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This article was nominated for deletion on July 28 2006. The result of the discussion was Keep.

Contents 1 Comments 1.1 Changes 1.2 Needs rewriting 1.3 Sudden attention 1.4 Protection 1.5 Turkified Areas 1.6 Hamshenis 1.7 Strange article 1.8 Armenian section 1.9 Proposed Change 1.10 1,5 million? 1.11 Armenians again 1.12 NPOV tag 1.13 RE: Anatolia, Iranian Azarbaijan, and the Caucasus 1.14 Turkification and Turkicization 1.15 Two different terms 1.16 Segmentation into historic periods

[edit] Comments

[edit] Changes

There is a "such as" next to the Hamshenis, not to mention the "horribly" POVish removal by Kilhan of the section named 'Armenians'....! Turkification for the Armenians does not only mean 'Hamshenis'. Secondly, those who self-identify as Pomaks, are not ethnic Turks! that's why u did not have to add 'primarily' there. --Hectorian 01:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Nope, it was moved because Hamshenis are a black sea ethnic group and hardly "Armenian" as you put it, and face similar challenges to those of the Laz and Georgians. The fact that you reverted the article to include statements like "Forcibly converted", "systematically murdered", "have been forced to" makes me doubt your commitment to neutrality in this case. Primarily is very accurate because many people have allegiances to multiple groups and this involves a complex set of issues concerning origin etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kilhan (talk • contribs).

Armenians and sourced info for Greeks stay. Make your case at Armenian Genocide.   /FunkyFly.talk_  02:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Will you care you explain just how this is relevant to an article about cultural assimilation ? About Greek-speakers or traditionally Greek-speaking communtities, information from the Greek Muslims article can be used. The text that you inserted is not relevant at all.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kilhan (talk • contribs).

That is certainly your opinion, which I do not hold. Assimilation can be achieved through many ways, and terror is one of them.   /FunkyFly.talk_  03:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this article is of Wikipedia standards. Why trying to incite enmity towards Turks? --Gokhan 16:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Stating facts is inciting enmity? Lets censor then.   /FunkyFly.talk_  17:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Facts or "your own" facts? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.8.121.210 (talk • contribs).

The article is not 100% factual, there are some facts in it but majorly it's more a political agenda article. Also its tone of voice is not neutral. However as you can see I didn't edit or censored anything. As usual we Turks are the bad guys anyway right? No need for censorship. I just hope some objective editors will come by and correct the article. --Gokhan 18:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

As I said, there has been plenty of discussion in Armenian Genocide, so until the Genocide is shown not to have happened, those statements remain here.   /FunkyFly.talk_  15:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

One can ask, why not "so until the Genocide is shown to have happened, those statements _will not_ remain here." ;) Takhisis 06:29, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs rewriting

As far as i am aware, Armenians, like all minorities in Turkey have full religious freedom. So i do not understand where this accusation comes from that they were forcefully Islamicised when they have their own Patriarch and churches throughout Turkey. Also, starting the section with "The Turks were responsible for the murder of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915" is unnaceptably POV. What does Turkey say? What is the minimum and maximum casualty figures? In what context were they killed? Does it even have any relevance to Turkification?

There are other problems, for Kurds we need to mention the conflict with the PKK and recent changes encouraged by the EU. For Greeks (or Cyprus) there has to be an explanation of the attempt to Hellenize the island before you can accuse Turkey of Turkifying it (Hellenic nationalism led to Turkish nationalism in Cyprus). Thats all i can think of for the moment. --A.Garnet 13:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

See Hellenisation. - FrancisTyers · 17:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

For what? --A.Garnet 17:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought you wanted an article about Hellenisation. - FrancisTyers · 17:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sudden attention

Although this article exists for quite long, it suddenly received much of attention from Turkish users. Since they believe that The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article is disputed, it would be really interesting to know what exactly is 'POV' and 'inaccurate' according to them. User A.Garnet made some points above, so, even though i am neither the creator nor a major contributor of this article, i will try to justify the existence and information of each section:

• Armenians: The Armenian Genocide is perhaps the most important event in modern armenian history, and the reason that the armenian minority of turkey numbers just 30-40,000 people. I've just created an internal link there, so that readers can read the article and see what Turkey and Turks dispute. The case of the Hamshenis is well known, and it has every single reason to be in such an article. About the religious freedom that "all" minorities have in Turkey... better ask why the EU, the USA, etc have continously asked for the re-opening of the Theological School of Halki, the recognition of the 'Ecumenical' title of the Patriarch, or maybe ask why the Alawites are talking about persecution...
• Kurds: Noone can bring the case of PKK when talking about 'turkification'! these two things are irrelevant: u cannot blame PKK for the ban by the turkish state of the kurdish language! the recent EU changes though, need to be mentioned. btw, Turgut Özal maybe has a place here, since he is a good example of the turkification of the kurds.
• Pomaks: i really cannot see why there can't be non-turkish muslims in the Balkans:/. is this so hard to believe that some Bulgarians were (forcibly or not) islamised? we are not living in the millets of the Ottoman era when every muslim was considered a Turk! if we do, let me know so as to list the Greek Orthodox Lebanese as Greeks!:p. Please, do not confuse Islamization with Turkification... these terms have long ago stopped been synonymous...
• Greeks: For Hellenization see the respective article. Apropos, many turkish-cypriots spoke greek (as someone can see by their immigration in Antalia...). Maybe this article needs an expansion, with the inclusion of some prominent figures, such as Sinan, Barbarossa, İbrahim Edhem Pasha, a number of Valide sultanas, etc, and maybe the case of the Antiochian Greeks, among others.
• About other groups: a large number of Georgians and Laz had/has been turkified (or are in a process of). Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself said in an interview that his ancestors were georgians, right? what else do u want to admit that there exists a turkification case for these groups? maybe other groups could also be included: Donme, Slavs (see Roxelana for instance) etc.--Hectorian 01:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, facts and accuracy aside, I believe this article is made for anti-Turkish propaganda. I'm sorry to see that there is a constant band of anti-Turkish editors in Wikipedia. Anyway -- c'est la vie!

I also think that due to its nature of biased approach, the article avoids some major points about Turkey's history. After wars with Russia in 19th century, Balkan Wars and WW I, a lot of muslims from Ottoman Empire's lost territories fled to Turkey to escape prosecution under new Christian regimes. The Empire's and then the republic's language was Turkish. I don't think the sociological and cultural changes occured between 1900-2000 can be blindly classified as a Turkification only. Especially government sponsored. This was a transition period, a melting pot of various cultures and languages into one supra-identity and language. Presenting this as a bad trait of Turks would be unfair at best, with a political agenda at worst. My grandmother is Circassian and she only speaks Turkish. Nobody Turkified her! Just things happened in their own country, Russians killed and expelled them, they fled to Turkey because it was Muslim. They adapted.

* Armenians: They were not Turkified. Genocide claims do not mean Turkification. There were some Armenians that (appear to have) changed religion out of fear, but that was a choice. Nobody says they are Turks speaking Armenian etc. We all know they are Armenians. --> No Turkification.

* Religious Freedoms + Greeks: The accusation of lack of religious freedom does not translate to Turkification. They are still Greeks or Christians. Nobody tries to classify them Christian Turks or Greek speaking Turks. --> No Turkification.

* Kurds: It's not different than Turks in Greece. Kurds in Turkey are expected to speak Turkish (as that's the official language) and live in harmony within the society, not trying to revive Sevres Treaty and carve a land out of ours. Additionally, as a citizen of Turkey living in Istanbul, nobody can seriously convince me of Kurds' Turkification, as I see the increased population of Kurdish people and frequency of Kurdish language in the streets. However Kurds had limitations in expressing their language and identities before, these past limitations can be touched in the article. There was some official government nonsense about they were Turks but is not current and nobody believes it anymore. PKK is a bloody organization and nobody should support it, especially Europeans having a higher level of civilization.

* Turkish Cypriots: They are not Turkified Christians etc, they are the children of Turks that were living during Ottoman Empire. --> No Turkification.

--Gokhan 08:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but i think that your comments are just a desparate attempt to prove the unproven... Firstly, u commented nothing about all these notable people that are of confirmed non-turkish, but turkified origin. Then u are talking about Russian killers and assimilation and melting pots... well, who told u that 'turkification' can occur only by force? and who said that the expulsion of the circassians from the Caucasus justifies their turkification? as seen in the introduction of the article: Turkification is a term used to describe a cultural change in which something or someone non-Turkish is made to become Turkish (it does not say 'forcibly' or something like that). For the Armenian section u say: There were some Armenians that (appear to have) changed religion out of fear, but that was a choice : are u kidding me? what choice did they have? convert or die? About the Greeks see Greek Muslims. The Kurds still have limitation in using their language and expressing their ethnic identity, it is not a past phaenomenon, as u want to make it seem. their is a kurdish parliament in exile in Brussels... Leyla Zana was arrested after speaking kurdish in the turkish parliament!... there are only 2 schools that teach in kurdish in turkey (that opened after EU pressure) for a population of 6 million (if we accept turkish government claims) or 15 million (if we accept the claims of all the others)... Can't see why u don't think that their is still a turkifying process regarding them... About the turkish cypriots: have u ever heard the case of the "Linovamvakoi"? it can answer many of your questions.

Last but not least, i cannot understand why most of the turkish users in wikipedia are continoually talking about 'double standards', 'political agenda', 'secret agenda', 'anti-turkish propaganda', 'biased edits, 'NPOV' etc... I know that for some of them (i am not talking personally about u) it is hard to get rid of all the crap that they learnt in school: e.g. Kemal's ideas that the Sumerians, Hittites, Celts, Trojans, Minoans, Etruscans etc etc, were all turks! Before u say I believe this article is made for anti-Turkish propaganda, u should had taken a look in similar articles such as Hellenization, Bulgarization, Albanization, Russification, Ukrainization, Romanization, et cetera. --Hectorian 00:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

I have fully-protected the page due to revert-warring between the users. Please discuss changes on the talk page & reach a consensus rather than engaging in revert-warring. Request unprotection once a compromise has been reached. --Srikeit ^{(Talk | Email)} 05:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

You sure protected the wrong version of the article.   /FunkyFly.talk_  05:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Protection is not an endorsement of the current page version. Resolve the dispute here, reach a compromise & request unprotection. --Srikeit ^{(Talk | Email)} 06:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Uh oh! the wrong version. :) - FrancisTyers · 00:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Turkified Areas

Turkified areas are azerbaijan and turkey, should they not be discussed in this article?Khosrow II 15:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hamshenis

The Armenian section is inaccurate. It seems to almost imply that all of the remaining Armenians in Turkey were assimilated as Hamshenis. This is not true. For one thing, many Hamshenis converted to Islam before attempts were made to forcibly assimlate Armenian Genocide survivors. It should also be noted that not all Hamshenis are completely "Turkified." While the Hamshenis living in the Rize Province in other areas speak a Turkish dialect (a direct result of Turkification), the ones who live in the Artvin Province still speak an Armenian dialect. It should also be noted that there are still some Armenians living in Istanbul, despite Turkish efforts to assimilate them, who still speak Armenian. It is still an ongoing issue as the state tries to discourage the continuation of the Armenian language. -- Clevelander 12:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strange article

My attention was drawn to this article, which I had not seen before. It is strongly biased, riddled with inaccuracies, and was obviously created with the purpose of Turkey bashing. Unfortunately right now (including the whole next week) I don't have the time to go into details, but note that most sections are lacking any credible citations. To start, the term "Turkification" by itself does not imply any forced assimilation. It is plainly wrong to assert that Turkified people in general were made to be Turkish. The descendants of the Poles who settled in Turkey at the end of the 19th century are by now largely Turkified in the sense that they don't speak Polish among each other, although they retained some aspects of Polish culture. What is meant here by "Turkish" anyway? It is not clearly defined, but the official meaning in Turkey is "having Turkish citizenship". As far as I know, there is no process of forced naturalization. Most present-day Armenians in Turkey are Christians, Orthodox or Catholic. The sentence about "those who were spared" is just not true.

