of the Wusun whereas no comparable depiction of the Kok Turks or Tiele is found in the official Chinese histories 267 nbsp An early Turk Shahi ruler named Sri Ranasrikari The Lord who brings excellence through war Brahmi script In this realistic portrait he wears the Turkic double lapel caftan Late 7th to early 8th century CE 268 269 270 Historian 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 271 Historian Emel Esin and Professor Xue Zongzheng have argued that West Eurasian features were typical of the royal Ashina clan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate and that their appearance shifted to an East Asian one due to intermarriage with foreign nobility As a result by the time of Kul Tigin 684 AD members of the Ashina dynasty had East Asian features 272 273 A 2023 genetic study found that Empress Ashina 568 578 AD a Royal Gokturk had nearly entirely Ancient Northeast Asian origin weakening the western Eurasian origin and multiple origin hypotheses 127 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 274 They also suggest that many modern Turkic speaking populations are not directly descended from early Turkic peoples 274 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 275 Like Chinese historians Medieval Muslim writers generally depicted the Turks as having an East Asian appearance 276 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 276 such as the Hephthalites Rus Magyars and Tibetans In the 13th century Juzjani referred to the people of Tibet and the mountains between Tibet and Bengal as Turks and people with Turkish features 277 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 278 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 ruy i pahn narrow eyes chashmha i tang and a flat nose bini i pakhch and unpleasing lips and teeth lab va dandan na niku Keikavus 279 On Western Turkic coins the faces of the governor and governess are clearly Mongoloid a roundish face narrow eyes and the portrait have definite old Turk features long hair absence of headdress of the governor a tricorn headdress of the governess 280 nbsp Ghaznavid portrait Palace of Lashkari Bazar Schlumberger noted that the turban the small mouth and the strongly slanted eyes were characteristically Turkic 281 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 281 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 282 Al Masudi writes that the Oghuz Turks in Yengi kent near the mouth of the Syr Darya are distinguished from other Turks by their valour their slanted eyes and the smallness of their stature 276 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 turkman i e Turk like Turk manand Ḥafiẓ Tanish Mir Muḥammad Bukhari also related that the Oghuz Turkic face did not remain as it was after their migration into Transoxiana and Iran Khiva khan Abu al Ghazi Bahadur wrote in his Chagatai language treatise Shajara i Tarakima 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 Ali commented in Kunhuʾl aḫbar that Anatolian Turks and Ottoman elites are ethnically mixed Most of the inhabitants of Rum are of confused ethnic origin Among its notables there are few whose lineage does not go back to a convert to Islam 283 Kevin Alan Brook states that like most nomadic Turks the Western Turkic Khazars were racially and ethnically mixed 284 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 285 Old East Slavic sources called the Khazars the White Ugry and the Magyars the Black Ugry 286 Soviet excavated Khazar remains show Slavic type European type and a minority Mongoloid type skulls 285 The Yenisei Kyrgyz are mentioned in the New Book of Tang as having the same script and language as the Uyghurs but The people are all tall and big and have red hair white faces and green eyes 287 note 2 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 287 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 292 293 The Kyrgyz regarded those with black eyes as descending from Li Ling a Han dynasty general who defected to the Xiongnu 294 In a Chinese legal statute from the early period of the Ming dynasty the Kipchaks 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 295 296 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 amp Kuang 2017 propose that Oshanin s discovery is explainable by assuming that the historical Kipchaks modern descendants are Kazakhs of the Lesser Horde whose men possess a high frequency of haplogroup C2 s subclade C2b1b1 59 7 to 78 Lee and Kuang also suggest that the high frequency 63 9 of the Y DNA haplogroup R M73 among Karakypshaks a tribe within the Kipchaks allows 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 297 Byzantine historians of the 11th 12th centuries provided description of Turkmens as very different from the Greeks Bertrandon de la Broquiere 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 Tartar He has a broad and brown face high cheek bones a round beard a great and crooked nose with little eyes 298 Remarks For its etymology see Kangar union Etymology 9th century author Duan Chengshi described the Kyrgyz tribe Jiankun buluo 堅昆部落 as yellow haired green eyed red mustached and red bearded 288 New Book of Tang finished in 1060 describes Alats a medieval Turkic people as resembling Kyrgyzes 289 who were all tall red haired pale faced green irised 290 New Book of Tang also states that Kyrgyzes regarded black hair as infelicitous and insisted that black eyed individuals were descendants of Han general Li Ling 291 ArchaeologyXinglongwa culture Hongshan culture Caatas culture Askiz culture Kurumchi culture Saltovo Mayaki Saymaluu Tash Bilar Por Bazhyn Ordu Baliq JankentInternational organizations nbsp Map of TURKSOY members Further information Pan TurkismThere 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 TURKSOY and the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic speaking Countries TURKPA and the Turkic Council nbsp Members Observer States The TAKM Organization of the Eurasian Law Enforcement Agencies with Military Status was established on 25 January 2013 It is an intergovernmental military law enforcement gendarmerie organization of currently three Turkic countries Azerbaijan Kyrgyzstan and Turkey and Kazakhstan as observer TURKSOY Turksoy 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 299 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 300 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 301 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 302 Turkmenistan also joined as an observer state to the organization at 8th summit 303 Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was admitted to the organization as observer member at the 2022 Samarkand Summit 304 305 Demographics nbsp Bashkirs painting from 1812 Paris The distribution of people of Turkic cultural background ranges from Siberia across Central Asia to Southern Europe As of 2011 update 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 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 306 There are also considerable populations of Turkic people originating mostly from Turkey in Germany United States and Australia largely because of migrations during the 20th century Sometimes