Talk:Turkish people

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[edit] Turkish names

Why is there no paragraph about Turkish names ? I have made a small list of very popular names for Turks. They are drawn from Turkic tradition, islamic tradition and other traditions

Male names :

Adnan, Ahmet, Arslan, Bulent, Burak, Cem , Fatih, Gökhan , Hakan, Kemal, Mehmet, Serkan, Süleyman , Tarkan, Volkan, Atilla, Mete, Teoman, Aytekin, Alp, Alparslan, Turhan, Turan, Kaan, Murat, Yildirim, Osman, Orhan, Toker, Erol, Berk, Tunc, Yavuz.

Female names :

Arzu, Aysel, Bahar, Burcu, Deniz, Emel, Hande,İpek, Meltem, Özge, Özlem, Pelin, Sibel, Tuğçe , Yasemin —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zoko19 (talk • contribs) 05:39, 13 September 2006.

Perhaps you could start a new article called Turkish name? Try to base it off these articles. —Khoikhoi 05:51, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Nooo, Deniz is unisex :) (56386 males, 81498 females , [1] ) denizTC 04:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


Also 3 of the 5 most common male names (Mustafa, Ali, Hüseyin), and all of the 5 most common female names (Fatma, Ayşe, Emine, Hatice, Zeynep) are missing on that list. denizTC 06:10, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox images

Hi, I realized that the four images in the infobox do not properly align on web browsers other than Internet Explorer (I'm using Opera v9 and I have this problem). I'm going to merge these four images into one, as is common on "people" pages (see Greeks, Swedish people, Dutch people, for example). I also think another version including more people can be made, like the one on the Dutch people page. I will be glad to hear your suggestions on which persons to include in such an image. Atilim Gunes Baydin 17:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Atilim, Im pretty sure that combining the four together into a composite would constitute a copyright violation since not all of them are free images that can be modified in any particular way. Im using Mozilla firefox (not Internet explorer) and the four seperate images bunched together look pretty much like how a composite would, except that the edges dont meld together as well. The current version seems to be the best direction to go, imo - at least to avoid the complex copyright issues that may prop up.--Kilhan 09:25, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I do not think that it will constitute a copyright violation, as long as there are no violation issues with the constituent images. Like the wiki markup that used to hold these images together in place, it's just a technique to show images side by side. I believe that copyright laws are concerned with how and where the images are presented, not the technical details holding them in place. And as I said before, please note that this is common practice (see Germans, English people, Norwegian people, Greeks, Swedish people, Dutch people, French people (ethnic group), Italian people, Spanish people). In fact, I could not find another "people" page that uses wiki markup to hold the images in place. Atilim Gunes Baydin 10:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Population update added

changed to 70,413,958 and 66.7 to 74.5 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aceflooder (talk • contribs) 14:42, 3 September 2006.

It's wrong. —Khoikhoi 23:30, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Not everyone in turkey is ethnical Turkish but about 90 percent are. there are also turkish minorities in balkan countries. North Cyprus is 99.5 % ethnical turkish, but only turkey recognises it —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zoko19 (talk • contribs) 05:46, 13 September 2006.

90%? According to the CIA World Factbook, Kurds make up 20% of Turkey's population. BTW, remember that Turkey's census is not based on ethnicity. —Khoikhoi 05:48, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
Image:Cry-tpvgames.gif Khoikhoi 03:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)


I have changed Turks in Turkey from 71 mill. to 55 mill. according to KONDA [2] Arkadaslar lütfen degisiklik yaparken kaynak gösterelim. Sadece büyük görünmek icin insanlari yaniltmayalim. Bir zamanlar rahmetli sayin Turgut Özal'in Bulgaristan metnine isi cevirmeyelim "100 Milyon oldugumuzda size gösteririz" vb. Büyüklük sadece rakamlarla olmaz.

Saygilarimla Babaeski.

İf kurds made uo %20 they wouldn't have ant rouble getting into parlament, would they? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Armanalp (talk • contribs) 06:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kosovo Turks

According to last census on Kosovo there were about 12,000 Turks. Luka Jačov 16:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Is it possible 66.7 million Turks when 73 million people lives in Turkey? and the other Turks in outside. Zaparojdik

Not everyone who lives in Turkey is Turkic. About 20 million are kurdish, and there are others too.Khosrow II 22:57, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Not regarding the question but not 20 million Kurds live in Turkey. Turkey's %8 are native speaker of Kurdish and with others who speak Turkish as a second language and as native language, 13 million is total. Regarding my question, if there are 73 million people in Turkey and if 13 million is Kurds others are being Turks.(because everyone accepts themselves as Turks except Kurds) There are millions of Turks in outside, it doesn't seem logical 66.7 million Turks around the world. Sincerely-Zaparojdik 19:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pamuk

I think it's about time for Orhan Pamuk's picture to reappear in the infobox ... --Benne ['bɛnə] (talk) 12:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Turkey has two major group Turks and people of kurdish origin.Approximate numbers can be as below: Turks: 56 million Kurds: 14 million Araps: 1 million circassians: 1 million(çerkezler) others: 1 million

                       baybars

azerian,turkmen,ozbekian,kazakh,kyrgz .... people are must be in turkish people....they are turks... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aceflooder (talk • contribs) 19:23, 24 October 2006.

There's a difference between Turkic and Turkish people... Khoikhoi 19:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Turkic peoples...

Must merge Turkic People Total Population to infobox..you cant make all Turks about 66 million are you kidding? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aceflooder (talk • contribs) .

Like I said, there's a difference between Turkic and Turkish people... Khoikhoi 19:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok i just want people to see Turkish and Turkic people in one box.User:Aceflooder 22:16, 25 October 2006
Why should they be in one box? Should we add up all the numbers of Germanic peoples for the infobox in the Germans article? Khoikhoi 21:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


Turks, or Turkish people are citizens of Turkey.Nothing to do the Turkics who migrated to Anatolia.Most people in Turkey are native Anatolians.But of course some of these Anatolians posses an ancestor who was one of those Turkics who settle in Anatolia under the Seljuk confederacy.But bloodline mainly Anatolian.And then of course you have people of Turkey with partial or full roots from the Balkans,Crimea and the Caucasus.

The Turk identity is new.It was used to denote Muslims of the Balkans and in Anatolia,those Anatolians who were Muslim and Ottoman linguitically and culturally during Ottoman times.In other words,Turks or Turkish people is merely an umbrella term for anyone of Turkish nationality,or during the Ottoman Empire,a person who is a Muslim with cultural connections to the Ottomans.