There should be some distinction between what happened during the Ottoman Empire, and present-day issues in the Republic of Turkey. Now everything is treated like pea soup. As we all know, there are serious issues concerning the rights of various ethnic minorities in Turkey, which deserve a more balanced treatment than we see in this article. --Lambiam^Talk 16:39, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Your input would very much be appreciated, Lambian, since u were invited [1] to express your opinion about this article (along with many other users specifically invited by specific user....). anyway, read the talk as well, and make balanced edits when u have time (as u said). i'll be watching... --Hectorian 00:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Armenian section

This section seems to be what is mostly contested, can proponents for this section provide references? If not, the section should be removed. It's also debatable weather the section is relevent. Supporters don't seem to be able to justify the section at all, such as in the following

"As I said, there has been plenty of discussion in Armenian Genocide, so until the Genocide is shown not to have happened, those statements remain here."

That's not how wikipedia works. You need to show a reliable source states it did happen, or remove the section. It's one of the 3 non-negotiable Policies

-- Captain Manacles

There is little doubt that many Armenians died during the last years of the Ottoman Empire; what is contested is whether they were killed on purpose or died as an effect of forced relocation marches. But assuming they were killed intentionally, how does killing Armenians qualify as Turkification, given that Turkification is supposed to mean "to make to become Turkish"? --Lambiam^Talk 00:34, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

During the Armenian genocide, many Armenian children were taken by Turkish and Kurdish families. They were raised as Kurds or Turks... In other words, they were Turkified. Many Armenian children were also rounded up in certain orphanages, such as in Aintoura, Lebanon, where they were raised as Turks. Here are a few relevent articles:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4735171.stm

http://www.aztagdaily.com/EnglishSupplement/FEA_02012006_0001.htm

--Davo88 04:32, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

And what about this? Hakob 04:33, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, what about this? Was Mr. Agop made to be Turkish? --Lambiam^Talk 20:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

As I've said numerous times: not surprised at all..... And about Lambiam's comment above (although i know it is not the most appropriate place to edit this comment): even a five-year-old-child would say that forced relocation marches in desert equalise death. so, it was indeed a genocide (unless the ottoman officials were younger than 5 years old...!). as for if it has anything to do with "turkification"... just one question: what happened to the rest? or, there was no "rest" and all the Armenians died? --Hectorian 05:00, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Change

I'm an outsider to the debate so my familiarity with the facts of the case is limited, so bear with me. To address a previous respondent, I am aware that the deaths are undisputed, but the fact still requires a citation. Also, that there are some disputes as to other facts, citations are defintately required or the statements need to be deleted. The paragraph in question certainly reads as very NPOV at first glance. At the very least, I would think proponents of that paragraph could support a little clean up, just so outsiders don't dismiss the whole page out of hand before making it through the first sentence. On the other hand, forced relocations are also refered to as death marches for a reason, but if it is as obvious as Hectorian says, then we should be able to let the facts speak for themselves.

In 1915, Talat Pasha (Minister of the Interior), under Sultan Hamid, ordered the forced evacuation of hundreds of thousands - possibly over a million - Armenians. Over the next 8 years, it is estimated over 1 million Armenians died, though there is no clear consensus on the exact number, and some scholars dispute weather the deaths were a result of the relocation. Those Armenians who survived were forcibly converted to Islam and forbidden to speak the Armenian langauge, though many Armenian words survive in some Turkish dialects. See Armenian_Genocide

I still think without citations the paragraph should be deleted, but this version can at least serve as a temporary placeholder, and I would like to add the appropriate tag to the top of the page. I also think the catagories should be rearranged so the focus of the page is not put squarely on something that is covered elsewhere, and that would help the page read less like an attack piece. - CaptainManacles 21:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

How does this article read like a hate piece? Please elaborate. Hakob 22:18, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

An attack piece. "The Turks were responsible for the murder of 1.5 million Armenians". The phrasing "The Turks" rather then "The Turkish Government" or "The Turkish people", and attributing such an event to an entire ethnic group sounds like an attack. The word "murder" is also unneccisary. And it seems unneccisary to start the page with that event, except as a way to write an attack piece. It's like starting a page on the Jewish ethnic group with "The Jews murdered Jesus." Weather it is true or not, phrasing it that way makes you sound like a racist. CaptainManacles 23:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there any evidence for the claim that those Armenians who survived were forcibly converted to Islam? If so, how to explain that most Armenians in Turkey are Christians today (except for many Hemshinli, but those who converted did so centuries earlier, and not because they were forced)? --Lambiam^Talk 01:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

When talking about Armenians that converted to Islam, Hamshenis are also included. Is there any "evidence" that they were not forced to convert? --Hectorian 13:24, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Not really accurate, Hemshen Armenians are mostly not Armenians proper who were forcedly converted to Islam as there were Christian Hemshens too, Hemshens were not exclusivally Muslims unlike popular belief, the majority were though. It is true that the remaining Hemshen Armenians who were christian converted after WWI, and in many cases it was forced, the Hemshen identity did not appear as a result of forced conversion it existed long before, there are some oher examples but with a limited degree like some so-called Laz Turk communities and their association with some Greek. The Armenian section is not neutral.--Fad (ix) 18:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

You appear to have things the wrong way around. If you want some claim to be presented as a fact on Wikipedia, it is incumbent on you to present the "evidence". If you cannot substantiate your claim with citations from reputable sources, it has no place in Wikipedia. There is no requirement for anyone who wants to remove such an unsubstantiated claim to present evidence to the contrary. --Lambiam^Talk 14:18, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The existence of people living secretly as armenians on a large scale is a bit of an urban myth, im afraid. Why would any crypto-armenians, if they hypothetically existed, even hide their armenianness in Turkey ? Armenians are a recognised minority and enjoy various rights that other ethnic groups dont. The Turkish government even funds the renovation of armenian churches, while ignoring the state of many crumbling old Mosques in the country, although there are way more Muslims than christians in Turkey. This section is puzzling and only seems to exist as a platform for people to insert their interpretations of the armenian relocation and various other issues unrelated to actual cultural assimilation into the article.--Kilhan 16:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

You will still find elderly Armenians in Syria and Lebanon psychotic enough who would close their doors and deny being Armenian when hearing soeone speaking Turkish and not being sure that that person is either a Turk or an Armenian speaking Ottoman Turkish (common among the people older than 40s there), so I will not have hard time imaginating Armenians doing that in the East, mostly those who were converted by force. As for the various rights, please in debunking some myths don't add others.--Fad (ix) 18:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This whole argument is absurd. A turk proper is a mongol with slanty eyes. How many of them are in Turkey? All Turks are converted Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Iranians, Slavs etc.--Eupator 19:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, what rubbish. Because there are no "slanty eyes" people in Turkey, they must all have been converted? Is this what your seriously suggesting? --A.Garnet 19:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, perhaps i have not understand... So, what do u suggest? that the first turks that came in Anatolia were not Asian looking?:/ --Hectorian 19:23, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes you dont understand. Eupator is suggesting that since there are no "slanty eyed" people in Turkey, all Turks are therefore converted "Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Iranians, Slavs" - that is what is rubbish. Does he imagine Turks came, forcefully converted Christians, and left Anatolia without a drop of Turkic blood entering the gene pool? --A.Garnet 19:33, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't be silly! The number sof Turkic invaders were very small. They wre in the tens of thousands only. What happened in Anatolia was language replacement. The ruling majority were Turkic, eventually everyone else eneded up speaking their language and ended up with a Turkic identity. Original Oghuz Turks were East Asian looking. Their metamorphosis began in Iranian Central Asia and ended in Anatolia. We're not even discussing Janissaries or forced conversions ...--Eupator 20:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe i do not understand... U see, my eyes and mind have been tired enough by seen turkish users trying to eliminate anything that connects them with the Mongols and the Eastern Asians in general, here in Wikipedia...They even have added "disputed" in every case the Turkish language (or even another Turkic language) is mentioned as a member of the Altaic language family! although there are hundrends of thousands reliable sources that say it is:Encarta[2],Columbia [3], Britannica [4], even The Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Washington [5] and a respected and wellknown turkish site [[6]] (by making a breif google search and looking only the first 20 results!). Instead of taking the cases of "Turkification" seriously, they are trying to push a nationalistic POV in order to show that the modern turks are not descendants of the turkified indigenous population: they claim that the original turks had nothing to do with the Mongols...! and what about history, linguistics, etc? --Hectorian 19:39, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

We should not mix genetic makeup with language replacement. If one day North America under pressure of a superpower China decide to adopt Chinese as their first language it would not mean that the Chinese have lost their mongoloid features by mixing with Americans. We know for instance that during the last years of the Ottoman Empire there were about 6-8 Million Turks, about the same number of Arabs, we also know that for 300 years the majority religion in the Empire was Christianism not Islam, while the official religion was Islam because of the ruling power. So, this gives a clue on the proportion of 'Altaic Turks'(slight minority at that time) human behavioral adaptation would rather favior language replacement over blind mixture. So, it will be more accurate to see that present day Turks mostly are rather genetically native while ligustically and partly culturally foreign(the part of their culture which is native to their Altaic background). That is specifcally what Turkification is, it is to transfer a group into another, this does not have (and most of the time is not) to be a genetic transfer and mixture. When a slight, very slight minority mix with the majority, we can not really consider this as a mixture, but rather say that that minority becomes the majority, when it imposes its identity.--Fad (ix) 19:56, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Now I have two questions, given the view you present. (1) How would you define "Turkification"in the article? (2) How would you define "Turkish"?. --Lambiam^Talk 23:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

It is a difficult question you are asking me. I think we should stick to cases covered in peer-reviewed publications since the article will become a plce of original research. There is cultural Turkification and ethnic Turkification. But I won't jump in this discussion because I don't have time right now. As for your second question, since I believe ethnicity is a social construct, I don't think that question is relevent, as it would be equivalent as asking what you define as Greek or Armenian.--Fad (ix) 05:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Hectorian, if you take the time to dwelve deeper you would notice that what is disputed is the existence of an Ural-Altaic language superfamily, not that Turkish is a Turkic language, and thereby an Altaic language.As far as I know, the second part is almost universally accepted by expert linguists. Interestingly, using your same reasoning, greeks can be related to Bengali people, based on their linguistic affiliations to Indo-European languages. I really dont know why some people beleive that real Turks have east asian/"oriental" features and that modern (Ottoman descended) Turks are assimilated Anatolians and balkanites, Tatars are assimilated Finno-ugrians etc. I have yet to hear valid reasoning for this assocation thus far besides the usual not-so-academic-sounding "They dont looks like Kazakhs or Kirghiz". The Turkish government employs a "race-blind" system that bases Turkishness on citizenship. Anzhela Atroshchenko, Elvan Abeylegesse, Marco Aurelio and Mirsad Turkcan are all Turks per official definition. This needs to be inserted into the article.--Kilhan 09:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why this bothers you people so much. Other than a few lunatics who dwell on absurd "Sun Theory" like rubbish the vast majority of Turks seem not to have any issues with this. Here's an analogy of Bolivia, Peru or Guatemala for you. They all speak Spanish but most of them are natives who look nothing like Spaniards, in stark contrast to say the population of Argentina or the United States. As for Turkishness, you're right but that's only officially. One only has to take a look at some TRT anchors or various media and entertainment personalities to see the reality. As for Tatars, they are a very diverse bunch. For example Volga Tatars are merely Uralics who adopted the Tatar language during the Mongol invasions of Russia. These Finno-Ugric "Northern European" people's once stretched from Scandinavia to China. There is an enormous amount of phenotypical variation among Tatars, from almost fully Mongoloid-looking individuals to Northern European-looking ones like Marat Safin. Siberian Tatars and Tatars living in Bashkiria are essentialy East Asian looking. --Eupator 13:02, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 1,5 million?