ethnographers group Turkic people into six branches the Oghuz Turks Kipchak Karluk Siberian Chuvash and Sakha Yakut branches The Oghuz have been termed Western Turks while the remaining five in such a classificatory scheme are called Eastern Turks citation needed The genetic distances between the different populations of Uzbeks scattered across Uzbekistan is no greater than the distance between many of them and the Karakalpaks This suggests that Karakalpaks and Uzbeks have very similar origins The Karakalpaks have a somewhat greater bias towards the eastern markers than the Uzbeks 307 Historical population Year Population 1 AD 2 2 5 million 2013 150 200 million The following incomplete list of Turkic people shows the respective groups core areas of settlement and their estimated sizes in millions People Primary homeland Population Modern language Predominant religion and sect Turkish people Turkey 70 M Turkish Sunni Islam Azerbaijanis Iranian Azerbaijan Republic of Azerbaijan 30 35 M Azerbaijani Shia Islam 65 Sunni Islam 35 308 309 Hanafi Uzbeks Uzbekistan 28 3 M Uzbek Sunni Islam Kazakhs Kazakhstan 13 8 M Kazakh Sunni Islam Uyghurs Altishahr China 9 M Uyghur Sunni Islam Turkmens Turkmenistan 8 M Turkmen Sunni Islam Tatars Tatarstan Russia 7 M Tatar Sunni Islam Kyrgyzs Kyrgyzstan 4 5 M Kyrgyz Sunni Islam Bashkirs Bashkortostan Russia 2 M Bashkir Sunni Islam Crimean Tatars Crimea Russia Ukraine 0 5 to 2 M Crimean Tatar Sunni Islam Chuvashes Chuvashia Russia 1 7 M Chuvash Orthodox Christianity Qashqai Southern Iran Iran 0 9 M Qashqai Shia Islam Karakalpaks Karakalpakstan Uzbekistan 0 6 M Karakalpak Sunni Islam Yakuts Yakutia Russia 0 5 M Sakha Orthodox Christianity and Turkic Paganism Kumyks Dagestan Russia 0 4 M Kumyk Sunni Islam Karachays and Balkars Karachay Cherkessia and Kabardino Balkaria Russia 0 4 M Karachay Balkar Sunni Islam Tuvans Tuva Russia 0 3 M Tuvan Tibetan Buddhism Gagauzs Gagauzia Moldova 0 2 M Gagauz Orthodox Christianity Turkic Karaites and Krymchaks Ukraine 0 004 M Karaim and Krymchak JudaismCuisineMarkets 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 sut milk yagh butter ayran qaymaq similar to clotted cream qi mi z fermented mare s milk and qurut dried yoghurt During the Middle Ages Kazakh Kyrgyz and Tatars who were historically part of the Turkic nomadic group known as the Golden Horde continued to develop new variations of dairy products 310 Nomadic Turks cooked their meals in a qazan a pot similar to a cauldron a wooden rack called a qasqan can be used to prepare certain steamed foods like the traditional meat dumplings called manti They also used a saj a griddle that was traditionally placed on stones over a fire and shish In later times the Persian tava was borrowed from the Persians for frying but traditionally nomadic Turks did most of their cooking using the qazan saj and shish Meals were served in a bowl called a chanaq and eaten with a knife bichaq and spoon qashi q 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 suzgu ch and a grinding stone called tagirman 310 Medieval grain dishes included preparations of whole grains soups porridges breads and pastries Fried or toasted whole grains were called qawirmach while kocha 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 310 There are many types of bread doughs in Turkic cuisine Yupqa is the thinnest type of dough bawi rsaq is a type of fried bread dough and chalpak 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 chorak are varieties of bread and borak is a type of filled pie pastry 310 Herd animals were usually slaughtered during the winter months and various types of sausages were prepared to preserve the meats including a type of sausage called sujuk Though prohibited by Islamic dietary restrictions historically Turkic nomads also had a variety of blood sausage One type of sausage called qazi was made from horsemeat and another variety was filled with a mixture of ground meat offal and rice Chopped meat was called qiyma and spit roasted meat was soklunch from the root sok meaning to tear off the latter dish is known as kebab in modern times Qawirma is a typical fried meat dish and kullama is a soup of noodles and lamb 310 ReligionEarly Turkic mythology and Tengrism nbsp A shaman doctor of Kyzyl nbsp Circle dance of Shamans 1911 Main articles Turkic mythology Tengrism and Shamanism Early Turkic mythology was dominated by Shamanism Animism and Tengrism The Turkic animistic traditions were mostly focused on ancestor worship polytheistic animism and shamanism Later this animistic tradition would form the more organized Tengrism citation needed 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 in 763 The wolf symbolizes honour and is also considered the mother of most Turkic peoples Ashina is the wolf mother of Tumen Il Qagan the first Khan of the Gokturks The horse and predatory birds such as the eagle or falcon are also main figures of Turkic mythology citation needed 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 Gokturks The Gokturks 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 in the Xinjiang region 311 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 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 312 Tengri Bogu Khan initially made the now extinct Manichaeism the state religion of the Uyghur Khaganate in 763 and it was also popular among the Karluks It was gradually replaced by the Mahayana Buddhism citation needed It existed in the Buddhist Uyghur Gaochang up to the 12th century 313 Tibetan Buddhism or Vajrayana was the main religion after Manichaeism 314 They worshipped Taŋri Taŋrisi Burxan 315 Quansi Im Pusar 316 and Maitri Burxan 317 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 Sari Uygurs Yellow Yughurs of Western China as well as the Tuvans of Russia are the only remaining Buddhist Turkic peoples 318 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 Azeris are traditionally Shiite Muslims Religious observance is less strict in the Republic of Azerbaijan compared to Iranian Azerbaijan Christianity nbsp Saint John the Baptist Cathedral in Gagauzia nbsp Gravestone from Kirgistan thirteenth fourteenth century with Syriac Christian inscriptions The major Christian Turkic peoples are the Chuvash of Chuvashia and the Gagauz Gokoguz of Moldova the vast majority of Chuvash and the Gagauz are Eastern Orthodox Christians 319 320 321 The traditional religion of the Chuvash of Russia while containing many ancient Turkic concepts also shares some elements with Zoroastrianism Khazar Judaism and Islam The Chuvash converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity for the most part in the second half of the 19th century 320 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 322 Between the 9th and 14th centuries Church of the East was popular among Turks such as the Naimans 323 It even revived in Gaochang and expanded in Xinjiang in the Yuan dynasty period 324 325 326 It disappeared after its collapse 327 328 Kryashens are a sub group of the Volga Tatars and the vast majority are Orthodox Christians 329 Nagaybak are an indigenous Turkic people in Russia most Nagaybak are Christian and were largely