[edit] The term "Turkic" is not realistic

--- the word "Turkic" is used since the late 1950's in European culture, and it was first created by USSR governments of those dates. Simply the word was used to seperate the Turkish Clans and emphasize they were not descended from the same origin, were just talking a language in similarities. The aim was to assimilate the Turkish population in the rule of USSR and to easy the resistance of their cultural behaviour. And also the term itself was translated in Turkish as "Turki", meaning not exactly Turk, similar to, looks like Turk. As in many topics of Wikipedia, some informations about Turkish Clans are open to dispute; as in Slavic Tribes article. Bulgarians are shown in Slavic origin and the former clans of Bulgarians as Kumans, Pecheneks are not mentioned to be Turk. But if you inspect further on the topic and go on for the links on those Tribe names you can clearly find out that they were Turkish Tribes and not Turkic; and you can get this information just by wikipedia again, which seems to be a big dilemma to me. Because they were Turkish "Boy" (= Clan ) fighting in the order of the ancient Seljuk Emperor Keykubat, and migrated towards the lands in Caucasia and then into the East Europe. Also it is clearly known that Turkish Tribes migrated towards Europe and founded the Empire of European Huns aswell. So shortly after all those arguments i want to make clear that the term "Turkic" means "Turk" and the term "Turk" does not only mean the ethnicity of Turkey's Turks, it covers all those tribes which said to be "Turkic". Turkey is a country founded after the Ottoman Empire and Ottoman Emp. was founded after Anatolian Seljuk Empire also which is the continuation of Great Seljuk Empire; all those empires were formed and ruled by several Turkish Tribes but dominantly the Oguz Turks who are a clan of Tukish Nation in ethnicity. I think this needs a correction by the way.--- Drsecancan 11:59, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Altaic Controversy

According to major reference works, everbody agrees on Turkic, Tungus, and Mongolian families. These language families have some common words and they are typologically similar. Whether they are genetically related or not is the subject of ongoing research. The similarities could be result of long-term contact.

All languages are influenced by languages they are in contact with. According to the standards set by linguists, languages that make up a family must show productive-predictive correspondences. The shape of a given word in one language should be predictable from the shape of the corresponding word, or cognate, in another language. Turkic, Tungus, and Mongolian satisfies all these similarities.

The family name "Altaic" is a commonly used terminology to label these languages. Turkic, Tungus, and Mongolian are still Altaic regardless of exact status of Altaic is. The controversy is a minor issue among a small circle of specialists. Furthermore, even these specialists use the term Altaic to label, especially, for these three language groups. E104421 08:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd share in the opinion that yesterday's version ("highly controversial Altaic linguistic group") somewhat overstates the significance of the controversy, in a way that is really extraneous to the context of this article. As a "linguistic group", Altaic is really not controversial as applied to Turkic. The question is whether it's a "linguistic family" strictu sensu. Which is really a technical issue of not much interest here. – That said, I'm not sure we need a treatment of Altaic at that point at all. It's all treated a little bit below under "Language" anyway, and better. Much more important would be a clarification of "Turkish" vs. "Turkic". The present version ingeniously dodges the issue by presenting the original Turkic populations during the migration period as a single group, calling them "Turks", but linking that word to Turkic peoples. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Mongolian is not part of the Altaic language tree.Azerbaijani 23:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Check the Wikipedia article on the Altaic languages first, then go through the references to get a glimpse of Altaic languages. Regards. E104421 09:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The "Pictures of Turkish people"

Wow, I didn't know people from Turkey were all glamorous, sexy, and had their own picture studios. Apparently, some like to look like George Michael too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

Don't you people find it strange to have the picture of a "pop singer" beside personalities such as Kemal, Mehmet II and Suleyman the Magnificent?? Miskin 10:29, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
It used to be Orhan Pamuk, but it caused too much controversy. Khoikhoi 10:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Can we find a picture of ordinary citizens of Turkey like the one on the Azerbaijani people page? Maybe from a village or something, so its more representative and authentic?Azerbaijani 23:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

This is very stupid. There are pictures of Kivanc Tatlitug (a turkish male model) here. Take them off please. This is why no one takes wikipedia seriously.

I agree, this whole section ([3]) is ridiculous! Posting pictures of models and saying "Pictures of the people of modern Turkey".Azerbaijani 21:22, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, it is true that the article needs a cleanup.. But WPTR suffers from a lack of editors considering the scope of the project, therefore it takes a long time to rectify problems and address those sorts of issues, unfortunately. Baristarim 21:39, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

What strikes bad to me is the inclusion of a pop singer along with 3 important historical personalities. She could fit well into the gallery section of the Italian-looking people (if you decide to keep it). Then you could have someone like Osman I or even Alp Aslan replace her. Miskin 22:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Italian looking people???? :)) She is Turkish you know.. Well, there needs to be a picture from every era, I suppose her picture is ok (even though maybe it could be replaced by something similar). Sezen Aksu is very famous in Turkey, and she is not just a "pop-singer".. Baristarim 22:19, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I meant the picture gallery with all the models in the bottom section (the one Azerbaijani and the anon are trashing). I know Aksu is Turkish, but I believe she would fit better in that gallery than where she is now. As for modern day people, you have Kemal there. Miskin 22:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The gallery needs work, cannot argue against that.. Baristarim 22:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to degrade her by saying that she's a pop singer. But next to those other people... I don't know. Miskin 22:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for trying to improve on User:Eeeeeeh's version, I didn't notice that it was him who had just decided to replace the picture. Miskin 01:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Turk term for all muslims ?

Term used to refer muslims by the west, bu it looks like Turks or Ottoman empire used it for muslims as well, which is definetely not the case, "mumin" word used for muslim inhabitants. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Utku a (talk • contribs) 20:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

I don't think 'mümin' is used, maybe 'müslüman'. As far as I know, until late 19th century, early 20th century, Turk was used for the Muslim 'tebaa', as well. At least Western countries used Turk to mean Muslim in Ottoman Empire. denizTC 06:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Most of muslim people/country dominated by Turks in history, in widest era of the Ottoman Empire. Also Turkish emperors of Ottoman Empire carried "Khalifa" title like Roman Empires used Pope title in their powerful times. These titles used for manage peoples. The effect is, all other peoples makes identical a race and a religion. Using religious titles is necessity for big empires. You could use "Turk" term for all muslims in two hundred years ago. It is controversial but they could, they did. It is not scientific but it is a folkloric effect. Now, the situation is completely different. There is no any management connections left between Turks and other muslim countries, since World War 1. Obviously you cannot use Turk synonym for muslims today.

Mumin appeared from "iman" in arabic. Mumin means "faithful". Iman means "faith". Mumin commonly describes "faithful muslim". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Serkanhamarat (talk • contribs) 17:33, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] significant populations

Is 884 (in Liechtenstein) really a significant population? --Rayis 22:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess it is put there since 2.6% of Liechtenstein population is Turkish (so it's significant in Liechtenstein), which is bigger than the percentage in many countries (Germany as well), but of course it is not significant compared to other total population numbers. denizTC 06:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Greeks and Ionians

In the history section, Greeks and Ionians are mentioned seperately, which is kind of weird, since the Ionians were a Greek tribe/subgroup. I'd suggest something like "..Greeks (and most prominently Ionians,.."). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.1.137.59 (talk) 16:27, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Comment on the claim that many Turks allegedly have agnostic/atheistic beliefs

While it is understandable that some Turks have agnostic/atheist beliefs, the phrase used in the header, "many" often is confused with "most." I therefore suggest that this be changed or deleted. Moreover, the person who choose to add this alleged "fact" (supposedly many Turks having agnostic/atheistic beliefs) failed to provide any citation which strengthens the notion that this claim, is entirely spurious and unsubstantiated. Scythian1 23:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "related groups" info removed from infobox

For dedicated editors of this page: The "Related Groups" info was removed from all {{Infobox Ethnic group}} infoboxes. Comments may be left on the Ethnic groups talk page. Ling.Nut 17:13, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Change made