We need to delete the information about death toll in the Armenian section; it is speculative. Even Armenian Genocidearticle does not mention an exact number.--Hattusili 07:02, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't mention an exact number, but it does indicate a range. Ottoman_Armenian_casualties covers the issue. In my proposed change above, I've tried to word the info as close to as it appears in Armenian Genocide as possible.

[edit] Armenians again

I'm not going to add this, as I don't want to start another edit war again, but should't it say "and the Turkish government in addition to some scholars dispute weather the deaths were a result of the relocation"? Does anyone mind if I add this? —Khoikhoi 05:55, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, how's it look now? CaptainManacles 07:29, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

It looks great. Does anyone mind if I move "see Armenian Genocide" after the 1st or 2nd sentence in the section? —Khoikhoi 02:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

No mention of the thousands of Armenians in Istanbul? Their recognised minority status in the Treaty of Laussane? Their religious freedom (churches, Armenian Patriarch)? Their ability to operate schools with their own curriculum? From this paragraph are we to assume all Armenians were simply adopted and Turkified following the massacres in 1915, that is how it looks to me. --A.Garnet 08:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Are they recognised as a religious or as an ethnic minority? i mean, are they free to express their ethnic identity, or are they free to express their religious identity only? are their schools subjected to the Armenian state (as the turkish or greek schools are in Germany, for example-teachers sent by Turkey or Greece respectively to teach the children), or are they subjected to the turkish government? since they are recognised (at least as a religious minority), do they have the same privilleges as the sunni muslims? (state salaries, etc?). is their Patriarch recognised as his title (and all the rest) accept, or is he considered by the turkish government just the priest of the 'locals Armenians', as is the case with the Ecumenical Patriarch? (recently i saw on tv another Armenian Patriarch who went to Istanbul to visit the Arm.P. there, and the Grey Wolves attacked his limousine...). Apropos, the c.40,000 (or even 70,000, as some sources say) Armenians in the City (whose number is reducing, by the way) can be used to counter-balance the death (whether u accept it was a genocide, or not), turkification and expulsion of the millions of Armenians that used to live in territory of modern day Turkey? --Hectorian 10:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The point is Hectorian, there are Armenians living in Turkey, practicing their own religion, speaking their own language, and attending their own schools. They may experience difficulties as minorities, but this can be attributed to a host of societal factors, not just a desire to Turkify. --A.Garnet 11:09, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

So, i guess A.Garnet, that what i said above is true, right? I am not saying that they are derpived of all their rights... of course they do have some privilleges! but we should not blame just some 'social factors'... the turkish government has to be blamed also (if not the most) for the turkification. remember that we are not talking just about cultural assimilation here, like what happened, and still happens, in the United States or France, for example... --Hectorian 11:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure minorities have problems in Turkey, but the same could be said of any country, some of them in the EU. You cannot construe this to prove government backed Turkification unless you have verifiable sources. France for example recognises no minorities, everyone is considered French. Germany too, until 6 years ago, would not issue a citizenship to anyone who could not trace German ancestry. In Greece, the government still refers to its Turks as the Muslim minority. The Armenian section has to explain that there are Armenians who are living now in Turkey that have not become Turkified, that are recognised as one of the 3 minorities (Armenians, Greeks, Jews)that practice their religion and speak their language, otherwise it is innacurate and pov.--A.Garnet 13:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

It is not like every other country that has already joined the EU, otherwise Turkey wouldn't had been so much criticized... France recognises more than 10 regional languages, and every native or immigrant ethnic group is free to operate schools and religious buildings. Germany gives citizenship to non-Germans, it is not trying at any way to impose the German ethnicity (again, citizenship is not the same with turkification, germanization, or whatever). The muslim minority in greece is composed by Turks, Pomaks, Roma and ethnic Greeks (of muslim faith), thus the term u are referring to is a collective term for all the above. if u want to mention the small Armenian minority in the section, be aware that u may open a can of worms, cause we will have to also state all the restrictions they face concerning their religion and language. --Hectorian 13:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes there are Pomaks and Roma, but the majority is Turkish, you know this. As for your other point, are you suggesting we not mention the Armenians who are not Turkified because i'll open a can of worms? In your opinion would it be better to let the reader think all remaining Armenians were adopted and Turkified, even if that is not accurate? --A.Garnet 13:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course i do know that the majority of the Muslim minority in Western Thrace is Turkish, but what would be better? to call them all 'Turkish minority'? u know that this would be wrong. 'bout the second, i'm not suggesting something like this! i am looking at the issue from the scope of 'majority': there were 1-2 millions, and now are 40,000-70,000... if u want to mention them, go ahead. but be sure that it won't look like 'praising Turkey for recognising them as a minority'... we will also have to state their numerical reduction(i am talking about their current dwiling in numbers) and the problems they face concerning religion and language. in the same way that Armenia Genocide is not referred in the section, we will keep the article NPOV by stating all facts. --Hectorian 13:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you feel that an article about "Turkification" should list all problems that minorities in Turkey may experience? If so, do you think that the article on Americanization should do the same for minorities in the U.S.? If not, what is the criterium you'd like to use to include some problems but exclude others? --Lambiam^Talk 01:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV tag

So can we take this off now? Can we at least reduce it down from a totallydisputed to a regular NPOV? Is there anything wrong with the tone or wording now? Are any of the currently presented facts disputed? CaptainManacles 18:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks ok to me, and i've never been here before. --Awiseman 20:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the article still cannot hide the fact that its raison d'être is Turkey bashing. It is a very bad article, from the beginning till the end. It might help for NPOV-ness if all unsourced bits are removed, but it will remain an embarrassment for the encyclopedic nature of Wikipedia. --Lambiam^Talk 01:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like most of the controversial stuff has been cited. I'm going to go ahead and downgrade the POV tag. If there are any statements of fact that you still dispute, feel free to readd the totallydisputed tag and add ^{[citation needed]} whereever you believe a false statement has been made. CaptainManacles 20:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

There is an essential difference between WP:NPOV and WP:V. An article can be well-sourced and still violate NPOV. A serious article on this topic would start by distinguishing between different periods: Ottoman Empire until the Young Turks, the Young Turk period, the single-party period of the Republic, and the later period. It would notice that the meaning of "Turk" (and thereby "Turkification") shifted in the course of time, and make clear what meaning is used where. It would reference some scholarly publications on these topics. A serious article would put everything in its historical context. It would mention Mustafa Kemal’s definition of "Turkish nation", and the Tekinalp (Moiz Kohen) criteria, as well as the influence of his book. It would address the Turkification process of the language and the role of the Türk Dil Kurumu in replacing Ottoman Turkish words by "genuine" Turkish. The present article is an indiscriminate collection of snippets, presented without context and selected to make Turks look bad. --Lambiam^Talk 21:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Anatolia, Iranian Azarbaijan, and the Caucasus

I dont agree that the current version should remain. There are a number of reasons for this such as it is very misleading by implying that all the people in the Caucasus', Iranian Azarbaijan and Anatolia were some how completely Turkified (which is not the case as there are still many other peoples in the region i.e Kurds, Zazas, Laz, Talysh, etc, etc, etc...), it is written in a very vague way.

It also implies that Turkification happened in mass scale over a very large area by force even though there is no evidence of this occuring. Also is there any evidence of any Turkification attempts during the Oghuz (more specifically Seljuk) invasions?

My version attempts to tell the reader more about how they were Turkified (gained a Turkish identity and national conscience). I certainly think the current version alone is a POV. I am very willing to work on my version to include what the previous version is trying to say. Edwardhealy 13:25, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

No where in the section does it imply that turks forced the people to do anything. However, i will add that kurds, Zaza's, Talysh's, and others were not turkified. Also, the Seljuks spoke persian and promoted Iranian culture, so it would be logical that the turkification of the areas happened after the collapse of the seljuks, when Turkish became more popular amongst the Turkic tribes.Khosrow II 13:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Stop reverting the page. I put in what you asked, there is no more need for you to revert, unless you just want to change the section completely and have run out of excuses. Furthermore, I dont understand why you take out Iranian Azerbaijan and the Caucasus from the section. Stop your reverts, you are starting a needless edit war.Khosrow II 15:45, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Why dont YOU stop reverting the page? Why does this article have to be written by you? Why dont you write separate subsections about the Turkification of Iranian Azerbaijan and the Caucasus? I dont think you can (unless you make vague statements like "Iranian Azerbaijan and the Caucasus were Turkified"). It is not so clear as to what exactly happened in Iran and the Caucasus and you are being very misleading (lying) by including it in the section about Anatolia (what happened in Anatolia was very clear BTW). Futhermore you are Iranian and you are trying to justify the Iranian view on Azerbaijan whilst ignoring the Azeri view, thus you are biased. You can see my good contributions on the Armenian section of this article. I am trying to add to this article by giving extra information, you on the other hand are suppressing information, to serve your purposes. Edwardhealy 15:58, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

actually, that is a very good idea, each should deserve its own section. i'll get started on that.Khosrow II 16:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I was only trying to help add to the article. I'm glad we have resolved this problem. I'd be interested to read what your write about Iranian Azarbaijan/Azerbaijan and the Caucasus. If you need any help you just need to ask me and I'll see if I can help.Edwardhealy 16:49, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Turkification and Turkicization

This article seems to only be about when something or someone non-Turkish becomes Turkish. However, does the term have a broader definition...that includes Turkic peoples in general as well? Perhaps the correct term for the latter is "Turkicization"? It gets a low number of Google hits, but appears in many books. What I'm trying to say is...should we change the definition of this article or start a new article called Turkicization? Any thoughts? —Khoikhoi 23:52, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

• support Tājik 10:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This is not a vote Tajik.. It has been four months since the proposal - it is dead. Well, it doesn't make sense either way, "Turk" can mean either Turkish or Turkic peoples. Turkification is simply a more common word. Baristarim 10:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

It was not ment as a vote, but only a "support" for Khoikhoi's suggestion. And please stop this pan-turkist crap. Meanwhile, please explain to me why the section about Anatolia does not mention the fact that the overwhleming majority of the Anatolian Turks are descendants of Non-Turks?! Instead, the section diverts the toppic to totally irrelevant unsourced POV about certain Sufi orders (that were Non-Turkic anyway - like the two mentioned orders: Naqshbandis and Mawlavis, both having NOTHING to do with Turkification or Turkic identity). Even today, the large majority of Sufi Sheikhs in Turkey are of non-Turkic and non-Turkish origin, for example Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani who was shown in the Turkish movie "Valley of the wolves". Tājik 11:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, they are not of Turkic origin, but they were Turkified. Listen, Turkish identity was formed on the basis of religion back in the day. Watch for civility and stop attacking and categorizing others. What pan Turkic crap? Turk means either Turkish or Turkic peoples in the English language, if you need to learn English, pls go to a language school. From the American Heritage Dictionary:

"Definition of the word Turk":

1. A native or inhabitant of Turkey.
2. A member of the principal ethnic group of modern-day Turkey or, formerly, of the Ottoman Empire.
3. A member of any of the Turkic-speaking peoples. [7]

Do you want me to give you the addresses of some good English-language schools? :)) "pan-turkic crap".. whatever Tajik.. :)) Baristarim 12:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Really lame Tajik.. That's why the article's title is "Turkification". If most of Anatolia were made up of Oguz Turks, then there would be no need to mention Anatolia under "Turkification", right?? Everyone knows that many groups in Anatolia were Turkified, so?? You think that suddenly Turks are going to say "oh shit, I just remembered, my ancestors a thousand years ago were X, therefore I better pack my bags and move to Iraq/Iran/Greece/Serbia??" There is no problem with accuracy in that section, stop being disruptive. If the section needs to be expanded, that's a different matter. You seriously should take a chill pill man. Baristarim 13:39, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it's time for you to have a look at WP:CIVIL.