converted during the 18th century 330 Many Volga Tatars were Christianized by Ivan the Terrible during the 16th century and continued to Christianized under subsequent Russian rulers and Orthodox clergy up to the mid eighteenth century 331 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 converted or openly practice animistic and shamanistic rituals It is estimated that about 60 of Kyrgyz people practice a form of animistic rituals In Kazakhstan there are about 54 000 followers of the ancient traditions 332 333 Muslim Turks and non Muslim Turks nbsp An Old Uyghur Khagan 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 to the slow conversion of Uyghur populations to Islam 334 335 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 336 337 The Basmil Yabaḳu and Uyghur states were among the Turkic peoples who fought against the Kara Khanids spread of Islam The Islamic Kara Khanids were made out of Tukhsi Yaghma Cigil and Karluk 338 Kashgari claimed that the Prophet assisted in a miraculous event where 700 000 Yabaqu infidels were defeated by 40 000 Muslims led by Arslan Tegin claiming that fires shot sparks from gates located on a green mountain towards the Yabaqu 339 The Yabaqu were a Turkic people 340 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 341 342 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 Burxan or Furxan meaning Buddha acquiring the generic meaning of idol in the Turkic language of Kashgari had negative connotations to Muslim Turks 343 337 nbsp Gokturk petroglyphs from Mongolia 6th to 8th century nbsp A Penjikent man dressed in Turkic long coats 6th 8th c Old sportsTepuk Mahmud al Kashgari in his Diwan Lughat 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 344 see also Cuju Kyz kuu nbsp Kyz kuu Kyz kuu chase the girl has been played by Turkic people at festivals since time immemorial 345 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 346 Kokpar The kokpar began with the nomadic Turkic peoples who have come from farther north and east spreading westward from China and Mongolia between the 10th and 15th centuries 347 Jigit jigit is used in the Caucasus and Central Asia to describe a skillful and brave equestrian or a brave person in general 348 GalleryBattle hunting and blacksmithing scenes in Turkic rock art of the early Middle Ages in Altai nbsp Turk vassal blacksmiths under Mongolian rule nbsp Turkic hunting scene Gokturk period Altai nbsp Battle scene of a Turkic horseman with typical long hair Gokturk period Altai Bezeklik caves and Mogao grottoes Images of Buddhist and Manichean Old Uyghurs from the Bezeklik caves and Mogao grottoes nbsp Old Uyghur king from Turfan from the murals at the Dunhuang Mogao Caves nbsp Old Uyghur prince from the Bezeklik murals nbsp Old Uyghur woman from the Bezeklik murals nbsp Old Uyghur Princess nbsp Old Uyghur Princesses from the Bezeklik murals nbsp Old Uyghur Princes from the Bezeklik murals nbsp Old Uyghur Prince from the Bezeklik murals nbsp Old Uyghur noble from the Bezeklik murals nbsp Old Uyghur Manichaean Elect depicted on a temple banner from Qocho nbsp Old Uyghur donor from the Bezeklik murals nbsp Old Uyghur Manichaean Electae from Qocho nbsp Old Uyghur Manichaean clergymen from Qocho nbsp Fresco of Palm Sunday from Qocho nbsp Manicheans from Qocho Medieval times nbsp Khan Omurtag of Bulgaria from the Chronicle of John Skylitzes nbsp Ghaznavid portrait Palace of Lashkari Bazar 281 Modern times nbsp Azerbaijani girls in traditional dress nbsp Bashkir boys in national dress nbsp A Chuvash girl in traditional dress nbsp Khakas people with traditional instruments nbsp Nogai man in national costume nbsp Turkish girls in their traditional clothes Dursunbey Balikesir Province nbsp Turkmen girl in national dress nbsp Tuvan men and women in Kyzyl Tuva nbsp Kazakh man in traditional clothing nbsp Uzbek with traditional cuisine nbsp Kyrgyz traditional eagle hunter nbsp Tuvan traditional shaman See alsoTurkic history Turkic migration Turkic mythology Turco Persian tradition Turco Mongol tradition TurkologyReferences a b c Yunusbayev et al 2015 Garibova Jala 2011 A Pan Turkic Dream Language Unification of Turks in Fishman Joshua Garcia Ofelia eds Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity The Success Failure Continuum in Language and Ethnic Identity Efforts Oxford University Press p 268 ISBN 978 0 19 983799 1 Approximately 200 million people speak nearly 40 Turkic languages and dialects Turkey is the largest Turkic state with about 60 million ethnic Turks living in its territories Hobbs Joseph J 2017 Fundamentals of World Regional Geography Cengage p 223 ISBN 978 1 305 85495 6 The greatest are the 65 million Turks of Turkey who speak Turkish a Turkic language Uzbekistan Statistics Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan 19 August 2021 Retrieved 13 February 2022 Population 34 600 000 January 2021 est Ethnic groups Uzbek 84 6 Russian 2 1 Tajik 4 9 Kazakh 2 4 Karakalpak 2 2 other 4 1 2021 est Assuming Uzbek Kazakh and Karakalpak are included as Turks 84 6 2 4 2 2 89 2 89 2 of 34 6m 31 9m Azerbaijani people Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved 24 January 2012 15 million Egbert Jahn 2009 Nationalism in Late and Post Communist Europe p 293 20 mil Library of Congress Federal Research Division Country Profile Iran May 2008 page 5 1 Kazakhstan The World Factbook Retrieved 21 December 2014 Population 17 948 816 July 2014 est Ethnic groups Kazakh Qazaq 63 1 Russian 23 7 Uzbek 2 9 Ukrainian 2 1 Uighur 1 4 Tatar 1 3 German 1 1 other 4 4 2009 est Assuming Kazakh Uzbek Uighur and Tatar are included as Turks 63 1 2 9 1 4 1 3 68 7 68 7 of 17 9m 12 3m China The World Factbook Retrieved 13 May 2014 Azerbaijan The World Factbook Retrieved 30 July 2016 Population 9 780 780 July 2015 est Census 2021 84 6 of population define themselves as Bulgarians 8 4 Turks 4 4 Roma 24 November 2022 Afghanistan The World Factbook Retrieved 13 May 2014 Uzbeks and Turkmens Minorities and indigenous peoples in Afghanistan World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 19 June 2015 Turner B 7 February 2017 The Statesman s Yearbook 2007 The Politics Cultures and Economies of the World Springer p 1238 ISBN 978 0 230 27135 7 Leitner Gerhard Hashim Azirah Wolf Hans Georg 11 January 2016 Communicating with Asia The Future of English as a Global Language Cambridge University Press p 241 ISBN 978 1 107 06261 0 Dresser Norine 7 January 2011 Multicultural Manners Essential Rules of Etiquette for the 21st Century Wiley p 270 ISBN 978 1 118 04028 7 Unpublished Census Provides Rare and Unvarnished Look at Turkmenistan Jamestown First actual demographic data for Turkmenistan released www asianews it Kyrgyzstan The World Factbook Retrieved 13 May 2014 Triana Maria 2017 Managing Diversity in Organizations A Global Perspective Taylor amp Francis p 168 ISBN 978 1 317 42368 3 Bassem Wassim 2016 Iraq s Turkmens call for independent province Al Monitor Archived from the original on 17 October 2016 Tajikistan The World Factbook Retrieved 13 May 2014 Obama recognize us St Louis American Archived from the original on 5 September 2014 Retrieved 18 March 2015 Nahost