I removed the following sentence from the section about phenotypes "Turkey was a home to many other vast former civilizations, there is no country in the world that this many civilizations have lived and called as a bridge from east to west, west to east." This sentence is unverifiable, and also certainly disputible. 193.255.77.104 13:58, 21 May 2007 (UTC)Veryshuai May 21, 2007

[edit] Reversion in Genetic section

Well this will be my second change today. I remembered reading on this page that genetic tests show that only between 10-30% of Turks have ancestory from central asia. When I looked at the page today, however, I saw that this had changed to show that 75% of Turks have central asian ancestory. I checked out the links provided. One was to the National Geographic Human Genome Project main page, and the other was to a fairly confusing haplograph map from the University of Illinois-Urbana. The National Geographic page of course didn't have any information that I could find about specific countries ancestory rations, just general information about population biology. I read up on haplographs and took a closer look at the map, and it seemed to show the original result--that only a small percentage of Turks have genetic ancestors in central Asia. I traced the change back to a user called Turquoiseeyes on May 7, 2007. Since Turquoiseeyes's claim is apparently baseless, and the original section was backed up by two academic journals, I am changing it back to the original version.

Turquoiseeyes's reply: Your claim which was based on your given research is not realistic. I would suggest you to accept National Geographic's Genographic Project and World haplogroups map from University of Illinois as worldwide projects and reliable resources. Your research result is based on; ancient Turks have only two haplogroups which only exists with American-Indians. But Turks didn't migrate from America, they have migrated from Central Asia like most of the people at Europe and Asia did. Even today Central Asians have more than ten different haplogroups, mixed under Central Asian haplogroup, it was most likely the same 2000 years ago as well. So don't get confused with unrealistic research conclusions. I am changing back to right original version. Turquoiseeyes June 25, 2007

Vandalizing Attempts of this title page by some Greeks and Armenians! These type of people are still not civilized yet and they will not be. They should get a life as these vandalizing attempts with hate dont take them anywhere other than looking stupid. They should learn to be civilized like Turkish people. I haven't seen any Turkish people vandalizing these people's pages as they have a life and much better things to do...


Turquoiseeyes is right. I reviewed Babaeski's resource and research documents. The sampling was done on only 75 people(it's hard to say it represents 75 million people in Turkey) and the conclusion was based on two haplogroups which only exists with Native Americans so I wouldn't state Turks migrated from America so it's a wrong assumption and not a realistic research conclusion. I would accept Turquoiseeyes' resources because of the fact that University of Illinois' Worldhaplogroups map is based on National Geographics' Genographic Project's data and the research was made worldwide with numerous samples. Today we, most of the Americans, including Dr. Spencer Wells have European and Central Asian ancestry. There is no scientific doubt about it. Today, nearly 90% of the people on earth share the same ancestry from Central Asia and Turks are mainly in this group. Celticpower, June 27, 2007

People; be civil and discuss. Don't just make blind reverts. Kerem Özcan 13:41, 1 July 2007 (UTC) It's been going back and forth for two days and I'll ask for full protection if it keeps being like that. If both of you have reliable sources that have varying figures, article can include both, mentioning that they're of different researches. Regards, Kerem Özcan 13:41, 1 July 2007 (UTC)



The National Geographics map doesn't shows that 75% of the turkish people have central asian heritage. Futhermore, it provides informations that nearly 90% are not of central asian origin.

I'm sorry but i have to revise Turquoiseeyes vandalism!--Babaeski 00:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

And i'm not finished! Now he claims that´the amazons are turkish, but in the source you cannot even find the words "Turk", "turkic" or "turkish".

I would appreciative if somebody neutral checks the sources.--Babaeski 00:41, 2 July 2007 (UTC)



It's hard to discuss this with somebody who doesn't understand and know how to interpret the scientific research results. But I would suggest curious people to read Wikipedia haplogroup K(Euroasian Clan), F, J(Middle Eastern haplogroup) and Genographic Project from National Geographic. One thing about Babaeski's resources; I would accept his resources if he proves me that Turks came from America instead of Central Asia. About Amazons: Babaeski should read research results and resources carefully as it clearly states that Kirghiz Turks were the last ones to live at ancient Mongolia until 600 AD when Mongols move from east, Turks had lived also at Uyghur(Xinjiang) and the Central Asian region according to the chinese history records, that clearly proves Turks were the ancient inhabitants of all Central Asia and current inhabitants as well except Mongolia. Ironicly Babaeski's resources at last paragraph and the research at first paragraph made assumptions before their conclusions that some of the ancient Turks lived at Mongolia. But Babaeski's statements here about Amazons and Mongolia conflicts his original research resources. Before opposing something and jumping to conclusion, that should be thought well. User:Turquoiseeyes 19:25, July 3, 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I came across a research by standord university. I don't know whose claims it will help because I found it quite boring to read, but it seems quite detailed and it qualifies for verifiability, so it may be the solution for this problem. Regards; Kerem Özcan 09:11, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I am feeling some hostility here towards Turks and Central Asian ancestry. It's not ethical to put here some flawed, unrealistic information as well as wrong historical and scientific claims. It's a fact that most of the American and European men including me; belong to R1b haplogroup and this group's ancestry had been traced back to Central Asia. It is another fact that this haplogroup exists mostly out of Europe with only Uyghur Turks at Xinjang. It is not right for some people trying to create some other race for Turks; it is not historically, scientifically and genetically possible. Turks are in the main group and under Central Asian subgroup K. They are a very mixed nation, even at Central Asia currently having more than at least seven haplogroups at most regions. Dr. Spencer Wells stated Central Asia as a second home to him and most other American men had traced back their origins to Europe and to Central Asia as well. I understand turquoiseeyes furiousness on this issue and I kindly support him. I wouldn't let Russians to write the American history or any other stuff about Americans either. User:Celticpower 17:45, July 19, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The PICTURES! What on Earth is going on!

The Pekinel sisters? Idil Beret? SEBNEM FERAH? did I miss the joke or something, how can those three images be used, they have little historical and social significance, they're not exactly the first names that come to the mind when people think of "Turks", forget that hardly anyone outside Turkey really is familiar with them. Plus two are pianists, do we really need two pianists and how do they represent Turkey? if there is to be a musician why not one which represents Turkish music, like say "Asik Veysel". And if were going to have "pop/rock" singeres, why Sebnem Ferah? Tarkan is internationally renownd and far more sucessfull. If there is going to be twins, why not the Ertegun brothers who are internationally known. Why are these NOBODIES being used to represent Turkish people? there are many more prominant female figures, Halide Edip, Nene Hatun etc There isn't even one image of a "Seljuk" ruler, I mean common, they were the first Turks to conquer Anatolia and they're not even given one image!

I hope they're changed.

--Johnstevens5 16:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Turks genetic origin

In Turkey, the major ethnic group ise Turks. %77 of Turkey's populations have M9 haplogroup which origin from Central Asia. Their origin is Xiong-nu tribes. Xiong-nu peoples are proto-Turks. Turkey people are Turks, not other ethnic groups. They have genes which origin from Central Asia.

[edit]  ? ?