The accuracy of the section is disputed because it is another POV section created by the same pseudo-historians. It only gives the views of Turkish nationalists. It does not mention the FACT that the overwhleming majority of Anatolia was NON-TURKIC. By saying that the Turkic tribes (who were a tiny minority in Anatolia ... of course, the text does not mention this FACT either) mixed with the local population, the article gives a totally wrong impression as when the Turkic tribes were as much as the native Anatolians and that the mix was 50% vs 50%. That was absolutely not the case ... while the Turkish language - in a process of elite dominance - replaced other languages, the tiny minority of the Turkic rulers became totally assimilated by the native population.

The role of Sufi Sheikhs (who were Non-Turkic and non-Turkish-speaking) was simply the conversion of the native Anatolian population to Islam, NOT the establishment of a "Turkish identity". Such a "Turkish identity" did not exist up to the 20th century. "Turk" is NOT a synonym for "Muslim", even if you claim that.

The "Turkish identity" was successfully forced on the Anatolian population in the 20th century, starting with the Young Turks revolution. It became one of the most important policies of Atatürk's new nation: forcing Turkish identity and language on everyone in Anatolia, analogous to European natioanlism. Those who rested became "enemies of the state", such as Armenians, Greeks, or Kurds (up to this day).

This article is - once again - a good example for the mess Turkish nationalists are creating in Wikipedia.

BTW: there are Mowlawis and Naqshbandis (only a tiny minority of Naqshbandis live in Turkey!!!) outside of Turkey, and in NO MEANS they represent a "Turkish identity" or "Turkification".

Tājik 13:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Read my post above. It is common knowledge that they were in the minority. I made the neccessary modification, there is no need to get hyped up. Please refrain from calling other editors "pseudo-historians" or "Turkish nationalists".

Turk was a synonym for Muslim, pls read the reference from the American Heritage dictionary I gave above.

We are not talking about the "Turkish identity" - we are talking about "Turkification". They are not the same thing.

Stop accusing other of creating a mess in Wikipedia or being nationalists. You seriously need to take a chill pill. Baristarim 13:45, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

It is not "common knowledge" that the Turkic tribes were a tiny minority in Anatolia. If that were the case, then Turks today would not claim that "they are descendants of Altaic nomads" or "Turanians by race".

And "Turk" was a synonym for "Muslim" ONLY in the European regions of the Ottoman Empire, it was NOT a "universially accepted" definition ... neither in the Islamic world, nor in India. And when I say "Islamic world", I also mean Anatolia. I can give you a 88-pages-long article from the Encyclopaedia of Islam with all kinds of historical definitions of "Turk" ... in PDF ... just ask for it!

Stop diverting the toppic with your stupid "chill pill" blahblahs ... and stay civil! --> WP:CIVIL.

Tājik 13:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Uh, yes. This is the English Wikipedia, if I may remind you. I don't care at all what "Turk" meant in Iran or some place else. "Turk" meant a Muslim in the English language until the the end of the 19th century. English speakers (and in fact all of Europe) referred to Muslims as Turks in the Middle Ages till the 19th century. In the English Wikipedia, we use the standard definitions of words of the English language, doesn't matter if X means Y in the Z language. There is the definition of the word "Turk" above - period. You have a right not to like it however. And you are calling others "pseudo-historians" :)

They were not a "tiny" minority. Even if they were, they mixed up with the local populations, so what? Who cares about where their ancestors were from a thousand years ago? Ironically, it seems like you are way more obsessed with the origins of people than most people.

Please cut down on your excessive use of inflammatory words like "stupid", "Turkish nationalists", "your people" etc. Thanks. Baristarim 14:36, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The Encyclopaedia of Islam is THE scholarly reference work of oriental studies in the English language. The article "Turks" is written by 13 renowned scholars and experts on Turkic history, including G. Ambros, P.A. Andrews, B. Flemming, Ç. Balim, and A. Gökalp! And your deffinition of "Turk" does not show up in that article!

I know that you people have problems with valid sources (that'S why you people constantly delete such references from articles), but it should not be very difficult to look up the Wikipedia rules.

As for the Turkic tribes in Anatolia: they were largely Oghuz, as SOME Oghuz tribes (not all!) moved from Central Asia to Anatolia, starting with the Seljuq conquests.

And here is an extract directly from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, from the article "Seljuqs" (and I really do not care whether you people accept scholarly sources or not):

• "... We need not assume that the actual numbers of the Turkmens were very large, for the ways of life possible in the steppes meant that there were natural and environmental limitations on the numbers of the nomads. Yuri Bregel has implied, working from the 16,000 Oghuz mentioned by the Ghaznawid historian Bayhaki as present on the battle field of Dandankan (Tarikh-i Masudi, Tehran 1324/1945, 619), that we should probably assume, in this instance, a ratio of one fighting man to four other members of the family, yielding some 64,000 Turkmens moving into Khurasan at this time (Turko-Mongol influences in Central Asia, in R.L. Canfield (ed.), Turko-Persia in historical perspective, Cambridge 1991, 58 and n. 10). ..."

At the etime of the Seljuq conquests in Khorasan, the ENTIRE number of Oghuz Turks was less than 70,000 (in a time when Baghdad alone had a population of more than 300,000!). And only a fragment of that small group - some of them highly assimilated into various other ethno-linguistic communities, most of all into the Persian community - moved with the Seljuqs into Anatolia.

The Oghuz rule and the dominance of Turkic languages and dilects started with the Karamanoğlu, AFTER the fall of the Seljuqs.

Now, you people should use your God-given brains: do you really believe that a small number of 100.000 Oghuz Turks (absolut MAXIMUM) - even assuming that they were still pure Turks in culture, language, and identity - could have wiped out Anatolia's entire population and replaced their genes with their own?! Do you really think that 100,000 Turks (in reality, the number of Turks in Anatolia was much smaller, possibly 50,000 in total) could have "mixed with the local population 50-50?!

The truth is: only a very small population of modern Turks is actually "Turkic" in origin. This is even attested by modern scientific research:

• "... Excavating Y-chromosome haplotype strata in Anatolia: [...] The major components (haplogroups E3b, G, J, I, L, N, K2, and R1; 94.1%) are shared with European and neighboring Near Eastern populations and contrast with only a minor share of haplogroups related to Central Asian (C, Q and O; 3.4%), Indian (H, R2; 1.5%) and African (A, E3*, E3a; 1%) affinity..." Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Jan. 2004

THIS is the only correct definition of "Turkification": a small ruling minority forces its language and eventually (but not necessairily) culture and religion on the subject people who are the overwhelming majority. That's how European conquerors "Europeanized" America, Australia, and Africa. Today, Spanish-speaking Argentinians and Mexicans are NOT direct descendants of the Spannish conquerors. Of course, many Europeans also mixed with the local population, but the large majority of South Americans are non-European in origin.

The current version is misleading and partly wrong.

Tājik 16:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Whatever. I am talking about the definition of the word in the English language. Check this definition by the American heritage dictionary, that "scholarly" article is only a historical analysis and cannot be an authoritive source on the English language: [8]. Baristarim 17:12, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This article is not about the English language, it's about the word "Turkification". And the EI's article is an authoritative source in the English language on the subject of this article. Get it?! Tājik 21:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't get it. You asked me about the definition of the word "Turk" - and I gave you the definition. Baristarim 08:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

As I wrote elsewhere on this page: A serious article on this topic would start by distinguishing between different periods: Ottoman Empire until the Young Turks, the Young Turk period, the single-party period of the Republic, and the later period. It would notice that the meaning of "Turk" (and thereby "Turkification") shifted in the course of time, and make clear what meaning is used where. The lack of any such distinction is asking for trouble. In general, the article lacks proper definitions, a reasonable structure and a sense of historical perspective, and is low on attributed and verifiable content. The fact is that during most of the Ottoman Empire the usual meaning of "Turk" in the West was a religious one: a Turk was simply a Sunni Muslim residing within the territory of the Ottoman Empire. It had no "ethnic" connotation, also not with respect to the language spoken. An ethnic notion may have existed within the Empire, as when Evliya Çelebi writes in his Seyahâtnâme about "vermin and unclean Turks", but what we now would call "ethnic" Anatolian Turks were yokels in the eyes of the powerful of the Ottoman Empire, and had no access to higher administrative and military positions. It is only with the decline of the Empire, leading to Turkey becoming the "sick man of Europe", and the rise to power of the Young Turks, that a nationalistic notion of "Turkishness" arises. Ethnic notions of Turkishness as a positive concept first arise only in the single-party period of the Republic. I know of no clear account of how Turkish came to be a majority language in Anatolia, but citable reliable sources that treat this topic are welcome.  --Lambiam^Talk 22:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I agree with everything you've said. As for the dominant role of the Turkish language, I have already posted some sources above. Here is another one, also taken from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, from an article about Azerbaijanis (written by Vladimir Minorsky, one of the most important scholars on Azerbaijan's history) who share the same history, culture, and language with Anatolian Turks (except their Shia faith in contrast to the Sunni Islam of the Turks):

• "... [as consequence of Oghuz Turkic domination in the Caucasus, beginning the 12th century] the Iranian population of Ādharbāyjān and the adjacent parts of Transcaucasia became Turkophone while the characteristic features of Ādharbāyjānī Turkish, such as Persian intonations and disregard of the vocalic harmony, reflect the non-Turkish origin of the Turkicised population. ..."

Just replace "Persian" with "Greek" or "Anatolian languages", and you'll get the correct definition of "Turkification of Anatolia".

Tājik 22:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

That replacement would be original research. And Tajik, what is your obsession with the origins of people?? Baristarim 08:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The quote from the article above states that the local population became Turkophonic; it does not describe how. Do scholars understand the process by which Azerbaijani Turkish came to supplant the previous Iranian languages spoken in the area? Was this a matter of a ruling minority forcing its language on the people ruled over? If so, what constituted the force? Were there penalties on using other languages than Oghuz? Can we establish that the same pattern applied to Anatolia? I know that Karaman ruler Mehmet Bey proclaimed Turkish (instead of Persian) as the official language of the court and administration of the Beylik of Karaman, but do we have evidence this use was also forced on the populace at large? Was this in some essential way different from the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, in which King Francis I made French (instead of Latin) the official language of administration and court proceedings in France? So many questions, so few answers... In the absence of reliable sources we can cite, and if necessary quote, who use such terms, I think we should try to avoid judgmental terms such as "force", as well as suggestions to that effect not backed up by sources.  --Lambiam^Talk 01:00, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Only if you knew the background of this tug-of-war :)) Baristarim 08:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

@ Lambiam: I only posted one sentense from a long PDF-article (88 pages) :D If you want to read about the exact process of how the Non-Turkic population of Anatolia became Turcophone (=Turkification = modern Turkish people), I suggest - in addition the the absolutely excellent articles Turks and Azeri in the Encyclopaedia of Islam:

• Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi: Genes, Peoples and Languages. New York (2000), North Point Press
• Colin Renfrew, World linguistic diversity, Scientific American, 270(1), 1994

The process of the Turkification of Anatolia is well known: it started with the conquest of Anatolia by the Seljuqs, and the breakup of their empire into various Beyliks. Some of those Beyliks forced their tribal Turkic languages on the local population (by force). In the course of more than 500 years (the Ottomans were one of those early Beyliks), the Turkish language was formed, out of the various Oghuz Turkic dialects forced on the Anatolian population, with significant Non-Turkish origin, pointing to the Non-Turkish origin of modern Turks:

• modern Turkish lacks notable Turkic elements, for example the [x] or the [q] sounds. This is due to the fact that the Anatolian population did not know these sounds and was not able to pronounce them (the same way modern Persian uses the letter "-z" instead of the Arabic "-dh" which is similar to the English "-th" ... for example in the name Ridha which becomes Reza in Persian; Arabic itself uses the letter "-f" instead of the indo-european "-p", that's how "Pars" became "Fars").