Informationsdienst ISSN 0949 1856 Presseausschnitte zu Politik Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Nordafrika und dem Nahen und Mittleren Osten Autors Deutsches Orient Institut Deutsches Ubersee Institut Hamburg Deutsches Orient Institut 1996 seite 33 All Ukrainian population census 2001 General results of the census National composition of population State Statistics Committee of Ukraine 2003 Retrieved 2 September 2017 TRNC SPO Economic and Social Indicators 2014 pages 2 3 Michael Michalis 29 April 2016 Reconciling Cultural and Political Identities in a Globalized World Perspectives on Australia Turkey Relations Springer p 29 ISBN 978 1 137 49315 6 Mongolia The World Factbook Retrieved 13 May 2014 2020 POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUS OF MONGOLIA summary Archived from the original on 15 July 2021 Al Akhbar Lebanese Turks Seek Political and Social Recognition Archived from the original on 20 June 2018 Retrieved 2 March 2012 Tension adds to existing wounds in Lebanon Today s Zaman Archived from the original on 11 January 2012 Retrieved 6 April 2011 Ahmed Yusra 2015 Syrian Turkmen refugees face double suffering in Lebanon Zaman Al Wasl archived from the original on 23 August 2017 retrieved 11 October 2016 Syria s Turkmen Refugees Face Cruel Reality in Lebanon Syrian Observer 2015 Retrieved 10 October 2016 2017 Anuarul Statisitc al Republicii Moldova PDF in Romanian Biroul Național de Statistică al Republicii Moldova Retrieved 23 April 2022 North Macedonia The World Factbook Retrieved 13 May 2014 Census of Population Households and Dwellings in the Republic of Macedonia 2002 PDF Republic of Macedonia State Statistical Office Retrieved 23 April 2022 Encyclopedia Britannica Turkic peoples Turkic peoples any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging to the Turkic subfamily Yunusbayev et al 2015 p 1 The Turkic peoples represent a diverse collection of ethnic groups defined by the Turkic languages Uchiyama et al 2020 Most linguists and historians agree that Proto Turkic the common ancestor of all ancient and contemporary Turkic languages must have been spoken somewhere in Central East Asia e g Rona Tas Reference Rona Tas1991 p 35 Golden Reference Golden1992 pp 124 127 Menges Reference Menges1995 pp 16 19 a b Golden 2011 pp 37 38 a b Uchiyama et al 2020 The ultimate Proto Turkic homeland may have been located in a more compact area most likely in Eastern Mongolia a b Lee amp Kuang 2017 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 Uchiyama et al 2020 To sum up the palaeolinguistic reconstruction points to a mixed subsistence strategy and complex economy of the Proto Turkic speaking community It is likely that the subsistence of the Early Proto Turkic speakers was based on a combination of hunting gathering and agriculture with a later shift to nomadic pastoralism as an economy basis partly owing to the interaction of the Late Proto Turkic groups with the Iranian speaking herders of the Eastern Steppe Lee 2023 p 4 It should also be noted that even the early Turkic peoples including the Tiele and the Turks were made up of heterogeneous elements Importantly DNA studies demonstrate that the expansion process of the Turkic peoples involved the Turkicization of various non Turkic speaking groups The Turks intermixed with and Turkicized various indigenous groups across Eurasia Uralic hunter gatherers in northern Eurasia Mongolic nomads in Mongolia Indo European speaking nomads and sedentary populations in Xinjiang Transoxiana Iran Kazakhstan and South Siberia and Indo European elements the Byzantine subjects among others in Anatolia and the Balkans 11 Findley 2005 p 18 Moreover Turks do not all physically look alike They never did The Turks of Turkey are famous for their range of physical types Given the Turks ancient Inner Asian origins it is easy to imagine that they once presented a uniform Mongoloid appearance Such traits seem to be more characteristic in the eastern Turkic world however uniformity of type can never have prevailed there either Archeological evidence indicates that Indo Europeans or certainly Europoid physical types inhabited the oases of the Tarim basin and even parts of Mongolia in ancient times In the Tarim basin persistence of these former inhabitants genes among the modern Uyghurs is both observable and scientifically demonstrable 32 Early Chinese sources describe the Kirghiz as blue eyed and blond or red haired The genesis of Turkic ethnic groups from earliest times occurred in confederations of diverse peoples As if to prove the point the earliest surviving texts in Turkic languages are studded with terms from other languages Golden Peter B 25 July 2018 The Ethnogonic Tales of the Turks The Medieval History Journal 21 2 291 327 doi 10 1177 0971945818775373 ISSN 0971 9458 S2CID 166026934 Some DNA tests point to the Iranian connections of the Ashina and Ashide 133 highlighting further that the Turks as a whole were made up of heterogeneous and somatically dissimilar populations 134 Geographically the accounts cover the regions of Inner Mongolia Gansu Xinjiang the Yenisei zone and the Altay regions with Turkic Indo European Iranian Saka and Tokharian Yeniseic Uralic and other populations Wusun elements like most steppe polities of an ethno linguistic mix may have also played a substratal role Lee amp Kuang 2017 Both Chinese histories and modern dna studies indicate that the early and medieval Turkic peoples were made up of heterogeneous populations Kultegin s Memorial Complex TURIK BITIG Orkhon inscriptions Tonyukuk s Memorial Complex TURIK BITIG Bain Tsokto inscriptions Golden Peter B 25 July 2018 The Ethnogonic Tales of the Turks The Medieval History Journal 21 2 291 327 doi 10 1177 0971945818775373 S2CID 166026934 Golden 2011 Ethnogenesis in the tribal zone The Shaping of the Turks Lee Joo Yup 2016 The Historical Meaning of the Term Turk and the Nature of the Turkic Identity of the Chinggisid and Timurid Elites in Post Mongol Central Asia Central Asiatic Journal 59 1 2 103 108 Maue Dieter The Khuis Tolgoi inscription signs and sounds Academia edu Retrieved 4 November 2018 Vovin Alexander Interpretation of the Huis Tolgoi Inscription Academia edu Retrieved 4 November 2018 Vivin Alexander 2019 A Sketch of the Earliest Mongolic Language the Brahmi Bugut and Khuis Tolgoi Inscriptions International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics 1 1 162 197 doi 10 1163 25898833 12340008 S2CID 198833565 West Barbara A 19 May 2010 Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania p 826 Infobase ISBN 978 1 4381 1913 7 Retrieved 24 June 2020 新亞研究所 典籍資料庫 Archived from the original on 21 February 2014 Retrieved 18 March 2015 Moriyasu amp Ochir 1999 p 123 Pliny Natural History Harvard University Press vol II Libri III VII reprinted 1961 p 351 Pomponius Mela s Description of the World Pomponius Mela University of Michigan Press 1998 p 67 Prof Dr Ercumend Kuran Turk Adi ve Turkluk Kavrami Turk Kulturu Dergisi Yil XV S 174 Nisan 1977 s 18 20 Minns Ellis Hovell 1911 Iyrcae In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 15 11th ed Cambridge University Press p 102 Peter B Golden