"Per Genographic Project, a worldwide genetic research performed by Dr. Spencer Wells as the head of group of scientists at National Geographic, a Turk named Niyazov(Niyazoglu), living at Kazakhstan by Kirghizistan and Uzbekistan, was discovered to be the only person carrying the ancient people's exactly the same gene lived 40000 years ago who was the father to nearly 90% of the world population including Central Asians, Europeans, Euroasians, Eastern Asians(Chinese, etc.), South Asians (Indians, etc.) and Native Americans. This genetic discovery gives Turks the privelege to state that ancient Turks are the fathers to most people on world and fathers to most civilizations on earth.[8]"

Sounds like an oversimplification at best, or an overzealous nationalistic POV statement at worst

The claim made here isn't supported at all, and it would be very unscientific to say that one individual can accurately represent an entire ethnic group. It would probably be best to remove the paragraph altogether. -- Augustgrahl 00:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not surprised again as Armenians and Greeks are trying again to interfere with the Turkish people's page with their false claims and lies. What a hate! Get a life, you retards. User:Turquoiseeyes 19:09, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL DenizTC 02:17, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changing image?

What if we changed the turkishpeople.jpg to the image in commons?: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:TurkishPeople.jpg

The current picture includes non-free images like sebnem ferah's and the pekinel sisters. The photos in mine are all selected from the commons. --Teemeah Gül Bahçesi 10:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Genetics

"[...] This genetic discovery gives Turks the privilege to state that ancient Turks are the fathers to most people on world and fathers to most civilizations on earth." ..... that is the dumbest thing i have ever heard, but let it in, it's too funny to delete it 83.135.171.235 10:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Turks Genetics

Whoever says about Turks' orijin, Turks who live in Turkey is carrying Turkic genes. How can nomad-ignoramus Turks destroy significant and challenging Roman culture and civilization? How can be nomad-ignoramus Turks accepted their language to Byzintum and Anatolian people? --193.140.180.223 07:46, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

  1. There is no such thing as "Turkic genes".
  2. No-one here is saying or suggesting that the Turks who took on and conquered the Byzantine Empire were ignoramuses.
  3. By that time, the Empire was but a shadow of the former mighty Roman Empire.
  4. The Seljuqs, by that time, had not been nomads for centuries.
  5. At the time of the conquest of Constantinople, the Turks had the most advanced gun technology in the world.
  6. The Romans "imprinted" their language, Latin, on most of the Western Roman Empire, whence we have such Latin languages as French, Provencal, Portuguese, Castilian, Catalan, Corsican, Sardinian, Italian, Romance, and Romanian. The genetic contribution of the original Romans (the inhabitants of ancient Rome) to the gene pools of France, Portugal, Spain, etcetera, is completely negligeable. Likewise, already under Alexander the Great the Greek language became the common language, known as the Koine. The ability to speak Greek was not genetically transmitted to the conquered peoples. Why is it so impossible that something similar happened again in Anatolia?
  7. This has really nothing to do with genetics, and everything with the dominant position of the ruling group.
 --Lambiam 18:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

"Asian ancestry could be less than 9%." In this research there is a saample of about 500 people :D . You cannot estimate 70.000.000 by sample size of 500. I'm saying it as a statistician student. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilhanli (talk • contribs) 16:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Did you actually read the article? They investigated 89 biallelic polymorphisms in the Y chromosomes of 523 individuals. That gives you 2 × 89 × 523 = 93094 items for comparison. As a student of statistics, you ought to know that, indeed, the sample size is important for the confidence interval – which, I trust, the authors have correctly accounted for in their conclusions, since they are internationally recognized leaders in this field, working at one of the most prestigious universities in the world – but that the population size is quite irrelevant. If a sample of size 90,000 will support a conclusion for a population of one million individuals, it will also support that conclusion for a population of size one billion.  --Lambiam 18:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I forgot to say that in Turkey if you ask sombody if he is Turk or not most probably he will say "yes i'm Turk" althougt he is not (i mean, then in home they are talkink their mother languages; among theirself they are introducing theirsef as in what are they in real; Kurds or Pomaks...). So we don't know in real that these people are Kurds or Gypsies or Pomaks or Turks..

And 93094 is something like 0.1% of the population.

"If a sample of size 90,000 will support a conclusion for a population of one million individuals, it will also support that conclusion for a population of size one billion." <- this is complitely foolish! The other 69.910.000 can be "pureblood" Turks. You don't know anything about other 99.9% of the population. You do not need to be statistician. "the sample size is important for the confidence interval", yes of course. We are saying that a sample of 5% for estimation population is not enough but at least it must be 5%. But in "your" research it is 0.1%. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilhanli (talk • contribs) 21:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

If it is true, as you wrote, that you are a "statistician student", then you are one who still has to learn even the most elementary principles. Suppose someone interviews 90,000 randomly chosen Turks, and all 90,000 tell the interviewer: "I'm happy to call myself a Turk". Is it reasonable then to say: "but perhaps all 69,910,000 Turks you did not interview are unhappy, so you cannot draw any conclusions from this sample"? Would it not be an incredible coincidence if out of 70,000,000 Turks only the 90,000 that are happy to call themselves Turks are precisely the 90,000 chosen in the random sample? Surely, even as a fledgling statistician you know enough probability theory to compute the chance.  --Lambiam 22:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Can you say that sample of 0.1% is enough for the estimation of the population? --Ilhanli 07:18, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
What counts is not the relative size but the absolute size of the sample. Suppose a biologist wants to estimate the frequency of six-toed frogs in a frog population. On a random sample of 123 frogs, 13 are found with six toes. If the population frequency of six-toed individuals is as high as 17%, you would expect, on the average, to find about 21 six-toed frogs in a random sample of that size. The probability of finding only 13 six-toed frogs is then less than 5%. (This can be computed by computing the cumulative distribution function for the binomial distribution.) So 17% is an unlikely high value for the population frequency. You can say at the 95% confidence level that the frequency is less than 17%.
Now suppose that the sample is enlarged to a total of 9876 frogs, and that in this random sample there are 1001 six-toed individuals. Now you can say at the 99.5% confidence level that the population frequency is less than 11%, since the probability of finding only 1001 six-toed frogs in a sample of that size, if the population frequency is 11% or higher, is less than 0.3%. None of this involves the size of the population itself.  --Lambiam 10:36, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
As you see the samples are about 10% of the population (in your examples) (and as i saied you, the samples must be at least 5% of the population (that's ok)). And it gives about 95-99% confidence interval as you see. BUT, Where is sample size of 10%, where is sample size of 0.1% ?????? I'm asking again: Is sample size of 0.1% is enough for the estimation of the population? And it will give you a confidence interval less than 0.1 which will be very comic to say that coclusion about the researc is very consistent. And please do not copy paste things that you do not know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilhanli (talk • contribs) 15:30, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
What do you mean, "the samples are about 10% of the population (in your examples)". I did not give any indication of the size of the population. If the sample is about 10% of the population, then the population size is about 10 times the sample size: 10 × 9876 = 98760. No number in what I wrote for the frog examples is in that ballpark. Your question about the required percentage of the sample size is meaningless, as I have explained, but I'll give it one more try. Suppose Ahmet bey wants to buy a simit, and a simit costs 0.50 YTL. Is 10% of the money Ahmet bey has in his pocket sufficient to buy that simit? If he has 5 YTL or more, the answer is yes. Why? Because 10% of 5 YTL is 0.50 YTL, and 0.50 YTL is enough. Is 0.1% of the money Ahmet bey has in his pocket sufficient to buy that simit? If he has 500 YTL or more, the answer is yes. Why? Because 0.1% of 500 YTL is 0.50 YTL, and 0,50 YTL is enough to pay for that simit. But if he has only 5 YTL, 0.1% is not enough. So you can't answer the question if some percentage is enough with yes or no; what counts is not the percentage but what it amounts to in absolute size. Likewise, if 9876 is 10% of the population, then 10% is enough. If 9876 is 0.1%, then 0.1% is enough. Why? Not because of the percentage, but because 9876 is enough.  --Lambiam 00:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I have restored the original text in the genetics section. Some user keeps copying a pseudo-scientific claim into the text. Fact is that genetic tests suggest that the actual number of original Central Asian Turks in Turkey is less than 5% (that's, btw, the correct number, not 9%). This is also supported by the fact that the modern Turkish language in many ways reflects elements of the original languages spoken in Anatolia and - in many cases - significantly differs from Turkic languages spoken in Central Asia. This includes the loss of [q] and the loss of [x] which are replaced by either [k] or [h] (for example, original Turkic *Xāqān becomes "Hakan"). This phenomenon is also known from Zaza language and from the Baloch language, but not in any other Turkic language. The comparison to Baloch, which has never been significantly influenced by Turkic languages, suggests that this phenomenon was transferred from Zaza/Baloch to Anatolian Turkish. Additionally, it supports the claim that the modern Turkish-speakers are largly descendants of ancient Zaza/Baloch spekers who were later linguistically Turkicized, while keeping some characteristics of their original languages (this phenomenon also exists in South America or among African Americans whose version of English or Spanish also reflects elements of the original languages of their Non-European ancestors). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.156.11 (talk) 22:28, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Sample size of 0.1% is not enough for estimation. It must be at least 5%. --Antikkkk 12:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

