A Turk, in the common sense of the word, is someone from Turkey. Here I use it in its more general sense: anyone who speaks Turkish or any of its sister languages. So not only are the Turkish Turks but so are the Azeris, Turkmens, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Uighurs, Tatars and others.
Although you would not know it now, for a thousand years, from about 900 to 1900, they ruled the greater part of the Muslim world. For a time they ruled parts of Hindu India and Christian Europe as well. Only in the 1200s in Mongol times and in the last hundred years in Western times did they fall from power. The Ottomans, Seljuks, Mamluks, Timurids, Moguls, the Tartars of the Golden Horde and so on were all Turks. They were long the great enemy of the West.
Religion: Nearly all Turks are Sunni Muslims. Those who are not: the Azeris are Shia Muslim, the Chuvash and some Bashkirs are Christians and the Yakuts still worship spirits.
Countries: They live mainly in Turkey and the countries to the east: Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, East Turkestan (what their Chinese rulers call Xinjiang) and in northern Siberia in Yakutia. The rest live here and there in the sea of Russians and Eastern Europeans that they once ruled.
Here is a family tree showing all the Turkish languages that have at least a million speakers and some others. Following each is the millions of speakers each has.
- Western Turk
- Bolgar
- Chuvash (2)
- Oghuz (South-western)
- Azeri (30)
- Turkmen (6)
- Turkish (75): Seljuk, Ottoman, Turkey
- Qashqai (1.5)
- Khorasani (0.4)
- Pecheneg (0)
- Kipchak (North-western)
- Kipchak (0): Golden Horde, Mamluks
- Tatar (8): Golden Horde, Cossacks
- Bashkir (1)
- Krymchak (0.0001)
- Kazakh (12)
- Karakalpak (0.4)
- Kyrgyz (3)
- Chagatay (South-eastern)
- Chagatay (0): Timurids, Moguls
- Uighur (10)
- Uzbek (22)
- Bolgar
- Eastern Turk
- North-eastern
- Yakut (0.4): Sakha
- Tuvani (0.2)
- North-eastern
The difference between some of these languages is less than that found within Arabic.
Despite where they live, the Tajiks are not Turks but cousins of the Persians, like the Afghans to the south.
The first Cossacks were Tartars. The word “Cossack” and “Kazakh” come from the same Turkish word for “free man”.
Homeland and history: It seems their ancient homeland was just north of Mongolia. They raised horses, sheep, goats and cows and followed shamans. They lived in round tents made of felt. The Yakuts went north and the rest moved south-west to live in Central Asia. There they became Muslims.
Many moved on into the heart of the Muslim world, becoming its soldiers and later its rulers, taking on Persian ways.
They could not stand up to the Mongols, their distant cousins who came in the 1200s, but in the 1300s, when the Mongol empire broke up, they took over the pieces that remained. The Mongols outside of Mongolia became Turks. Tamerlane is an example.
The greatest of the many Turkish empires was the last, the Ottoman empire, which found itself on the losing side of the First World War in the early 1900s and was broken up soon after.
There are three natural Turkish countries:
- Turkey – without Kurdistan
- Azerbaijan – with the Azeri part of Iran
- Turkestan – Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Xinjiang
Yakutia is too small to be a true country.
See also:
I like this web site but I love to see more about Black Sheep Turk history because I am from the Loyal Family of Black Sheep Turks whick party lives in Turkey..I love to know more about my people and past…F.O.K
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I am trying to put them back together (Black Sheep Turks) because we changed and forget our past under Turkey”s system… My people lives mostly in Iran and my Great Grandfathers grave in Tabriz (Sah Cihan)..One day I hope I can put them back togerher…
Fatih Ozturk Black Sheep
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I heard about the Black Sheep Turks and the White Sheep Turks from reading about them in Tamerlane, but apart from that I do not know much about them. You turn the page in the history book and you never hear about them again. I am happy to hear that Turkey has failed. Do you know of any good places where I can find out more?
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Hi, thanks for your website. I’m Salar from China and my ancestor came from Central Asia about 13th century. I heard that the Black Sheep Turks were from Salur, is that true? Any information would be appreciated.
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I am not sure about Salur. I will be writing about the Black Sheep Turks soon.
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hi all of you.ı am türk boy but etnich avşar Atatürk avşar,ottoman founding avşar ı am love türk and avşar,azeri,tatar,türkistan,gaguz,ırak türkmen,and other my herat in flow blood soul.ı love türkish world you very live.tolkien_87@hotmail.com come you speak ı you join my msn ı am love central asia and,cafcasi,anatolia,balkans,horasan,azerbaycan,sibrian,tuna walley,altay mountian,ıssık lake,hazar sea,kıbrı and other very love
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tolkien_87@hotmail.com
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tolkien_87@hotmail.com ı want all türk speak.
TÜRK=TATAR=KAZAK=KIRGIZ=TÜRKMEN=ÖZBEK=UYGUR=YAKUT=ALTAY=HAKAS=TUVA=SALAR=AVŞAR=AVAR=AZERİ=SİZLERİ SEVİYORUM I VERY LOVE YOU
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It’s sad that in Western history books, Turks are not talked about more often. The Turks have a variety of appearances, due to being so willing to mix with the peoples they encountered as they expanded. Some of the typical appearances are:
East Asian, represented for example in the Altaians. This is probably what the original Turks looked like. You can often see at least hints of this in the other Turks.
White, represented for example in the Chuvash. They have light skin, and often lighter hair and eye colors, with some being blonde and blue-eyed, but these features can be found occasionally in the other Turks who look East Asian or Middle Eastern (even as adults).
Middle Eastern, represented for example in the Turks (of Turkey). There are a lot of Turks in the Middle East.
In his book, The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe, Hyun Jin Kim argued convincingly that in the Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, groups like the Huns, who were at their core probably Turks, had a huge impact on the development of European culture and society, with Europeans adopting many practices from them. He said they were especially important for the development of Western Europe, arguing that it was the Huns who liberated Western Europe from Mediterranean domination allowing them to rise to prominence a millennium later when they started sending expeditions everywhere. He said that during the Late Antiquity there was no singular European culture, but instead there was a Mediterranean culture represented by Rome and a Eurasian culture that stretched from the Rhine River (at the border between France and Germany) all the way to Mongolia.
I thank you for your expose on the Turks and I hope we can learn more about them. It’s a shame Western historians have often wanted to erase them from history.
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