Introduction to the History of the Turkic People p 12 source Herod IV 22 and other authors of antiquity Togarma of the Old Testament Turukha Turuska of Indic sources Turukku of Assyrian German Archaeological Institute Department Teheran Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran Vol 19 Dietrich Reimer 1986 p 90 Sinor Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia Page 295 Golden Peter B Turks and Iranians Aspects of Turk and Khazaro Iranian Interaction Turcologica 105 25 Bŭlgarska akademii a na naukite Otdelenie za ezikoznanie izkustvoznanie literatura Linguistique balkanique Vol 27 28 1984 p 17 Turk in Turkish Etymological Dictionary Sevan Nisanyan Faruk Suumer Oghuzes Turkmens History Tribal organization Sagas Turkish World Research Foundation 1992 p 16 American Heritage Dictionary 2000 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Fourth Edition Turk bartleby com Retrieved 7 December 2006 Golden Peter B Some Thoughts on the Origins of the Turks and the Shaping of the Turkic Peoples 2006 In Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World Ed Victor H Mair University of Hawaiʻi Press p 143 Golden Peter B 1992 An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples p 93 95 T Allsen P B Golden R K Kovalev and A P Martinez 2012 ARCHIVUM EURASIAEMEDII AEV p 85 Clauson G An Etymological Dictionary of Pre 13th Century Turkish 1972 p 542 543 Aydemir Hakan 2 3 December 2022 TURK Adinin Kokeni Uzerine On the origin of the ethnonym TURK Turkic Turkish an English abstract In Sahin Ibrahim Akgun Atif eds Turk Dunyasi Sosyal Bilimler Sempozyumu in Turkish Izmir Ege University The Peoples of the Steppe Frontier in Early Chinese Sources Edwin G Pulleyblank page 35 Golden 2011 p 27 a b Pulleyblank Central Asia and Non Chinese Peoples of Ancient China p VII 21 26 a b Duan Dingling Gaoju and Tiele p 370 Theobald Ulrich 2012 Xiajiasi 黠戛斯 Qirqiz for ChinaKnowledge de An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History Literature and Art Pulleyblank Edwin G The Name of the Kirghiz in Central Asiatic Journal Vol 34 No 1 2 1990 Harrassowitz Verlag page 98 99 of 98 108 Hyun Jin Kim The Huns Rome and the Birth of Europe Cambridge University Press 2013 pp 175 176 Lee amp Kuang 2017 p 200 Historians know with certainty that the Dingling were a Turkic people Xu Elina Qian Historical Development of the Pre Dynastic Khitan University of Helsinki 2005 p 176 Dickens 2018 p 1346 Greek authors frequently applied the name Scythians to later nomadic groups who had no relation whatever to the original Scythians Ivantchik 2018 G Moravcsik Byzantinoturcica II p 236 39 Jean Paul Roux Historie des Turks Deux mille ans du Pacifique a la Mediterranee Librairie Artheme Fayard 2000 Vryonis Speros Studies on Byzantium Seljuks and Ottomans Reprinted Studies Undena Publications 1981 ISBN 0 89003 071 5 p 305 The origins of the Karamanlides have long been disputed there being two basic theories on the subject According to one they are the remnants of the Greek speaking Byzantine population which though it remained Orthodox was linguistically Turkified The second theory holds that they were originally Turkish soldiers which the Byzantine emperors had settled in Anatolia in large numbers and who retained their language and Christian religion after the Turkish conquests Baydar 2016 p 21 Encyclopedia Britannica Turkic peoples Pritsak O amp Golb N Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century Ithaca Cornell Univ Press 1982 Timur Archived 2013 09 22 at the Wayback Machine The Columbia Encyclopedia Sixth Edition 2001 05 Columbia University Press Encyclopaedia Britannica article Consolidation amp expansion of the Indo Timurids Online Edition 2007 Walton Linda 2013 World History Journeys from Past to Present Routledge p 210 ISBN 978 1 135 08828 6 Peter Benjamin Golden 1992 An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples p 110 Pulleyblank Edwin G 2000 Ji 姬 and Jiang 姜 The Role of Exogamic Clans in the Organization of the Zhou Polity Early China p 20 Wei Shou Book of Wei Vol 1 Tseng Chin Yin 2012 The Making of the Tuoba Northern Wei Constructing Material Cultural Expressions in the Northern Wei Pingcheng Period 398 494 CE PhD University of Oxford p 1 Wei Shou Book of Wei vol 91 蠕蠕 東胡之苗裔也 姓郁久閭氏 tr Ruru offsprings of Dōnghu surnamed Yujiŭlǘ Book of Song vol 95 芮芮一號大檀 又號檀檀 亦匈奴別種 tr Ruirui one appellation is Datan also called Tantan likewise a Xiōngnu splinter stock Xu Elina Qian Historical Development of the Pre Dynastic Khitan University of Helsinki 2005 p 179 180 Lee Joo Yup 2016 The Historical Meaning of the Term Turk and the Nature of the Turkic Identity of the Chinggisid and Timurid Elites in Post Mongol Central Asia Central Asiatic Journal 59 1 2 105 Turkic Language family tree entries provide the information on the Turkic speaking populations and regions Katzner Kenneth March 2002 Languages of the World Third Edition Routledge an imprint of Taylor amp Francis Books Ltd ISBN 978 0 415 25004 7 Turkic peoples Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition 2008 Lyle Campbell and Mauricio J Mixco 2007 A Glossary of Historical Linguistics University of Utah Press Page 7 Johanna Nichols 1992 Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time Chicago University Press Page 4 R M W Dixon 1997 The Rise and Fall of Languages Cambridge University Press Page 32 Asya Pereltsvaig 2012 Languages of the World An Introduction Cambridge University Press Pages 211 216 De la Fuente Jose Andres Alonso 2016 Review of Robbeets Martine 2015 Diachrony of verb morphology Japanese and the Transeurasian languages Diachronica 33 4 530 537 doi 10 1075 dia 33 4 04alo Vasiliev D D Graphical fund of Turkic runiform writing monuments in Asian areal M 1983 p 44 Tekin 1993 p 1 Yunusbayev et al 2015 pp 1 2 a b Yunusbayev Bayazit Metspalu Mait Metspalu Ene Valeev Albert Litvinov Sergei Valiev Ruslan Akhmetova Vita Balanovska Elena Balanovsky Oleg Turdikulova Shahlo Dalimova Dilbar Nymadawa Pagbajabyn Bahmanimehr Ardeshir Sahakyan Hovhannes Tambets Kristiina 21 April 2015 The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Turkic Speaking Nomads across Eurasia PLOS Genetics 11 4 e1005068 doi 10 1371 journal pgen 1005068 ISSN 1553 7404 PMC 4405460 PMID 25898006 Golden Peter B 27 April 2018 THE CONSTRUCTION OF ETHNICITY IN MEDIEVAL TURKIC EURASIA in Schmidtke Sabine ed Studying the Near and Middle East at the Institute for Advanced Study Princeton 1935 2018 Gorgias Press pp 420 428 doi 10 31826 9781463240035 054 ISBN 978 1 4632 4003 5 S2CID 198684158 retrieved 28 September 2023 The ancient Turkic Urheimat appears to have been located in Southern Siberia from the Lake Baikal region to Eastern Mongolia The Proto Turks in their Southern Siberian Mongolian homeland were in contact with speakers of Eastern Iranian Scytho Sakas who were also in Mongolia Uralic and Paleo Siberian languages Janhunen 2003 p 203 There is indeed reason to assume that Mongolia is primarily the source region of the Turkic language family while the Mongolic homeland was located further to the east in western Manchuria Wang Chuan Chao Yeh Hui Yuan Popov Alexander N Zhang Hu Qin