So can you tell me how many atoms of carbon-14 you need to include in your sample to be able to estimate that the half-life of carbon-14 is 5730 ± 40 years?  --Lambiam 13:06, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm talking about finite population, not infinite. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Antikkkk (talk • contribs) 14:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
OK, then how many atoms of carbon-14 among those that occur on the planet Earth – definitely a finite population – do you need to include in your sample to be able to estimate that the half-life of carbon-14 atoms on Earth is 5730 ± 40 years?  --Lambiam 18:17, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
What about you a talking? You are meaning that 0.1% is enough? No, it is not. Let me explain. Take the same research. Do you think that the results will be same? In one result there may be 2 Turks in another 490. Isn't it? So, for a good estimation the sample size must be at least 5%. When the sample size is increasing your estimation is going to be closly to the real values. But you talking about very different subject = carbon-14. Moreover i do not think that the half life of an atom is estimating by statiscs. Are they meaning that some carbons' (carbon-14) half life is diffrent or thay are meaning that one carbons' half life is about 5730 ± 40 and by meanin one the are meaing for all? If they are meaning the second one it is true for all. Phisics are true everywhere in the space. You need to estimate only one carbon-14's half life. But u cannot estimate by a person a population. (The estimation that it is 5730 ± 40 is not by direct oıbservation but by indercet researches.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilhanli (talk • contribs) 18:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I am not saying that 0.1% is enough, but that the statement "a random sample of 0.1% is not enough" is a meaningless statement. Meaningful statements in this context (whether true or not) have the form "a random sample of size 12345 is large enough to reject the null hypothesis at a 99% confidence level". It all boils down to what the test statistic is; the (absolute) sample size figures in the formulas for test statistics, whereas the population size does not. It is as simple as that. The estimates for the half-life of an element are obtained by observing what proportion of a (finite) sample of atoms decays within a given amount of time. For an individual atom, you may have to wait for 10,000 years for it to decay, or it may decay within 5 minutes. At the individual level it is totally unpredictable. Even if you let the observations run for a full year, you need a large sample (large in the number of atoms, like more than 1015, but extremely small as a fraction of the population) to get a reasonably small margin. That is not essentially different from observing what proportion of a sample of C. elegans survives a week of fasting, or other observations involving a random variable.  --Lambiam 10:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

If you are thinking that sample size of 523 is enough then why are you deleting this [4] my edit????? --Ilhanli 19:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Because it is wrong. You have confused two studies. You ascribe properties of one study to a completely different and unrelated study.  --Lambiam 10:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I am in the R1B haplogroup, my father knows his heritage as a Turk as far as he knows and most likely they came to Anatolia with Seljuk Turks, my last name is OguzTurk, in Turkey 30% of people is R1B and 35% of Uighur Turks and around 20% of Turkmens, Ozbeks, Kirghiz are in this group. Most Celtic people are in this group as well as well as Turks in Central Asia under various subgroups of haplogroups K. There is no diverse region of haplogroups in the world like Central Asia but all the haplogroups of the people in Central Asia are subgroups of Central Asian haplogroup K.

Nearly 75% of Turkish people in Turkey have Central Asian originated haplogroups and this is the end of genetic discussion about Turks. --SikiciTurk 21:06, 09 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religion

I'm quite positive that the number of atheist / agnostic / nontheist Turks is much more higher than Judaic or Eastern Orthodox Christian ones.

[edit] Turks Genetic

Today, Real Turkic people population is less 35 million in Turkey. The Others not Turkic orijin. You think that Turkic people are 55 million. It isnt true. The Others are remnant of Ottoman Empire. 35 million Turkic people (in 1920s 7 million) founded this country and They called it as "Turkey". The main founder of Turkey is Turkic peoples Of Anatolia. I have to give you the number (dispersion) of Turkey population:

  • Turkics: app. 35 million (54% of Turkish peoples)
  • Kurds-Zazas: app. 15 million
  • Lazs : app. 2 million
  • Caucasians: app. 5 million (mainly Adigey)
  • Bosnians: app. 3 million
  • Albanians: app. 4 million
  • Arabians: app. 2 million
  • Muslim Georgians: app. 3 million
  • Muslim Chipsys: app. 2 million
  • Non-Muslims: app. 1 millions

So real Turkic people in Turkey is about 35 million and They are main founder of TURKEY.

app. 35 millions Turkic peoples' proportion:

  • Yörüks and Sunni Turkomens: app. 12 million
  • Alevi Turkomens: app. 8 million
  • Manav-(Townsman) Turkomens: app. 6 million
  • Turkomens who migrated from Balkans: app. 6 million
  • Tatar Turks: app. 5 million
  • Azeri Turks: app. 1.2 million

Turkic were the significiant peoples in history from Europe to China. Whoever feels as Turkic in Anatolia claim them and defence their history and civilization. We are representative of all Turkic history, TODAY. We like them. That's all. --88.230.11.89 19:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

What is the source of this information? Lazs are Turkic people. --Ilhanli 16:51, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Then how come they don't speak a Turkic language?  --Lambiam 10:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
They are speaking Turkic language = Lazca. --Ilhanli 12:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Are you by any chance not only a student of statistics, but also of linguistics? Are you implying that the linguists who classify the Laz language as one of the four South Caucasian languages, closely related to Megrelian and somewhat less closely to Georgian, are all wet? Or do you want to claim that Megrelce and Gürcüce are also Turkic languages?  --Lambiam 13:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Ilhanli, could you at least react to such objections instead of blindly reverting without discussion?  --Lambiam 08:37, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


Whoever wrote the above figures, could you please perhaps tell us the source/citation. I would be more than happy to read it. In the end, I do realise that you yourself give these "app." figures, which are impossible to know, considering the "melting pot" that Turkey is itself. But the estimations are more or less, acceptable - at least for me. I'm not sure whether you included proper numbers of Balkan migrants to Turkey proper (Anatolia) though, i think it's an underestimate. What about the Torbesh (Macedonian Slavs - denied existance by the Greeks, Albanians,.. Macedonian Slav Orthodox themselves). What about the people from Sandzak, similar to Bosniaks, but could claim again to be a seperate ethnicity. I once read an article, that there are more people of Sandzak ancestry in Turkey than in Sandzak (1 million app.). What about the Pomaks? I also once read an article, that about 1 third of "Turks" (that is 80% of the population the Turkish Republic) can trace their roots to the Balkans - 22 million+ app.