However, even if the previous rulers did not force Turkish on the Anatolian population, the modern Turkish nation has done it. The modern Turkification was started by Atatürk and forced the Turkish language and identity on everyone in Turkey.

@ Baristarim: (Personal attack removed)

Tājik 21:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Whatever.. I already knew everything you said, and precisely my point: So? I don't care! I hold a degree in international law, I know the very specifics of how those -ifications happened - I don't need to learn the basics here.

Please be careful about WP:CIVIL, focus on content, not people.

I know about all sorts of -izations that happened in every part of the world. In France and Italy, -ifications wiped more than 40 local languages out of existence, but still: So? What is your point? French and Italian identities were also forced down on all sorts of people, Basques, Catalans, Sardinians, Alsatians etc etc. Tell me something new :)

I still don't get why you are putting all those posts when it is common knowledge to everyone that -ifications happened in every part of the world, and Turkey was not excluded. Read some modern political theory: it is called the nation-state concept that developed after the French Revolution. That's how all modern nation-states were formed in Europe from religious identities; again: So?

There is no need to be obsessed with the ethnic origins of people.. Baristarim 22:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

"-izations" happen in all parts of the world, but the case of Turkey is very special, because in here a really tiny minority (maybe 1% of the total population) succdessfully forced its language and identity on the 99% majority.

What makes this case also special is that until today, those affected by the "-ization", reject that such an "-zation" ever happened - something, that is fully supported by a highly nationalist government, since the very beginning of the nation. Instead, they fabricate (just like in Afghanistan) their own version of history. Similar attempts, for example the attempt to "Pashtunize" Afghanistan and to fabricate a Pashtunized history for the country (see the fabricated history "Pata Khazana" by the Pashtun nationalist Dr. Abdu-Hay Habibi), have so far failed in all aspects - it even led to a bloody civil-war in Afghanistan which is still continuing.

If this article is going to be neutral, all of this has to be mentioned in the article.

You - as a native "Turkified" Anatolian - are the best proof for this. In one of your previous posts in this talk you even denied the known fact that the Turks were a tiny minority (less than 100,000). And you even remove the "accuracy disputed tag" of the article, saying that "you do not see any accuracy problems".

That's why the neutrality and accuracy of this article is disputed ...

Tājik 15:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not a "Turkified" Anatolian. If you would like, you can take a look at this picture of my father's cousin. My last name is Tarim for a reason.

I didn't deny that fact, and made the neccessary addition, it is in the article's history. And no, I cannot see the accuracy problems for the general section, the part about Sufism looks out of place however. The section needs to be expanded, however I still cannot see the specific accuracy dispute. Do not confuse the need for expansion with accuracy. Baristarim 16:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

This is like the 20th time, that you show that picture ... and I still do not see any "Turkic look" in that guy. Do you want me to show you pictures of MY cousins? To show how REAL Turks (Afghan-Turkmen) and Hazara look like?!

I've fully explained why the accuracy is disputed. The article is totally based on the "official Turkish version of history", and not how scholars see it. It does not explain the political affects of the forced Turkification that started 800 years ago by a tiny tiny tiny minority, and successfully "Turkified" millions of Non-Turks. And those who resisted the Turkification, like Kurds and Armenians, became "enemies of the state", were hunted down.

Modern Turkey-Turks do not look like Turks, their modified Turkic language proves their non-Turkic origin, they do not have clans like the original Turks. And still, they despreately fabricate a fake history, trying to find their origins in Central Asia (like you - a Turkified Anatolian who believes that his origin goes back to the Tarim).

That'S what makes the "Turkification" so intersting and special ... because it is absolutely unique. It was started by Mustafa Atatürk as a reaction to the growing nationalism in Europe. And by now, Atatürk's pseudo-scientific ultra-nationalism has become a state-doctrine in Turkey ... even going to extremes, such as imprisoning and torturing people who speak another language in public. Tājik 16:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I am sorry to say this, but you seem way too concerned with the millenia-old ethnic origins of people. Even if I were a Turkified Anatolian, that wouldn't change a thing. I would still call myself a Turk. That's the whole point: So?

The case of Turkey is not unique. It is similar to that of the Roman Empire. The Ottomans, just like the Romans, successfully synthesized local cultures, mixed with the local populations and ruled over vast swathes of territory and peoples. I can also say that a very tiny minority managed to "Latinize" the whole Southern Mediterranean, British Isles to a degree etc etc. Same can be said of the colonization of Latin America, Africa et al.

You should also read about the history of France: Franks, a tiny Germanic tribe, also did a similar thing. With the weird logic that you are using, we can call the French people (Basques, Bretons, Corsicans, Alsatians, Provencals etc etc) also "Germanized" Gaulois - the country's name comes from the Franks, but the blonde French people are only make up less than 5 percent of the population. That kind of millenia old ethnic-origin based racial theories do not make sense, and are simply weird.

Please do not accuse others of being ignorant. I am quite aware of how European history developed. In any case, the smaller the number of Turks, that makes their achievements greater, right? :) Baristarim 16:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

This is the whole point, Baristarim: there IS a difference between 1000-years-old ancestral backgrounds and modern identity. If that were NOT the case, then modern Turks wouldn't so desperately try to fabricate a fake history that links their origins to Central Asian Huns. Not only that - they even want to take credit for other peoples in history, trying to force their "Turkish identity" on them. We see that phenomenon every day in Wikipedia: Turks trying to "Turkify" Mongols-related articles, Iranian-related articles. They claim that the Mughals were "Turks", etc etc etc.

This proves that ancestral origin IS improtant to everyone ... yet, the modern Turkish people simply do not want accept their TRUE ancestral origins. To me, this is absolutely fascinating ... and most of the time really annoying, because that way Turks usually try to falsefy history.

Your comparison with Latin or with the Franks is not appropriate. The Latin language became a "lingua franca", but was not really forced on the people (that's the reason why it is extinct today - except for the Vatican!). The Arabic language was forced on the people, just like Turkish. And many Non-Arabs today, for example Egyptians or Palestinians, consider themselvs "Arabs". However, Arabs are by far not as stubborn or extreme in their views. Most of them accept that they are Non-Arabs in origin. What is also a difference is that most of them were Semetic anyway ... even before Arabic (the same goes to Latin: most of the people were Romanic anyway). The case of Turkish is totally a unique: a Mongoloid, Altaic-speaking tiny tiny minority forced its language on a laaaarge Non-Mongoloid and Non-Altaic population ... and today, these Turkified Non-Mongoloid and Non-Altaics desperately try to find their history, origin, and ancestors in ancient Central Asia. A few years ago, a met a Turkified Bulgarian (Bulgaria-Turk). He was blonde, he had green eyes, and redish-blone hair ... and he explained to us so many times that "he was proud that he belonged to the larger Mongoloid race" ... We all laughed at him, and that was the first time when I came in contact with this "Turkish phenomenon" or "Turkish problem".

The Franks did neither force their identity nor their language on the people. It just happens that the name of their historic lands ("Franken" or "Frankenreich") was adopted by the later Romanic-speaking population. There is also a large region in Germany known as the "Franken". It is a pure geographic expression.

Later European powers successfully forced their language on certain populations around the globe, but never their identity.

So, as you can see, the case of Turkey and Turks is absoluetly unique ... and whether you see it or not: you yourself are - right now - the best example for it. Absoluetly fascinating ... and annoying ...

Tājik 16:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, do not make it personal since I know for a fact that my paternal side emigrated from Central Asia in the beginning of the 19th century - you don't know my family, and such weird assumptions without ever seeing the person like "you are a perfect example" are weird at best and racist at worst. Check this picture in full size again [9] If that guy is not Turkic, then Bill Clinton is black. Of course there have been mixes in my family in the last century, they were not going to breed in the family. The question is: So? People can choose to identity themselves in anyway they wish. They still choose to identify themselves as a member of tribes whose accomplishments were great. Your attempt to portay Ataturk as some type of weirdo is contrary to the example you gave about the Turks in Bulgaria (and is similar to Turks in Greece): these people never went to those "evil" Ataturk schools. Funny that they choose to identify themselves as a "Turk" rather than some obscure Iranian tribe - absolutely fascinating, and annoying for others who wonder why their identity has been "passed over" in favor of the identity of those "savages".

You seriously have issues if you are referring to Turks as the "Turkish problem". I really wonder where all this hate is coming from.

You seem to confuse identity evolution with identity transfer. They are not the same thing. Your statement that Turks of today do not have the same identity of the Turks in Central Asia in 600 AD is so weird that I don't even know where to begin with. I don't have to dance like my great-great-great grandpa did in the local village festival to assume the same identity.

You know what, you can think what you want - that's your right. I can no longer be bothered with such millenia old ethnic-based weird racial theories of how people are something that they "shouldn't be". ciao Baristarim 17:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I have seen the enlarged version of that picture, and I still tell you: he does not look "Turkic" at all. What you fail to understand that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. It collects facts from reliable and scholarly ources. It's not about the "opinion of masses", it's about the "opinion of experts". If the entire world believed that the earth is flat, then the earth would still be a globe. That's FACT, and peoples' beliefs would not change anything about it.

Atatürk's extreme nationalism (even Adolf Hitler and the Nazis praised Atatürk's strict nationalist militarism, and the early years of the Turkish nation were a model for Nazi Germany) had effects on many Turkish-speaking Muslims of the former Ottoman Empire, even though they themselvs never went to such schools. The same way the Nazi fairy-tales about "blonde and blue-eyed Aryans" are still around, although the historic Aryans were neither blue-eyed nor blond.

If European Muslims who adopted the Turkish identity and language now consider themselvs "Turks", then this is a proof for the "Turkification" (the MAIN SUBJECT of this article), but does not change reality AT ALL that they have - historically - absolutely NOTHING to do with the historical, Mongoloid Turks from Central Asia.

If a black American speaks English, loves Shakespear, and considers himself part of the English world, then it's his identity ... but it does not change reality that his ancestors were NOT Saxons and Celts, but "Europeanized" Africans.

Honestly, I have never met a black English-speaker (and I know quite many) who claim to be "Caucasian Indo-Europeans". Yet, Turks - on the other hand - really DO believe that they are "descendants of Turkish warriors".

What you call "hate" is nothing but neutral analysis of the Turkish phenomenon. You misinterpret it as "hate against Turks", ebcause you grew up in the Turkish-nationalist envirnment of Atatürk's nation. In an environment that imprisons and brutalizes Kurds and caused the massacre of 1m Armenians. 70 years ago, Germans were just like that. But after WW2, Germans simply accepted the truth ... they do not believe in nationalistic fairy-tales anymore. Turks, on the other hand, are far far away from this reality (with only a very few exceptions in Russia, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan who have started to re-consider the fabricated "Turkic origin" fairy-tales).

What you people (and when I say you people, I mean all those who think like you) do not understand is that accepting the truth won't take away the Turkish language from you. The language of Turkey will still be Turkish, the citizens will still be "Turks" ... But the people will realize that their present culture is does not go back to ancient Central Asian hordes ... that they have nothing to do with Huns and Khazars.

Just take your neighbours, the Bulgarians, as an example. They do not try to fabritcae weird histories about their identity going back to some obscure Indo-European super-humans ... They simply accept the fact that their name, "Bulgar", goes back to an ancient Turkic tribe. But their origin, language, and culture was and is Non-Turkic.