Matsumura Hirofumi Sirak Kendra Cheronet Olivia Kovalev Alexey Rohland Nadin Kim Alexander M Mallick Swapan Bernardos Rebecca Tumen Dashtseveg Zhao Jing Liu Yi Chang March 2021 Genomic insights into the formation of human populations in East Asia Nature 591 7850 413 419 Bibcode 2021Natur 591 413W doi 10 1038 s41586 021 03336 2 ISSN 1476 4687 PMC 7993749 PMID 33618348 Fuente Jose Andres Alonso de la 1 January 2016 Diachrony of verb morphology Japanese and the Transeurasian languages Diachronica 33 4 530 537 doi 10 1075 dia 33 4 04alo ISSN 0176 4225 Dybo Anna 1 January 2017 New trends in European studies on the Altaic problem Journal of Language Relationship 14 1 2 71 106 doi 10 31826 jlr 2017 141 208 ISSN 2219 4029 S2CID 212688205 a b Nelson et al 2020 a b Li et al 2020 a b c d Uchiyama et al 2020 a b He Guang Lin Wang Meng Ge Zou Xing Yeh Hui Yuan Liu Chang Hui Liu Chao Chen Gang Wang Chuan Chao January 2022 Extensive ethnolinguistic diversity at the crossroads of North China and South Siberia reflects multiple sources of genetic diversity Journal of Systematics and Evolution 61 1 230 250 doi 10 1111 jse 12827 ISSN 1674 4918 S2CID 245849003 All Altaic speaking populations were a mixture of dominant Siberian Neolithic ancestry and non negligible YRB ancestry suggesting that Altaic people and their language were more likely to originate from the Northeast Asia mostly likely the ARB and surrounding regions as the primary common ancestry identified here and further experienced influence from Neolithic YRB farmers All Altaic people but eastern and southern Mongolic speaking populations possessed a high proportion of West Eurasian related ancestry in accordance with the linguistically documented language borrowing in Turkic language Yang Meng amp Zhang 2023 Uchiyama et al 2020 Although current genetic evidence is not adequate to track the exact time and location for the origin of the proto Turkic language it is clear that it probably originated somewhere in northeastern Asia given the fact that the nomadic groups such as the Rouran Xiongnu and the Xianbei all share a substratum genetic ancestry that falls into or close to the northeast Asian gene pool Ning et al Reference Ning Li Wang Zhang Li Wu and Cuiin press Li et al Reference Li Zhang Zhao Chen Ochir Sarenbilige and Zhou2018 Damgaard Peter de Barros Marchi Nina Rasmussen Simon Peyrot Michael Renaud Gabriel Korneliussen Thorfinn Moreno Mayar J Victor Pedersen Mikkel Winther Goldberg Amy Usmanova Emma Baimukhanov Nurbol Loman Valeriy Hedeager Lotte Pedersen Anders Gorm Nielsen Kasper May 2018 137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes Nature 557 7705 369 374 Bibcode 2018Natur 557 369D doi 10 1038 s41586 018 0094 2 hdl 1887 3202709 ISSN 1476 4687 PMID 29743675 S2CID 13670282 The diversification within the Turkic languages suggests that several waves of migrations occurred35 and on the basis of the impact of local languages gradual assimilation to local populations were already assumed36 The East Asian migration starting with the Xiongnu complies well with the hypothesis that early Turkic was their major language37 Further migrations of East Asians westwards find a good linguistic correlate in the influence of Mongolian on Turkic and Iranian in the last millennium38 As such the genomic history of the Eurasian steppe is the story of a gradual transition from Bronze Age pastoralists of western Eurasian ancestry towards mounted warriors of increased East Asian ancestry a process that continued well into historical times Guarino Vignon Perle Marchi Nina Bendezu Sarmiento Julio Heyer Evelyne Bon Celine 14 January 2022 Genetic continuity of Indo Iranian speakers since the Iron Age in southern Central Asia Scientific Reports 12 1 733 Bibcode 2022NatSR 12 733G doi 10 1038 s41598 021 04144 4 ISSN 2045 2322 PMC 8760286 PMID 35031610 Modern DNA studies suggested that the Indo Iranian group was present in Central Asia before the Turko Mongol group11 maybe as early as Neolithic times the Turko Mongol group emerged later from the admixture between a group related to local Indo Iranian and a South Siberian or Mongolian group11 13 14 with a high East Asian ancestry around 60 Dai Shan Shan Sulaiman Xierzhatijiang Isakova Jainagul Xu Wei Fang Abdulloevich Najmudinov Tojiddin Afanasevna Manilova Elena Ibrohimovich Khudoidodov Behruz Chen Xi Yang Wei Kang Wang Ming Shan Shen Quan Kuan Yang Xing Yan Yao Yong Gang Aldashev Almaz A Saidov Abdusattor 25 August 2022 The Genetic Echo of the Tarim Mummies in Modern Central Asians Molecular Biology and Evolution 39 9 doi 10 1093 molbev msac179 ISSN 0737 4038 PMC 9469894 PMID 36006373 By contrast the Kyrgyz together with other Turkic speaking populations originated from the admixture since the Iron Age The Historical Era gene flow derived from the Eastern Steppe with the representative of Mongolia Xiongnu o1 made a more substantial contribution to Kyrgyz and other Turkic speaking populations i e Kazakh Uyghur Turkmen and Uzbek 34 9 55 2 higher than that to the Tajik populations 11 6 18 6 fig 4A suggesting Tajiks suffer fewer impacts of the recent admixtures Martinez Cruz et al 2011 Consequently the Tajik populations generally present patterns of genetic continuity of Central Asians since the Bronze Age Our results are consistent with linguistic and genetic evidence that the spreading of Indo European speakers into Central Asia was earlier than the expansion of Turkic speakers Kuz mina and Mallory 2007 Yunusbayev et al 2015 a b c d e Yang Meng amp Zhang 2023 Yang Meng amp Zhang 2023 The early Medieval Turk earlyMed Turk derived the major ancestry from ANA at a proportion of 62 2 the remainder from BMAC 10 7 and Western Steppe Afanasievo nomad 27 1 Figs 1C 1D Table S2E Yang Meng amp Zhang 2023 Central Steppe Turk Kyrgyzstan Turk and Kazakhstan Turk could be modeled as an admixture of ANA Mongolia N North BMAC and West Steppe pastoralists Afanasievo P 0 0196 Yang Meng amp Zhang 2023 In contrast the early West Xiongnu earlyXiongnu west and late Sarmatian Xiongnu lateXiongnu Sarmatian derived ancestry mainly from West Eurasian for example early West Xiongnu exhibited 68 4 Afanasievo related ancestry Among the Central Steppe pastoralists Wusun Kangju and Tianshan Hun derived a majority of their ancestry 62 4 73 from Western Steppe nomadic Afanasievo groups with the remainder 37 6 27 characterized as BMAC the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex and East Eurasian The Turkic Karluk Kipchak and Karakhanid could be modeled derived 35 50 6 of ancestry from Afanasievo 10 5 21 7 from BMAC and 38 9 49 4 from YR IA Jeong C Wang K Wilkin S Taylor WT Miller BK Bemmann JH et al 2020 A Dynamic 6 000 Year Genetic History of Eurasia s Eastern Steppe Cell 183 4 890 904 e29 doi 10 1016 j cell 2020 10 015 PMC 7664836 PMID 33157037 From the late first millennium BCE onward a series of hierarchical and centrally organized empires arose on the Eastern Steppe notably the Xiongnu 209 BCE 98 CE Turkic 552 742 CE Uyghur 744 840 CE and Khitan 916 1125 CE empires Genetic data for the subsequent Early Medieval period are relatively sparse and uneven and few Xianbei or Rouran sites