Furthermore, I would also like to mention. As some studies were mentioned before, and I thought Lambian did a very good job of defending (Ilhanli, you yourself need to get over the fact, that today's Turks have very little GENETIC similarity with central Asian Turkic peoples. Indeed the language was passed on, and modified, thanks to many influences, but GENETICALLY that is not the case. Thanks to (and no pun intended) to strong Turkish assimilation. Turkey is however, proud of its linguistic heritage, and seeks to rebuild/build closer ties to Central Asia.

In the end, I would just like to say, that noone is PURE this or that, no matter how many generations back you end up claiming. Turks, whatever ethnically, substantially influenced the ethnic makeup of the Balkans for example as well. TURK is the 12th most common last name in Slovenia, other variations exist throughout exYugoslavia as well, Turkic, Turkovic, and so forth.

Anyway, before I go, I would like to point out that someone should change the 71 million Turks to around 55 million (in the box) - whoever has the power to do so?? Because 20% (app. again, just estimations) tend to identify themselves as Kurds - sure they are citizens of Turkey / Turkish citizens. But that's not quite the same thing.

So yes, in the end, I have once question. Who here ends up deciding what is written anyway? Does anyone know? Thanks for responding. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.78.218.206 (talk) 15:32, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I am so sorry- I just didn't think about the 80%. If you have sourced material on the breakdown of the Turkish population by using 100% as the 71 million estimate of July 2007, that would be great. So far, 80% is all I could find. Monsieurdl 15:58, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] If we are Anatolian Peoples

If we are ancestry of Anatolian People, There is no problem for join European Union. Because Anatolian People are a part of European Civilization...the Amazons, Assyrians, Celts, Cimmerians, Etruscans, Galatians, Goths, Hattians, Hittites, Greeks, Ionians, Lydians, Phrygians, Romans, Scythians, Trojans, Armenians, Byzantines... --193.140.180.223 07:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "in the Y chromosomes of 523 individuals"

Lambiam, what is the problem with "in the Y chromosomes of 523 individuals" [5] ? It was cited [6]. Are you trying to hide this information?!! --Ilhanli 18:56, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The 523 individuals are from the study by Cinnioğlu et al., but the statement was attached (and is now re-attached) to a paragraph reporting on a study by Keyser-Tracqui, Crubézy, and Ludes that is entirely unrelated.  --Lambiam 19:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Ilhanli, is the above in any way not clear? The information you added is WRONG. The remains in the burial mounds are not "523 individuals", and the study by Keyser-Tracqui was not confined to Y chromosomes. So why, after this has been pointed out, do you re-add this wrong information?
Another issue: you changed the text of the quote. When a source is quoted between quotation marks, as it is in the article, you are supposed to quote that source literally, and not change it to your opinion of what they ought to have written.  --Lambiam 09:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Ilhanli, could you at least react to such objections instead of blindly reverting without discussion?  --Lambiam 08:37, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Turkish phenotypes and diversity" section

This section is totally messed up and POV. Unfortunately, a more or less stable version was reverted by User:E104421 [7], reinserting unreliable, unsourced, and POV claims such as:

The Turks of Turkey can be broken down into a variety of segments and the majority of self-identifying Turks include four main groupings: Balkan Turks who are mostly of Hunnic/Avar origin, Anatolian Turks who compose the Turks found in Anatolia, traces of many ancient civilizations including Celts, (see history section) Central Asian Turks (Oghuz Turks) who remain a sizable segment of the population that has been migrating to Turkey for the last millennium and Eurasian Turks (Kipchak Turks) that has been migrating to Turkey for the last two millenniums from Russia and the Caucasus such as the Kipchak Turks, Tatar Turks and Azerbaijani Turks who have more recent ties with Caucasian Turkic peoples. All These Turks share the same cultures and languages, although with slightly different dialects. (Claiming that Balkan Turks are of Hunnic origin is POV. So is the claim that only Turkic nomads are the origin of the modern Anatolian population).

Or that:

Today over 95% of the people in Turkey speaks Turkish as their native language. (Hardly believable, keeping in mind that at least 15-20% of the Turkish population is ethnic Kurd!).

I have no idea why E104421 reverted to this version and why he believes that this version is stable, but most of it is POV and OR. Previously, I had cleaned up that section to some degree: [8]. Please also note that the current version misinterprets the scientific source in regard of genetics. While the source says that in only one individual a genetic marker was discovered which could be interpreted as Central Asian Xiongnu, the article says that some modern Anatolian Turks appear to have some common genetic markers with the remains found at the Xiongnu period graves in Mongolia. To me, this is POV and more of a wish-thinking.

  • There was no preference, as explained in the edit summary, this was the version before anonymous ip reverts started [9]. If you check the edit history and discuss the issue with the users you're in conflict, i hope you'll find a solution. You should try talk/discussion pages instead of edit/revert warring. Regards. E104421 07:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: There is already a discussion here just above. You may join there, if you'd like to discuss your edits with the other editors working on genetics. Regards. E104421 08:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I am not convinced that the editors who replace properly sourced information by unsourced text suggesting (against all genetic evidence) that the present-day Turks are genetically predominantly Central-Asian Turkic are interested in another form of consensus than one that is in accordance with their preconceptions.  --Lambiam 09:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

@ E104421: I am not in conflict with anyone. In fact, I have not even written this article. I came across this site a while ago and noticed biased claims and POV. Then, I looked through older versions and came to the conclusion that a stable older version was replaced by unsourced POV. This not only includes the wrong claims in regard of genetics (as Lambiam has pointed out, it is against all genetic and stochastic evidence), but also other parts. The current version claims that the historical Amazons were Turks. This is against the mainstream of scholars and against all historical sources. The author of this version even falsifies sources. He claims that his wrong theses is based on data available at National Geographic. But if you click on the link, you are directed to an unreliable website. This really damages the quality of this article. And I think that your blind reverts have not helped at all. I am not saying that you support these wrong claims. But I believe that you have reverted the text without reading it. The current version is a big mess and someone should tag it as unneutral and unreliable. Cheers.