The Turkish people could simply accept the fact that they origin, history, and culture is Non-Turkic. Only their language is a remnant of a time, when Turkish nomads conquered Anatolia. Yet, it seems that tehy are totally unable to do so. It's much easier to fabricate weired stories, weird origin-theories ... they are despretaely in search of "ancestral glories", even claiming that "Sumerians were Turks". This is a unique phenomenon among Anatolian Turks, and it goes back directly to the insane nationalism of the Young Turks and to Atatürk personally.

Tājik 18:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Again, bunch of stereotypes without knowing the person - and let's not forget personal attacks. I didn't grow up at all in Turkey by the way, just fyi. I went to a private school in Seattle when I was growing up (which by the way was part of the Episcopal Church - not the "gang of Ataturk"). Again, you have absolutely no clue as to what I know, who I am and what I think. Your ethnic-based generalizations show a very low-quality outlook on academic matters, and is a sign of passion-filled analysis done to pass some spare time and let off some steam.

Cut down on the use of "you people": I am an atheist and a humanist, and I know very well how Turkey and Ottoman Empire was formed, and the parallel ideologies that went along the way, like those of the Lumieres etc. History of Turkey: A small tribe came and kicked butt, and it stayed. That's it - not much more to say. Survival of the fittest. Nothing was stopping Afghanistan from becoming like the Ottoman Empire.

I know precisely why you don't like Ataturk, it is because he couldn't give a damn about religion. Yes yes.. He was such a dictator: A quick look at the situation in Turkey and its eastern and southern neighbors of today are enough to show if he had a real vision.

Bulgarians are not "my" neighbors: For me, Vancouver BC, Bretagne, Paris or UK is a "neighbor" - try using nouns instead of "your" - eg ".. take a look at Turkey's neighbors".

Your constant comparison of modern Turks with the Nazis, weirdo nationalists, referring the Turks as the "Turkish problem" etc really makes me wonder why you have so much anti-Turk passion. Really amazing.. I mean, is it something personal? Baristarim 22:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

In any case, people have a right to believe in what they want.. From a psychological point of view, it is a very interesting study actually... Think of how many people in Muslim countries always say "my aunt's uncle's great-great..mother's sister's husband's father-in-law was Muhammad". Silly? Yes, particularly when it is not even clear.. well, this is not the religion page. Going back to the topic: maybe deep down, those "Turkified" people prefer to consider themselves, or wished to have descended, from the mighty Turkic warriors, instead of something else. The question you should be asking is this: Why don't they prefer to have descended from the Shahs of Persia or etc for example? It has nothing to do with Ataturk, many Turks living outside of Turkey will tell you the same thing. Your accusations that Turks are stupid is misplaced. Many Turks I know are aware that they are not the descendants of the Oghuz Turks, but they prefer to say that it is so anyways. My best Turkish friend in France is a blond, university-educated guy. His grandparents are from the north Caucasus. In casual talk in a bar, he still prefers to claim descend from the Oghuz; obviously if asked seriously, he would say where his grandparents are from. In fact, it is called "cultural recuperation" and should really anger the "real" Turks, ironically :) And I know why he chooses to do so since he told me so many times: "there ain't shit in the Caucasus, north of it or south of it - I prefer calling myself a Turk, and prefer to share in the great legacy of the Oghuz". Why would he prefer to say that he shares the same ancestors with those who are building nuclear bombs in their garages, for example? Results speak for themselves, people prefer to disassociate themselves from not-so-glorious things - that's science of psychology. You gotta a criminal in the family? Well, you will figure out that most of the time, that person becomes "no longer family - don't know that person". So that's the food for thought Tajik, "those people" are not stupid... Baristarim 22:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

After reading the whole discussion, in order to be able to have a precise opinion about the whole issue, i have to say some things about some quotations above: The Romans indeed latinized large parts of Europe, however, this assimilation was a primarily linguistic one... The modern French do not claim descent from the Romans, but they emphasize their Celtic (Galatic) roots. The modern Irish and Scottish speak English as moter tangue, but they do not claim to descent from the Anglosaxons. Similarly, the largest part of the Slavs were christianized by the Greeks, but they do not claim descent from us. The case of Turkey is indeed weird, since the Turkish Government supports some thesis that are completely unhistoric and have been rejected by the world's academic community: I have heard Erdogan claiming that the members of the Muslims of Greece are all Turks, and Turkish officials saying that the Bosniaks are "children of the Ottomans"... also, that people who speak a turkic language (e.g. the Gagauz who, btw, are Orthodox) are also Turkish. practically, they claim that they are aboriginals in Anatolia, that all people in Turkey,that everyone who speaks a turkic language, and that everyone who is muslim in the Balkans are Turks... I have seen papers of Turkish scholars holding that the Hittites and even the Pelasgians and the Lemnians and the Minoans!!! were Turks... even that Homerus was a Turk! same position they hold for the Sumerians, the Celts and the Etruscans, even linking the Capitoline Wolf with Asena, even though there is a gap of centuries among them! or even to consider the Star and crescent as an originally turkic symbol, although there are undisputable archaeological findings that clearly say it was not... If i am not wrong, Baris has said he has received his education in France, so, he has another perception of history than the people who are educated inside Turkey. also, he is more patient and willing to explain his position when he founds himself in conficts... But, i cannot go so far to consider what the Ottomans done with Turkification as a "great achievemnet"! someone could argue that this was in fact a cultural genocide, and i doubt if anyone could prove that this is wrong... Hectorian 22:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Finally another one who sees the problem. The case of Turkey is absolutely unique. Some Turkey-educated Afghans (for example Dr. Mahmud Tarzi) brought this extreme pseudo-scientific nationalism to Afghanistan, but there, they failed. In Turkey, however, this weird school of thought was successful ... and today we have the mess. Tājik 23:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

"also, he is more patient and willing to explain his position when he founds himself in conficts..." - What are you suggesting Hectorian? That Turkish contributors from Turkey are somehow incapable of having civilised debate? I'm not from Turkey and i get pissed off pretty quickly, so i guess that ruins your theory.

With regards to this whole debate, i think there is a common misconception here. Turkish in the modern sense is a political concept, not an ethnic one. Whatever your colour, religion or ethnicity, anyone who considers themself a Turk is by Turkish political definition a Turk. That is why we say "How proud he is he who SAYS he is a Turk", NOT "How proud is he who IS a Turk". Hectorian, Erdogan doesnt simply call the Muslims of Greece Turks, the Muslims of Greece call THEMSELVES Turks! (and the Greek government denies that freedom to be recognised as such). Same with Cretan Turks, we may dispute their ethnic origin, but who are we to tell them they cannot call themselves Turks if that is what they wish?

Also, let us not forget Turkification is also a voluntary process. It is not necessarily "forced upon" people. It is natural in any country for minorities to be assimilated into the mainstream culture, i'm sure i donth have to tell you people this. I'm a Turkish Cypriot in the UK, i've been largely Anglocised to the extent Turkish is not my first language. This was not forced upon me, but a natural process of assimilation. The same can be said for Turkification of Armenians, Greeks, Kurds, Blacks, Russians, Arabs etc etc. --A.Garnet 00:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I did not use the word "civilised", cause i do not think i would ever use the opposite word for any wikipedian. I referred to Baristarim as a person, since his comments are all over the page. Saying that someone is "good" or "better" than others, does not make the others automatically "bad"! I may not be a natine English speaker, but i think i write quite well in English, so as not my words to be misinterpreted.

With all respect, A.Garnet, i do not think u have understood the debate. we are not talking about the political concept. we are talking about how people of diverse backgrounds in Turkey are taught to consider their own backgrounds Turkish. It is one thing to want to consider myself Swedish and another to claim that the Greeks are of Swedish origins. I suppose u got the point now.

Who told you that the Muslims in Greece consider themselves Turks? The internet is a large place where u can find info about the Pomaks, the muslim Romas, the muslim Greeks and the muslims by nationality, so, there is no need to explain further. and for the Cretan Turks, it is not in this side of the Aegean the people who tell them how they should self-identify... Whatever their origins may be, they are Turks if they say so, but simply noone can say that those who lived in Crete in the past, and themselves sometimes claim descent from, where Turks (i am talking about the Minoans).

Assimilation can be voluntarily, of course, but it would be better not to mix cases... U live in the UK and i am sure u know that the Turks, Greeks, Poles, Italians who live there, were not driven out of the country, that they are free to practise their religion and that they have schools to teach their own language to their own children. if they want to be assimilated in the mainstream English culture, this is voluntarily. If Turkey will ever allow the teaching of the Kurdish language to those who want, if the Turkish government will ever stop chasing the Alevis, if they will ever allow to the Laz, Pontians, Arabs of Hatay and Hamshenis to establish schools if they want, and if the Turkish political system ever allows the existance of people who do not say "I am a Sunni Turkish-speaking Turk of Turkic origins", then, those who become assimilated, they will be doing this voluntarily... Regards Hectorian 01:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two different terms

I believe that the discussion above has got a bit out of hand:). Perhaps we should get back to the first comment-proposal posted above about "Turkification and Turkicization". As a matter of fact, i would like someone to make clear what this article is about:

• If this articles talks about only the Republic of Turkey, then i suppose that the Iranian peoples (apart from the Kurds) should not be mentioned; nor should issues about Arabs in places other than Hatay be mentioned.
• If it is about the geographical area of the modern Republic of Turkey not limitted by chronological events, then, other groups may need to be mentioned and the sections of those that are already mentioned to be expanded, in order to include previous centuries.
• If it is about assimilation by the Turkish people, then all the places that used to be parts of the Ottoman Empire shall be included as well (North Africa, the Balkans, Middle East).
• If it is about assimilation by Turkic peoples, regardless historic eras and geographic areas, then the assimilation of e.g. the Tajiks in Uzbekistan (where they are said by some to form as many as the 45% of the total population, whereas the Uzbeki government places their number in less than 5%-whether this is true or not) should definately be mentioned. I am not in the position to know if similar things happen for the Russians in Kazakhstan or the Iranis in Turkmenistan. There is already an article named Slavicisation, for the cultural assimilation by the Slavic peoples as a whole, but several other articles (Bulgarization, Croatisation, Czechification, Polonization, Russification, Serbianisation, Ukrainization. Maybe a similar pattern should be used here as well. Hectorian 17:45, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts. Yet, the problem remains that certain people do not want this article to be correct and accurate. They rather want to take advantage of the usual confusion that is caused by Turkic vs. Turkish, in order to push for Anatolian-Turkish POV.

I think that an article "Turkification" is good and improtant, but certainly not in its current and totally inaccurate shape.

Tājik 18:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I still have not understood what this article should be about... For example, the article about Hellenization talks about cultural assimilation by the Greeks, without geographic or historic limitations (but the Greeks form a single ethnic group). So, if this article is about the assimilation by a single ethnic group (id est Turkish people) it should follow the same principles. but if it is about assimilation by a the Turkic peoples, it should be sbstantially expanded, both in area and time. IMO, it should be about assimilation by the Turkish people, and we should create a separate article named Turkicization about the later as a whole, as Khoikhoi had proposed, since it does appear in academic sources. Hectorian 18:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Tajik, pls do not accuse people of pushing POVs. Nobody is pushing a POV. This article is not long already, and can cover different aspects. It should be restructured in any case. Tajik, if you had told me that you wanted this article to be restructured, you could have said so. In your first reply to me on this page, however, you said "stop the pan-turkic crap" in the first line, even though I was simply giving you the definition of the word "Turk" - what happened to WP:AGF? That wasn't constructive.