have yet been identified during the 400 year gap between the Xiongnu and Turkic periods We observed high genetic heterogeneity and diversity during the Turkic and Uyghur periods Sima Qian Records of the Grand Historian 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 he went north and subjugated the nations of Hunyu Qushe Dingling Gekun and Xinli Therefore the Xiongnu nobles and dignitaries all admired and regarded Modun chanyu as capable a b 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 a b Findley 2005 p 29 Suishu vol 84 Pulleyblank E G The Name of the Kirghiz Central Asiatic Journal 34 no 1 2 1990 p 99 Pulleyblank Edwin G 1991 The High Carts A Turkish Speaking People before the Turks Asia Major Third series 3 1 Academia Sinica 21 22 Weishu vol 103 高車 蓋古赤狄之餘種也 初號為狄歷 北方以為勑勒 諸夏以為高車 丁零 其語略與匈奴同而時有小異 或云其先匈奴之甥也 tr 丁零 铁勒的西迁及其所建西域政权 Archived from the original on 15 July 2015 Retrieved 18 March 2015 Cheng Fangyi The Research on the Identification Between Tiele 鐵勒 and the Oghuric Tribes Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 81 114 Cheng 2012 p 84 87 Lee Joo Yup 2016 The Historical Meaning of the Term Turk and the Nature of the Turkic Identity of the Chinggisid and Timurid Elites in Post Mongol Central Asia Central Asiatic Journal 59 1 2 101 32 doi 10 13173 centasiaj 59 1 2 0101 Tang Li A Brief Description of the Early and Medieval Turks in Turkic Christians in Central Asia and China 5th 14th Centuries Studies in Turkic philology Minzu University Press p VII Duan Dingling Gaoju and Tiele 1988 pp 39 41 Xue Zongzheng History of Turks 1992 39 85 Rachel Lung Interpreters in Early Imperial China John Benjamins Publishing Company 2011 p 48 Turk or Turkut refers to a state of Asina clan of Tiele 鐵勒 tribe by ancestral lineage Duan Dingling Gaoju and Tiele 1988 pp 39 41 Suribadalaha New Studies of the Origins of the Mongols p 46 47 Cheng Fangyi The Research on the Identification Between Tiele and the Oghuric Tribes Lee amp Kuang 2017 p 201 202 Hucker Charles O 1975 China s Imperial Past An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture Stanford University Press ISBN 0 8047 2353 2 Savelyev Alexander Jeong Choongwon 10 May 2020 Early nomads of the Eastern Steppe and their tentative connections in the West Evolutionary Human Sciences 2 doi 10 1017 ehs 2020 18 hdl 21 11116 0000 0007 772B 4 PMC 7612788 PMID 35663512 S2CID 218935871 Silk Road Xiongnu An Introduction to the Turkic Tribes Retrieved 18 March 2015 Haug Robert 27 June 2019 The Eastern Frontier Limits of Empire in Late Antique and Early Medieval Central Asia Bloomsbury Publishing p 64 ISBN 978 1 78831 722 1 The Turks emerged from the Ashĭna clan of probable Xiōngnu descent part of the military nobility of the Rouran Lebedynsky 2006 p 59 Nicola di Cosmo Ancient China and its Enemies S 163ff Ebrey Patricia Buckley 2010 The Cambridge Illustrated History of China 2nd ed Cambridge University Press p 69 ISBN 978 0 521 12433 1 Savelyev amp Jeong 2020 Specifically individuals from Iron Age steppe and Xiongnu have an ancestry related to present day and ancient Iranian Caucasus Turan populations in addition to the ancestry components derived from the Late Bronze Age populations We estimate that they derive between 5 and 25 of their ancestry from this new source with 18 for Xiongnu Table 2 We speculate that the introduction of this new western Eurasian ancestry may be linked to the Iranian elements in the Xiongnu linguistic material while the Turkic related component may be brought by their eastern Eurasian genetic substratum Table 2 Sintashta MLBA 0 239 Khovsgol LBA 0 582 Gonur1 BA 0 178 MA Li qing On the new evidence on Xiongnu s writings Archived 19 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine Wanfang Data Digital Periodicals 2004 Paola Dematte Writing the Landscape the Petroglyphs of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Province China Paper presented at the First International Conference of Eurasian Archaeology University of Chicago 3 4 May 2002 N Ishjatms Nomads In Eastern Central Asia in the History of civilizations of Central Asia Volume 2 Fig 6 p 166 UNESCO Publishing 1996 ISBN 92 3 102846 4 de la Vaissiere 2015 p 175 180 Ulrich Theobald Chinese History Xiongnu 匈奴 www chinaknowledge de Retrieved 18 March 2015 G Pulleyblank The Consonantal System of Old Chinese Part II Asia Major n s 9 1963 206 65 Allchin Allchin Raymond 3 June 2019 Archaeology of Afghanistan From Earliest Times to the Timurid Period New Edition Edinburgh University Press p SA5 PA94 ISBN 978 1 4744 5046 1 The Origins of the Huns Retrieved 18 March 2015 VAJDA Edward J 2008 Yeniseic a chapter in the book Language isolates and microfamilies of Asia Routledge to be co authored with Bernard Comrie 53 pages Otto J Maenchen Helfen The World of the Huns Studies in Their History and Culture University of California Press 1973 Otto Maenchen Helfen Language of Huns Retrieved 18 March 2015 Savelyev amp Jeong 2020 Haug Robert 27 June 2019 The Eastern Frontier Limits of Empire in Late Antique and Early Medieval Central Asia Bloomsbury Publishing p 65 ISBN 978 1 78831 722 1 The collapse of the Hephthalite domains made neighbours of the Turk Khaqanate and the Sasanian Empire both sharing a border that ran the length of the River Oxus Further Turkish expansion to the west and around the Caspian Sea saw them dominate the western steppes and its people and extend this frontier down to the Caucasus where they also shared a border with the Sasanians Khusrow is noted at the time for improving the fortifications on either side of the Caspian Bab al Abwab at Derbent and the Great Wall of Gorgan Tasar Eren Frank Allen J Eden Jeff 11 October 2021 From the Khan s Oven Studies on the History of Central Asian Religions in Honor of Devin DeWeese BRILL p 9 ISBN 978 90 04 47117 7 The Turks while still vassals of the Rouran are first mentioned in the Zhoushu chap 50 in the early 540s when they came to the border seeking to obtain silk goods and establish a relationship with China Shortly thereafter a series of embassies in 545 and 546 between the Turks and the Western Wei followed in which a Sogdian An Nuopantuo Nakbanda represented China a b Wei Zheng 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 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 Linghu Defen et al Zhoushu vol 50 quote 突厥者 蓋匈奴之別種 姓阿史那氏 Beishi vol 99 section Tujue quote 突厥者 其先居西海之右 獨為部落 蓋匈奴之別種也 translation The Tujue their ancestors dwelt on the right bank of the Western Sea a lone tribe probably a separate branch of the Xiongnu Golden Peter B August 2018 The Ethnogonic Tales of the Turks The Medieval History Journal 21 2 p 298 of 291 327 fn 36 Xin Tangshu vol 215A 突厥阿史那氏 蓋古匈奴北部也 The Ashina family of the Turk probably were the northern tribes of the ancient Xiongnu quoted and translated in Xu 2005 Historical Development of the Pre Dynastic Khitan University of Helsinki 2005 Zhoushu vol 50 或云突厥之先出於索國 在匈奴之北 Beishi vol 99 section Tujue quote 又曰突厥之先 出於索國 在匈奴之北 Zhoushu vol 50 quote 居金山之陽 為茹茹鐵工 金山形似兜鍪 其俗謂兜鍪為 突厥 遂因以為號焉 a b c d e f Carter V Findley The Turks in World History Oxford University Press October 2004 ISBN 0 19 517726 6 Golden P B 1992 