  • As i already said above, i just reverted blanking. Yes, the section "Turkish phenotypes and diversity" should be rewritten. I'll add the necessary tags. Regards. E104421 12:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for adding the tag. But you should have put the tag on top of the whole section, because the first quote is also misinterpreted. I still suggest you revert to this version, because the factual and quoting mistakes had been taken care of. Cheers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.82.141.106 (talk) 12:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Amazons

Would someone please delete this nonsense? It's like claiming the tarim mummies proof that Turks were the real Celts. --217.233.253.118 21:20, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this is not the only fraud section of the article. It should be rewritten as a whole. For example, the article explains the meaning of the word Turk but does not explain how it was introduced to Anatolia in the 19th century. The text gives the wrong impression that Central Asian Turks replaced the ancient Anatolian populations, although in fact no one used to call himself Turk in Anatolia as late as the 19th and 20th centuries. See this:
  • "The ordinary Turks did not have a sense of belonging to a ruling ethnic group. In particular, they had a confused sense of self-image. Who were they: Turks, Muslims or Ottomans? Their literature was sometimes Persian, sometimes Arabic, but always courtly and elitist. There was always a huge social and cultural distance between the Imperial center and the Anatolian periphery. As Bernard Lewis expressed it: in the Imperial society of the Ottomans the ethnic term Turk was little used, and then chiefly in a rather derogatory sense, to designate the Turcoman nomads or, later, the ignorant and uncouth Turkish-speaking peasants of the Anatolian villages. [...] In the words of a British observer of the Ottoman values and institutions at the start of the twentieth century: The! surest way to insult an Ottoman gentleman is to call him a 'Turk'. His face will straightway wear the expression a Lon­doner's assumes, when he hears himself frankly styled a Cockney. He is no Turk, no savage, he will assure you, but an Ottoman subject of the Sultan, by no means to be confounded with certain barbarians styled Turcomans, and from whom indeed, on the male side, he may possibly be descended." (O. Mehmet, "Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery", Routledge, 1990. pg 115).
  • "The third structural problem had to do with the ethnic hierarchy that prevailed throughout the empire (Ottomon empire). In the Seljuq periods, the authorities viewed Georgians and Iranians as the top ranking peoples, and Turks and Turkmens as the lowest. Turkish was a language only to be spoken by people of humble descent, and it is not difficult to find offensive and racist comments in the writings of Seljuq authors: Bloodthirsty Turks [...] If they get the chance, they plunder, but as soon as they see the enemy coming, off they run [...] Matters were not much different in the Ottoman period, even though the empire was governed by a small elite at the court, which was Turkish itself. According to Cetin Yetkin, one of the major Turkish authors on the Seljuq and Ottoman periods: In the Ottoman Empire, though Turks were a "minority", they did not have the same rights as the other minorities' (Yerkin, 1974: 175). In fact the term 'Turk' was pejorative. Ottoman historian Naima, who also wrote a book about the Anatolian rebels, uses the following terms for the Turks: Tiirk-i bed-lika (Turk with an ugly face), nadan Turk (ignorant Turk) and eirak-i bi-idrak (Turk who knows nothing)." (Cyrille Fijnaut & Letizia Paoli; Published 2004 for the European Union, Springer, pg 206) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.148.62 (talk) 13:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Ilhanli, could you at least react to such objections instead of blindly reverting without discussion?  --Lambiam 08:37, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] People who h*te the Turks are trying to re-edit this page

  • You say that "Most historians believe that the actual migration of Turks from Central Asia to the Anatolia, measured by number of people, was relatively small." Can you give references to all this historicals? Or at least 10 of them.
  • And in this research "http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/HG_2004_v114_p127-148.pdf"; tha sample size is 500 and something BUT the Population in Turkey is about 70'000'000 (or you say that it refers to 90'000 people, but it is still 1% of the population, may the samples was choosen from nonturkic sitizenships). You are asking that why 10% is enough but why 1% is not. ; Because with %1 you cannot be sure. It is so simple; it is not enough. I have explained it before.
  • You are giving examles such as carbon-14. "It means that you are knowing nothing about statistics. So stop editing genetic section. "How much carbon-14 atoms is needed to estimate the half-life?" (Lambian). Answer: one.
I have explained above why the population size is irrelevant. I believe that my explanation is clear, but apparently you are unable to understand it. A single carbon-14 atom is definitely not enough to estimate the half-life of 14C; the question was about the percentage of the population anyway. Perhaps it would help you to read wikibooks:Statistics/Testing Data/Types of Tests. As you can see there, there is neither a mention of the size of the population, nor of the sample size as a percentage of the population: only the absolute sample size is mentioned. Anyway, leaving my credentials as a statistician aside, what makes you think you are a better statistician than Prof. Dr. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Dr. Cengiz Cinnioğlu, Prof. Dr. Ersi Kalfoğlu and Prof. Dr. Sevil Atasoy (and quite a few others) combined? If you substitute your own editorial judgment for their scientific judgment as described in a verifiable and reliable source when editing the Wikipedia article, you are violating the policies of neutral point of view and no original research. As editors, we report on what others have written, within the bounds of Wikipedia policies. Whether you or I think it is true or correct does not count, and whether you or I love or hate the Turks is immaterial. The only thing that counts is whether the information is verifiably sourced, and whether the sources are reliable.  --Lambiam 09:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "A Turkish woman wearing traditional Islamic dress..."?

It is not "traditional Islamic dress". This is weared only by the Turkish womens in villages. The pants are typical Turkish pants; used in Turkey, North-East Greece, Makedonia, South-East Bulgaria by the Turkish womens as I know. You can see this pants in Ottoman soldiers. But this is not an islamic dress. The head-cover is used also by the some old Bulgarian womans, but they are not muslims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilhanli (talk • contribs) 16:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Totally confused

As I have explained before several times on this talk page, there are two completely independent and unrelated studies:

  1. A study, published in 2004, by an international group, mainly from Istanbul University and Stanford University, authored by C. Cinnioğlu, R. King, T. Kivisild, E. Kalfoğlu, S. Atasoy, G. L. Cavalleri, A. S. Lillie, C. C. Roseman, A. A. Lin, K. Prince, P. J. Oefner, P. Shen, O. Semino, L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, and P. A. Underhill, entitled "Excavating Y-chromosome haplotype strata in Anatolia". A literal quote from the abstract of the paper: "Analysis of 89 biallelic polymorphisms in 523 Turkish Y chromosomes revealed 52 distinct haplotypes with considerable haplogroup substructure, as exemplified by their respective levels of accumulated diversity at ten short tandem repeat (STR) loci. ... This comprehensive characterization of Y-chromosome heritage addresses many multifaceted aspects of Anatolian prehistory, including: ... (7) high resolution SNP analysis provides evidence of a detectable yet weak signal (<9%) of recent paternal gene flow from Central Asia. The variety of Turkish haplotypes is witness to Turkey being both an important source and recipient of gene flow."
  2. A study, published in 2003, by a French group authored by C. Keyser-Tracqui, E. Crubézy, and B. Ludes, entitled "Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analysis of a 2,000-year-old necropolis in the Egyin Gol Valley of Mongolia". A literal quote from the paper: "Interestingly, this paternal lineage has been, at least in part (6 of 7 STRs), found in a present-day Turkish individual (Henke et al. 2001). Moreover, the mtDNA sequence shared by four of these paternal relatives (from graves 46, 52, 54, and 57) were also found in a Turkish individuals (Comas et al. 1996), suggesting a possible Turkish origin of these ancient specimens. Two other individuals buried in the B sector (graves 61 and 90) were characterized by mtDNA sequences found in Turkish people (Calafell 1996; Richards et al. 2000). These data might reflect the emergence at the end of the necropolis of a Turkish component in the Xiongnu tribe."