In any case, there is no reason why this article couldn't be expanded.. There are already expand tags. However Turkification has been used for all sorts of -ifications down the history in many places... This article should be expanded to put things in a correct timeline. The word Turkicization is not used so much, and this article can make an easy distinction, down the ages, between different types of Turkification. Tajik, there is no need to see a pan-Turkist beneath every stone - we are here to contribute decently, but you can't blame others for being defensive after having seen the content of some of your posts above. Going back to the topic, Turkicization only gets 471 hits on Google [10], it is not even clear what it describes - even though it seems to be primarily about the modern politics of Central Asia. Turkification gets 18,000+ hits [11], and it is used to cover a wide variety of subjects in different eras. I suppose a split could be possible, but this article is a mere couple of paragraphs already... However, eventually a reorganization per Hectorian's example of Slavs could be followed. But at least give some time for this article to develop; Wikipedia is littered with many orphaned articles who have never been developed and are nothing but a waste of space unfortunately. Much ado about nothing if you ask me...

Anyways, I think that there is no rush, there are tags on it. Tajik, my other problem with the tags is that there is already a POV tag on the top of the article: there is no need to duplicate tags. POV and accuracy are intrinsically linked.. One of them should go per simple style. That's all.. Baristarim 21:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I have added some info in Uzbekisation concerning the Tajik population. Perhaps soon we will be able to place the relevant articles under an umbrella term. I must say i still favour the usage of the term "Turkicization". At least in English, there is a clear distinction between Turkish and Turkic. and if this article is used to refer to Turkey, i cannot find a more appropriate term for the assimilation by Turkic peoples as a whole. Unless we rename this one, but i cannot think of a possible term, nor do i believe that this is necessary. Hectorian 21:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

If we have encyclopedically valuable material that does not fit the notion of Turkification as "making Turkish" in the stricter sense, but is about "becoming Turkic", and the amount of material does not yet warrant a separate article, we can always add a section named "Turkification in a wider sense" that starts with something along the lines of "The term Turkification is sometimes applied in a wider sense, also known as Turkicization, for the process of becoming Turkic." I think it is important that it is clear everywhere in the article which of the possible meanings of "Turkification" (and of "Turk") is meant, and what the scope and extent of the statements is, in place as well as in time.  --Lambiam^Talk 22:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit-conflict)True.. However, the title is not "Turkishification" :) This is not about the language family or the peoples. I have been searching, and I am still trying to figure out if "Turkicization" has ever been used for something other than the modern-day Central Asian politics, and even that rarely. The titles are specific terms and we shouldn't create words. The intros will always explain what the term means with sources: "Xx has been used to mean Yy and sometimes also as Zz, however, Aa has been used for Bb, different than both Yy and Zz" - even if normally X=A and Y=B. The term Turkicization seems only to refer to very modern day politics of a couple of Asian states, and is extremely rarely used in a historical context. Again, please AGF - we shouldn't see pan-Turkists everywhere :) Turkification simply gets 50 times more hits. Turkicization only gets 471. The intro should make clear for what instances the term has been used, either in the past or now. Hopefully the article will become longer one day. Cheers! Baristarim 22:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

(After conflict).. Again pls see what I just wrote about the meaning of specific terms. "Turkicization" as a term has nearly only been used to refer to the modern-day politics of two-three Central Asian states. We should avoid adding new meanings per WP:OR. I agree that the article will mention exactly when and for what, and where Turkification has been used. Baristarim 22:29, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Baristarim, I told you before that Wikipedia is not mean to be the "opinion of the masses". It does not matter what Google says. Even if Google had 500000000000 hits on the opinion that "the earth is flat", it wouldn't make that true.

A differenciation between "Turkification" (= forcing modern Turkish language and identity on the peoples of Anatolia) and "Turkicization" (= used in Encyclopaedia of Islam, process of adopting any Turkic language) is needed.

Tājik 23:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

We still cannot use the term "Turkicization" to cover "Uzbekisation" and "Turkmenisation" only, nor can we adopt the word "Turkishisation" for this article (sorry, but these terms seem funny to me, since i suppose are newly coined:)...). But we could follow the example of "Slavicisation", since it has about the same meaning with "Turkicisation". I just thought of another solution: we could have this article meaning "Turkification" in the most broader meaning possible, and create (if there is enough material to do so) articles like Turkification in Turkey, Turkification in Uzbekistan, etc. Hectorian 01:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I still support User:Khoikhoi's original suggestion to create an article named Turkicization about the general phenomenon of a people of Non-Turkic origin adopting any Turkic language and/or customs.

Orther articles, such as Turkification (Turkey), Uzbekization (Uzbekistan), etc should deal with the national assimilation politics of the respected countries.

I think that's the best solution.

Tājik 02:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

An article on Turkicisation should be made. The two terms are sometimes used confusingly, but the trend seems to be Turkification for Turks and Turkicisation for other Turkic peoples. - Francis Tyers · 10:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Nothing is stopping people who want to create an article named "Turkicization" or whatever from doing so. I hope they will make less of a mess than the creators of this article. Can we stop this discussion here and return to the topic of the present article? It might further help if everyone could leave out the sneers, innuendo, ad hominem attacks, racist remarks, and generalizations ascribing the ideas of individuals to whole peoples.  --Lambiam^Talk 11:03, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Francis. BTW, do u know, Lambian, who is the creator of this article?:) Hectorian 19:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I know who created the initial stub and who made the first few edits. When it was just created, no-one was guarding the newly created article against ill-conceived edits, and before you knew it, it was a structureless indiscriminate collection of ill-defined and unreferenced snippets of information with no clear relationship to each other and to the subject of the article. It is hard enough to extricate an article on a non-polemic topic from such a state, once it gets into one, but at least you can challenge unreferenced claims, and if no citation of an appropriate reference appears in a reasonable time, remove them. Here that is not going to work; people are standing poised to revert instantly because they don't trust the other editors. Some people think that if you challenge their overblown or unsubstantiated claims, you must be the enemy. Just because of my comments here, which I thought were innocent enough, I've even been called a Turkish historical revisionist who denies the Armenian genocide.  --Lambiam^Talk 21:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I do not know your beliefs about the Armenian Genocide. But for this article, you can request citations about something u are not convinced about, and i suppose something can be done to improve the article's quality... We have to keep balance between those who consider it "inappropriate and an attack against the Turks" and those who want to "beautify it, by saying that everything was normal and happened voluntarily". Hectorian 21:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Lambiam's beliefs are not relevant. As Wikipedians we do not have to keep a balance in the way you suggest; if we only use material that can be attributed to reliable published sources, the only balance we need is that in the selection of this material not any one viewpoint is given undue weight, or any other is unduly suppressed. We do not need to be a judge of what happened and did not happen, or rule whether something was forced or voluntary; let historians, sociologists and such write about it and we will report on it: X says A, Y says B.  --Lambiam^Talk 02:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The article is good. DNA evidence backs it up. Turkish government policy is also proof. I have added this to my watchlist. --alidoostzadeh 05:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I do not believe for one second that DNA evidence backs up the claim that Turkification was ever forced. It may have been forced in certain cases, or it may have been voluntary, but don't come and tell us that DNA evidence can tell the difference. If there are reliable sources that claim so, we can cite them. Or if there are notable sources that claim so, we can quote them. What we cannot do is suggest this without citations. What I see now is "synthesis": editors that are not particularly qualified in interpreting various bits of evidence combine them to construct and paint a broad picture of how they suppose this hangs together, a picture that is informed by the mythical image of the "cruel Turk".  --Lambiam^Talk 09:30, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