An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples Series Turcologica Band IX Otto Harrassowitz p 117 Turk Tarih Kongresi in Turkish Turk Tarih Kurumu 1999 ISBN 978 975 16 0260 2 West Barbara A 19 May 2010 Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania Infobase Publishing p 829 ISBN 978 1 4381 1913 7 a b Haywood John 1998 Historical Atlas of the Medieval World AD 600 1492 Barnes amp Noble McLynn Frank 14 July 2015 Genghis Khan His Conquests His Empire His Legacy Hachette Books p 436 ISBN 978 0 306 82395 4 Figes Orlando 20 September 2022 The Story of Russia Metropolitan Books pp 45 46 ISBN 978 1 250 79690 5 Soucek Branko Soucek Svat 17 February 2000 A History of Inner Asia Cambridge University Press p 29 ISBN 978 0 521 65704 4 The Kipchak Turkic speaking khans of Sibir had ruled there from the thirteenth century to the sixteenth and their realm represented the northernmost position ever occupied by an Islamic state Benson Linda Svanberg Ingvar 2016 China s Last Nomads History and Culture of China s Kazaks Routledge p 35 ISBN 978 1 315 28519 1 Benson amp Svanberg 2016 p 65 Szostak Rick 22 October 2020 Making Sense of World History Routledge p 672 ISBN 978 1 000 20167 3 Foltz Richard 1 November 2013 Religions of Iran From Prehistory to the Present Simon and Schuster p 256 ISBN 978 1 78074 309 7 Golden Peter B 14 January 2011 Central Asia in World History Oxford University Press p 47 ISBN 978 0 19 972203 7 Yuan Hong 14 November 2022 From the Khitans to the Jurchens amp Mongols A History of Barbarians in Triangle Wars amp Quartet Conflicts ISBN 978 1 6632 4258 7 Baumer Christoph 18 April 2018 History of Central Asia the 4 volume set ISBN 978 1 83860 868 2 Zizhi Tongjian vol 246 Zizhi Tongjian vol 247 Dardess John W 10 September 2010 Governing China 150 1850 ISBN 978 1 60384 447 5 Ven Hans van de 26 July 2021 Warfare in Chinese History ISBN 978 90 04 48294 4 Wudai Shi ch 75 Considering the father was originally called Nieliji without a surname the fact that his patrilineal ancestors all had Chinese names here indicates that these names were probably all created posthumously after Shi Jingtang became a Chinese emperor Shi Jingtang actually claimed to be a descendant of Chinese historical figures Shi Que and Shi Fen and insisted that his ancestors went westwards towards non Han Chinese area during the political chaos at the end of the Han Dynasty in the early 3rd century According to Old History of the Five Dynasties vol 99 and New History of the Five Dynasties 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 According to Old History of the Five Dynasties vol 99 and New History of the Five Dynasties 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 a b Theobald Ulrich Shatuo Turks 沙陀突厥 www chinaknowledge de chinaknowledge de Retrieved 30 April 2019 Mote F W Imperial China 900 1800 Harvard University Press 1999 Song Lian et al History of Yuan Vol 118 阿剌兀思剔吉忽里 汪古部人 係出沙陀雁門之後 Alawusi Tijihuli a man of the Ongud tribe descendant s of the Wild Goose Pass s Shatuo a b Paulillo Mauricio White Tatars The Problem of the Ongũt 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 Aristov N A 2003 Trudy po istorii i etnicheskomu sostavu tyurkskih plemen PDF Bishkek Ilim p 103 ISBN 5 8355 1297 X Archived from the original PDF on 1 January 2017 Ochir A 2016 E P Bakaeva K V Orlova eds Mongolskie etnonimy voprosy proishozhdeniya i etnicheskogo sostava mongolskih narodov PDF Elista KIGI RAN pp 133 135 ISBN 978 5 903833 93 1 Ozkan Izgi The ancient cultures of Central Asia and the relations with the Chinese civilization The Turks Ankara 2002 p 98 ISBN 975 6782 56 0 Mierse William E 31 December 2022 Artifacts from the Ancient Silk Road ABC CLIO p xlvii ISBN 978 1 4408 5829 1 Holdstock Nick 13 June 2019 China s Forgotten People Xinjiang Terror and the Chinese State Bloomsbury Publishing p 17 ISBN 978 1 78831 982 9 Rona Tas Andras 1 March 1999 Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages An Introduction to Early Hungarian History Central European University Press p 288 ISBN 978 963 386 572 9 Chaliand GZrard Wong R Bin 17 November 2014 A Global History of War From Assyria to the Twenty First Century Univ of California Press p 82 ISBN 978 0 520 28360 2 Melnyk Mykola 2022 Byzantium and the Pechenegs The Historiography of the Problem BRILL p 318 ISBN 978 90 04 50522 3 Adrianov Boris V Mantellini Simone 31 December 2013 Ancient Irrigation Systems of the Aral Sea Area Ancient Irrigation Systems of the Aral Sea Area Oxbow Books Limited p 238 ISBN 978 1 78297 167 2 The sedentary ruling stratum the Kangar was of Iranian origin The ruling elite spoke Iranian whereas most of the population spoke Turkic with a significant admixture of Hunno Bulgar elements Melnyk 2022 p 318 According to Pritsak the Pecheneg ruling elite i e the Kangar tribes were Iranian speakers Tolstoi V P Origin of the Karakalpak people KSIE Moscow 1947 p 75 Tang Li Winkler Dietmar W 2016 Winds of Jingjiao Studies on Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia LIT Verlag Munster p 223 ISBN 978 3 643 90754 7 Sandman Erika Simon Camille 2016 Tibetan as a model language in the Amdo Sprachbund evidence from Salar and Wutun Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics 3 1 88 doi 10 1515 jsall 2016 0003 S2CID 146919944 hal 03427697 Sandman Erika Simon Camille 23 October 2023 Tibetan as a model language in the Amdo Sprachbund Evidence from Salar and Wutun Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics 3 1 85 doi 10 1515 jsall 2016 0003 S2CID 146919944 Sandman Erika A Grammar of Wutun PDF PhD Thesis Department of World Cultures thesis University of Helsinki p 15 Han Deyan 1999 Mostaert Antoine ed The Salar Khazui System Central Asiatic Journal 43 44 Ma Jianzhong and Kevin Stuart translators 2 ed O Harrassowitz 212 Bowering Gerhard Crone Patricia Mirza Mahan 1 January 2012 The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought Princeton University Press pp 410 411 Islamic Central Asia an anthology of historical sources Ed Scott Cameron Levi and Ron Sela Indiana University Press 2010 83 The Ghaznavids were a dynasty of Turkic slave soldiers Ghaznavid Dynasty Encyclopaedia BritannicaJonathan M Bloom Sheila Blair The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture Oxford University Press 2009 Vol 2 p 163 Online Edition Turkish dominated mamluk regiments dynasty of mamluk origin the GHAZNAVID line carved out an empire C E Bosworth The Ghaznavids Edinburgh 1963 C E Bosworth Ghaznavids in Encyclopaedia Iranica Online Edition 2006 C E Bosworth Ghaznavids in Encyclopaedia of Islam Online Edition Brill Leiden 2006 2007 Encyclopaedia Britannica Ghaznavid Dynasty Online Edition 2007 David Christian A History of Russia Central Asia and Mongolia Blackwell Publishing 1998 pg 370 Though Turkic in origin Alp Tegin Sebuk Tegin and Mahmud were all thoroughly Persianized J Meri Hg Medieval Islamic Civilization An Encyclopedia Ghaznavids London u a 2006 p 294 Sydney Nettleton Fisher and William Ochsenwald The Middle East a history Volume 1 McGraw Hill 1997 span, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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