U are right, genetic evidence does not prove forced turkification... But historical records do prove it. I suppose that as the article expands and as more info is added, all the issues will be addressed. There is no need to bring stereotypes of the past ("cruel Turk") to the present, but there is also no need to "hide" actions and social phenomena of the same past either... Hectorian 10:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Turkification is right now forced on Kurds, Zazas and etc. There are many notable sources and once the article is unlocked more will be inserted. Also it is a fact that you can not go from overwhelmingly Greek/Armenian to 80% Turkish over night. Neither can you go from 0% to 80% Turkish overnight. In a span of few centuries there was forced applied. Also there is enough historical records on how ottomans attacked christian countries (like Greece), took their kids and turned them into Turkic speakers as well and they obtained the Janissery forcers from there. Note also the total wipe out of the civlizations of Soghd and Khwarizm which can be mentioned in the article. --alidoostzadeh 13:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, those evil barbaric Turks, eh? :) Most of assimilation happens voluntarily. The fact that the official language of a country is X, doesn't mean Y are forcefully being assimilated. In France there aren't any Arabic language schools, either. But continue people, let's bang on the the Turks day is open for business :) Ali, what do the Khwarizm have to do with this? Are we clear on the difference between what the title of this article means and conquests? I mean anachronisms are two pounds a dozen on this page... With that logic, I can also say that Islam mercilessly wiped out the ancient Christian civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean in a span of few centuries, right? :) Baristarim 13:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Why we have to see all the time sarcastic remarks like "cruel Turks" or "evil Turks"? alidoostzadeh did not use such words... And, btw, what is the position the Turkish wikipedians hold? that the Turks peacefully moved to Anatolia, the cities opened their gates to greet them and the people joyfully adopted their language and religion? Most of assimilation happened by force; either physical force (Sharia law, id est death penalty for those who converted-or reconverted back-to Christianity, Janissaries, id est abduction of male children from their families, sacking and looting of the cities who resisted, sale of the captives as slaves, of the women in harems, but also rewarding those who changed from Rum to Turk) or psychological force (ban of the teaching of their language, special restrictions concerning the operation and construction of their places of worship, destruction and conversion of their main places of worship and cultural sites, the harac tax and, especially the tax of the tenth, unbearable for the Christian peasants, killing of their religious leaders-a total of 5 Ecumenical Patriarchs were murdered under Sultan orders-, their status as citizens and human beings, considered less humans than the Turks-evident in the courts (inheritance rights), the army, etc-this was the main reason for some noble Byzantine families to convert one of their sons, so as to secure property rights). All these are not "voluntarily". Comparison with France cannot be established, cause the Arabs in France have the right to establish schools (unlike the Kurds in Turkey) and the French government does not close them down (as the Turkish did to the Theological School of Halki); nor the Arabs in France were ever forced to leave (as the Greeks in Turkey during and after the Istanbul Pogrom); and they are free to built mosques, Sunni or Shia (unlike in Turkey). Apropos, the Christian civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean were not wiped out... These countries continue to have Christian populations (Syria 10%, Lebanon 30%, Egypt 10%, Palestine 5%, Jordan 6%)... Only Turkey and Saudi Arabia appear to be 99%+ Sunni Muslim! It still remains to see if this article is about to talk only about Turkification in Turkey or Turkification (Turkicication) in general; if it is the later, Khwarizm shall be included... And a proposal: would it be interesting and informative to have two sections, one about "voluntary turkification" and one about "forced turkification"? and if not, why? Hectorian 14:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Touched a raw nerve I suppose. Listen, I didn't mean no offense. By the way, Arabs in France cannot establish schools, nor can Arabic be thought as something other than a foreign language in high schools. Same goes for Turkish, Italian, Chinese, and the only exception is for a limited number of international schools (mostly in Paris) for the children of expats. Otherwise, better fall in line and head for l'école. :) Of course you can learn any language outside of school, but that is also the case of Turkey where Kurdish language private courses are free to open (it is important to note that most of them closed because of a grave lack of interest and attendance) Turkey and France have very similar systems. In any case, going back to the topic, I think that we can have such two sections, however how are we going to proceed? I have no problem with the inclusion of Khwarzm, even though I don't know the story that well... Baristarim 15:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe u did touch a raw nerve... Cause i do not like to see implications that the Greeks had such a good time and were glad to be turkified during the Ottoman times, and so their independence war was just a Great Powers game in which they were dragged (I know that this is what Turkish schoolchildren are taught in Turkey)... Since all the things of forced assimilation that i mentioned are not disputed by anyone... I am not talking about state-paid schools, but about the right of the communities to establish their own schools with their own money, under the protection of the French government, for example the Ecole Grecque de Marseille, that the teachers are paid by the respective state. I am not talking about minority schools, state-paid (as the minority schools in Greek Thrace). The Arabs are an immigrant community in France, and as such, they have to organize their schools. The Bretons, though not officially recognised have the Diwan schools and are aboriginals... And so are the Kurds in Turkey, but the situation of Kurdish there is by far worst... In any case, it is nice u agree about these two proposed sections. I will think of a paragraph (not right now) and try to add it in the article. Feel free to rephrase and expand it and i am sure that if any problem arises, we will be able to settle it down here, in the talk:). I am still not sure if we should include "Turkicisation" here; it will be far to much to deal with... As for Khwarzm, Ali doostzadeh will explain, i suppose (for i am not much aware of that either). Hectorian 16:59, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The mythical image of "cruel Turks" is a well-known concept since the Crusades that lingers to this day; my use of term was not meant to be sarcastic at all. I welcome alidoostzadeh, who arrived new at the scene today, having become alert to the fact that I am a Turkish historical revisionist.[12] He hardly has had the time yet to paint a broad picture – although in his last contribution here he is working hard on it – but perhaps he is as poised to revert my edits to the article here as he is at the article Persian Gulf naming dispute, especially when I ask for citations of reliable sources (Mr. Ali D. has a somewhat different standard of the latter than I have) – that is, unless someone beats him to reverting me. I think I was justified in complaining about the ease with which Ali D. ventured his opinion that the article is "good" because "DNA evidence backs it up". This editor has a habit of jumping to conclusions based on his coloured and ill-informed interpretation of the "evidence", and displays no reservations in presenting these conclusions as facts in the articles, a deplorable habit also known as synthesis. I bring this up because I see the germs of the same here in his contributions to the discussion, but unfortunately also in those of some other editors. Hectorian asks if we suppose that "the Turks peacefully moved to Anatolia, the cities opened their gates to greet them and the people joyfully adopted their language and religion". It is not relevant what we suppose; what is relevant is what we find in reliable sources. The criterion whether something can be included in the article is whether it is verifiable, not whether we suppose it to be true. The same question can be asked about almost any assimilation process. Did the Romans peacefully move into Gaul, whereupon the Gallic tribes joyfully welcomed them and begged to be instructed in Latin? According to historical sources, it would appear not, but does it follow that the adoption of Vulgar Latin by the subjected peoples was forced? No, it does not follow: it is not an inescapable consequence. A thesis like that must only be put forward on Wikipedia if it can be attributed to reliable published sources. The same applies here. We must not examine historical records, conclude they prove forced Turkification, and present our conclusions. If professional historians have examined such records and have published their conclusions in reliable sources, and the general consensus among these published historians is that Turkification was forced, only then can we present this in the article as a "fact". Since all such conclusions will have a limited scope, we must be careful to indicate the scope. The assumption that assimilation was forced is attractive, because it offers an obvious explanation. But how do we know that this attractive explanation is correct? I must object to the inclusion of terminology in the article like "have been subjected to forced or voluntarily Turkification", without any attribution, without any indication of scope (for the last ten centuries? since 1923?), and without any qualification of the "forced" aspect (was 99.9% forced? were they quartered if they refused to be made Turkish?). Please let us all stick to the requirement that all statements – and particularly the potentially contentious ones – are backed up by citations of reliable sources.  --Lambiam^Talk 19:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I know about the Crusades and Anti-Turkism, but we are not in the Crusades time now... I do not know what Ali doostzadeh did in other articles, in which I am not editting... However, what he said here, has indeed a point; perhaps he did not phrase it well, by saying DNA evidence (something for which u need extensive surveys with scientific methods), but i suppose he meant to say the obvious: that the modern Turks do not look at all like the Turkic peoples (and this is not something that needs to be backed up by sources)-if i am wrong, he may correct me. In any case, the article needs to be sourced for everything that may be disputed by other users. so, sources indicating forced or voluntary turkification much be presented. However, some things are more than visible: is there any need to source the fact that the Ottoman Empire used the Sharia law, and that under this law everyone who converted to (or back to) Christianity was punished by death, and that in Ottoman times "Turk" was synonymous to "Muslim" in Europe and for the Christian subjects of the Sultan? I think it is rather easy to be sourced... Not to mention that even the word Janissary is enough to indicate forced turkification. if academic sources are needed, they are easy to be found, and i will find them if necessary. Indication of scope is something that i also thought of... Which time period we should include and/or the extend of the geographic area. as for the... percentage... is there any way to measure it? and in any way we may do, the Janissary custom was 101% forced assimilation... Hectorian 20:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Funny. The modern French do not look like Romans either. But what is the relevance? Unless it is part of a statement about Turkification in a published reliable source, there is no reason to bring this up – stronger, we must not bring this up. I think it is best to source everything meticulously. You know that in sharia the accepted view is that an unrepentant male apostate must be put to death (unless under exceptional circumstances), I may know it, but not every reader knows this. If this is mentioned, it should be sourced, and in the source it should be part of a statement about Turkification – no "synthesis". At the same time, we should avoid presenting it as if it is a specifically Ottoman Turkish thing, since this is a general Islamic view (still current in those Islamic countries that follow sharia), and we should also avoid the possibility that readers might think this still applies to present-day Turkey.

I had a suggestion earlier on the page concerning segmentation into periods. I'll present it below, somewhat refined, in a new section; this one is getting bloated. Given the period, the scope in locality would by default be the geographic area over which the state(s) concerned held sovereignty. If something was specific to a more restricted area, that should be made clear. If we need to mention activities outside that area, such as the raid ascribed to Murat Reis on Vestmannaeyjar – something the Icelander are still angry about, conveniently forgetting that the people living there were Icelanders only because of the earlier genocide by Icelandic hands on the Irish slaves settled there – we can still do that. But I digress.  --Lambiam^Talk 01:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually when I was referecing DNA it was directly sourced. Another important replacement occurred in Turkey at the end of the eleventh century, when Turks began attacking the Byzantine Empire. They finally conqured Constantinopole (modern Istanbul) in 1453. The replacement of Greek with Turkish was especially significant because this language belongs to a different family—Altaic. Again the genetic effects of invasion were modest in Turkey. Their armies had few soldiers and even if they sometimes traveled with their families, the invading populations would be small relative to the subject populations that had along civilization and history of economic development. After many generations of protection by the Roman Empire, however, the old settles had become complacent and lost their ability to resit the dangerous invaders (Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza , in “Genes, People and Languages”, 2000, pg 152). And believe me there is much more than this, but this one I picked from arguably the top Human Geneticist of the world. And don't worry there is enough citations about forced turkification as well. Since the 80%+ Armenians/Greeks over a period of several hundred years did not magically disappear in thin air and there was 1) force 2) elite dominance 3) economic reasons and etc. Rephrasing alittle bit: as people can see, this user lambiam has a habit of jumping to conclusions based on his/her coloured, ill-willed, racist and ill-informed interpretation of the "evidence", and displays no reservations in presenting these conclusions as facts in the articles, a deplorable habit also known as lying. --alidoostzadeh 03:28, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, to be honest, I do not know about DNA testing, etc. As for what Lambiam said above, why don't the French look like the Romans? I mean, which is their difference in appearance? after all, the French, although they emphasize their predominantly Celtic character, they are totally aware of their some Roman and Frankish roots, as well as other, without trying to present the Romans and the Franks as Celts! I am not in favour of mentioning activities so far away from the area, but Vestmannaeyjar has nothing to do with this in any case... The Icelandish population is of mixed Norse and Celtic descent, and the murder of slaves as a revenge for the murder of a noble, cannot be compared to bunch of barbarian pirates who killed and enslaved population for no reason at all! i will reply in the next section about the timeline u proposed; i think it would be better not to split the article so much... Hectorian 14:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Segmentation into historic periods

The following is a tentative segmentation of the total period of significant Turkish presence in (at least) Anatolia. I'm not an expert in this matter, but I think each transition between the segments below corresponds to significant changes in policy, practice, or meaning of "Turkification".

• Period of the Beyliks
• Ottoman Empire
  • from start until Tanzimat
  • from Tanzimat until the coup of the Young Turks
  • The Young Turk period
    • before the War
    • during the War
• The Republic
  • the single-party period
  • the multi-party period
  • the present situation

 --Lambiam^Talk 01:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The article is about the process of turkification (by force, by elite dominance..) etc. Thus it is more concerned with groups that have been turkified.

I suggest:

Kurds

Zazas

Armenians

Greeks

Laz

Hemshins

Slavs

and furthermore in each topic we mention turkification of a) people b) land. And then divide it into 1) by force/occupation 2) by elite dominace 3) expulsion. The different period can be mentioned under each group. Also Turkification of land and extinguishing several thousand of years of Greek culture should be included in the article. The article should start with the composition of past/modern Turkey (80%+ Greek/Armenian before) and today close to 0% Greek/Armenian. --alidoostzadeh 03:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that the timeline is better. Most books on history and entries in encyclopedias follow timelines, otherwise it would be very confusing for the uninformed reader. The other problem with the ethnic list is that the ethnic identification only became stronger after the 19th century. Much of the Turkification was done with the equation of Muslim to Turk, which is attested from the fact that Turk meant Muslim in Europe until the 19th century. In a timeline this could be explored better I think, particularly the switchover from other religions to Muslim to Turk in the 19th century and beginning of 20th century. Baristarim 11:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I am against the usage of a timeline... If we use the timeline structure, we will not be able to talk about separate affected ethnic groups (unless u mean that for each period of Turkish history we will be talking about each ethnic group as well). I am against generalizations, e.g. the "janissary custom" was in force from the 13th to the 19th century, but without explaining how each ethnic group was affected... The term "Turk" meant "Muslim" in Europe till the 19th century, as Baris correctly said, but the term "Muslim" did not only mean "Turk"... There were also the Arabs and the Persians who were of course seen by the Europeans as Muslims, but not as Turks... For the European minds "Turks" were the Muslims of the Balkans and Anatolia, who mostly spoke Turkish and obeyed to the Sultan, regardless of their origins (this reveals the case of Turkification). Also, the main switchover from other religions to Islam (and later to Turk) did not occur during the 19th-20th centuries, but earlier (in fact, in these centuries there was a reverse trend-I can back up with references the case of the crypto-christians of Pontus in the second half of the 19th century, who converted back to Greek Orthodoxy, when Sharia was outlawed). Mainly, after the Tanzimat and the Young Turks, it was the Muslims switching over to Turk (maybe it's this what Baris meant). and after 1923, it was a "nationalist" policy, considering Turk not only the Muslims (whose origins were diverse, anyway), but also all the inhabitants or Turkey, regardless of their religion, language and origins-apart from the 3 recognized minorities of the Lauzanne Treaty: Armenians (a remnant of an once large population) but not including the Hamshenis, Greeks (a remnant of a large population too, but who also were expelled between 1955-1965) but not including the Greek Pontian Muslims, and Jews (most of whom left the country after the creation of Israel) but not including the Donmeh. Dealing with each ethnic group separately, would allow us to present the special circumstances of Turkification each of them faced. after all, not the same means to Turkify the Kurds and the Greeks, for example, were used: for the Kurds, there was (is) a policy of linguistic assimilation (and to a lesser degree a policy to assimilate the Alevi Kurds-half of the Kurds, if i am not wrong-into mainstream Sunni Islam); for the Greeks, there was first a policy to islamise them, and then a policy to assimilate them linguistically and ethnically). what i meant by proposing to create two sections, was to create two diagrams for "forced" and "voluntary" assimilation respectively during the ottoman-republican periods, not to change the current structure of the article... The turkification of placenames and history can be addressed either in separate sections the sections that have to do with the respective ethnic groups. Hectorian 14:51, 19 January 2007 (UTC)