One editor after the other puts a reference to study 1 as a citation for content derived from study 2. Each time I try to fix this, an editor comes along and puts the two together again.

Please understand this. This is WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG. You cannot cite study 1 for the conclusion of study 2.

Further, the quotations removed in this edit were literal and direct quotations from the papers, properly cited with inline references. The edit summary says: (removed the quotation until somebody provides the details (direct quotations from the cited references) in the talk/discussion pages.). What kind of nonsense is that? The editor removed the direct quotations from the cited references because they want to see direct quotations from the cited references? Well, here they are:

“ The researchers found that interbreeding between Europeans and Asians occurred much earlier than previously thought. They also found DNA sequences similar to those in present-day Turks, supporting the idea that some of the Turkish people originated in Mongolia. ”
source: Nancy Touchette. Ancient DNA Tells Tales from the Grave, Genome News Network.
“ Interestingly, this paternal lineage has been, at least in part (6 of 7 STRs), found in a present-day Turkish individual (Henke et al. 2001). Moreover, the mtDNA sequence shared by four of these paternal relatives (from graves 46, 52, 54, and 57) were also found in a Turkish individuals (Comas et al. 1996), suggesting a possible Turkish origin of these ancient specimens. Two other individuals buried in the B sector (graves 61 and 90) were characterized by mtDNA sequences found in Turkish people (Calafell 1996; Richards et al. 2000). These data might reflect the emergence at the end of the necropolis of a Turkish component in the Xiongnu tribe. ”
source: Christine Keyser-Tracqui, Eric Crubézy, and Bertrand Ludes. Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of a 2,000-Year-Old Necropolis in the Egyin Gol Valley of Mongolia. American Journal of Human Genetics 73:247–260, 2003.

If people keep carelessly messing around with the page like that, we'll never get it in order. I suggest, moreover, that editors read the sources themselves to see that they verify the text in the article, rather than removing the text and demanding a presentation of the evidence on the talk page. If you are too lazy to read the sources, then I suggest that you ought to also exercise such laziness in undoing other editors' good-faith edits.  --Lambiam 17:45, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

There are more reliable and scholarly sources which disprove the pseudo-scientific claims. For example, this one. Too bad that no one really feels responsible for this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.139.253 (talk) 19:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I think you meant this link: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v74n5/40813/40813.text.html.  --Lambiam 04:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
By the way, I think we should be careful not to give undue weight to genetic issues. There is enough reliable scholarly material to fill a separate encyclopedia article, if someone feels compelled to write it, but there is no reason to present all of that here. I actually question that there should be a "Genetic evidence" section at all. Genetic evidence of what? Are we discussing a crime?  --Lambiam 04:38, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sertap Erener

Sertap Erener is a Turkish sitizen but she is not a Turk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilhanli (talk • contribs) 22:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

What a nonsense! What is she then? --88.106.114.175 22:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

haha, she is patagonian!! man, dont you know? :D:D --Orkh (talk) 16:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

She was Jew I think, can't she?--Ilhanli (talk) 16:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Turkish-speaking? population"

In Bulgaria "Turk" does not mean that he/she is a Turkish-spaeking person but it means that he/she is a Turk [10]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilhanli (talk • contribs) 16:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Turkish phenotypes and diversity

Why do you delete scientific sources without any explanation?! And why do you remove tags without reading the discussion? The article contains major mistakes:

  • it is claimed that the number of ethnic Turks in Turkey is 71 million. That is wrong: the CIA factbook makes clear that 71 million is the total population of Turkey out of which ca. 80% are ethnic Turks
  • the history part is one sided and ignores other facts and sources presented in the talk page

By the way: the scientific source you have removed without any explanation was a link to the studies of Cavalli-Sforza. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.155.101 (talk) 18:03, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I advice you to compare the edit summaries carefully. From the edit histories and the comments here, the motion is towards the rewriting the section on Turkish phenotypes and diversity. Regards. E104421 18:13, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I'll advice you to read the discussion and to study the edit summary before reverting again. You are not only removing tags without any discussion, you also delete scientific sources from official websites without any legitimate explanation. And, as I have mentioned before, the numbers in the article are wrong (this article purposely falsifies sources, for example the numbers of the CIA factbook) and the history section is one sided (it does not explain that the word Turk was introduced in Anatolia in the 20th century and that before that, it was usually considered insulting; see Bernard Lewis and quotes presented in this talk page). So please stop reverting and please stop removing tags and deleting sources!


[edit] Suppression of information?

Why is the information concerning the study by Cinnioğlu et al. consistently being removed?  --Lambiam 20:03, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

  • In the latest version, it's already written directly from the Cinnioğlu et al. article. You can compare yourself. Regards. E104421 13:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
  • It was not. I have re-added the source, and you (E104421) have deleted it again. You also keep reinserting wrong numbers into the article (you claim that the population of ethnic Turks in Turkey is 71 million, although that's the total population of the Turkish state!). In this regard, I do not think that you are a neutral or helpful editor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.155.101 (talk) 14:42, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
  • You're misrepresenting/misquoting the sources as you always do Tajik. You're banned by the arbitration committee for this reason. Your behaviour ended up indefinite block and now you still keep on your constant disruption. I added the paragraph directly from the Cinnioğlu article. You're pushing your pov with the comments as "most historians believe ...", you're not even aware on which section you're editing. These are genetics research not history. Your edit summaries directly proves your disruption. One more thing, i'm not the one who is responsible for every section of the article. I did not inserted demographics data into the article. Regards. E104421 14:53, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
  • here is the direct quotations from Cengiz Cinniog˘lu · Roy King · Toomas Kivisild · Ersi Kalfog˘lu · Sevil Atasoy · Gianpiero L. Cavalleri · Anita S. Lillie · Charles C. Roseman · Alice A. Lin · Kristina Prince · Peter J. Oefner · Peidong Shen · Ornella Semino · L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza · Peter A. Underhill article Excavating Y-chromosome haplotype strata in Anatolia :

"Various estimates exist of the proportion of gene flow associated with the arrival of Central Asian Turkic speaking people to Anatolia. One study based on analyses of six STR loci in 88 Y-chromosomes from Turkey suggested only a 10% contribution (Rolf et al. 1999). Another study suggests roughly 30% based upon mtDNA control region sequences and one binary and six STR Y-chromosome loci analyzed in 118 Turkish samples (Di Benedetto et al. 2001). While it is likely that gene flow between Central Asia and Anatolia has occurred repeatedly throughout prehistory, uncertainties regarding source populations and the number of such episodes between Central Asia and Europe confound any assessment of the contribution of the 11th century AD Oghuz nomads responsible for the Turkic language replacement. Although the genetic legacy of Anatolia remains somewhat inchoate, the excavations of these new levels of shared Y-chromosome heritage and subsequent diversification provide new clues to Anatolian prehistory, as well as a substantial foundation for comparisons with other populations. The results demonstrate Anatolia’s role as a buffer between culturally and genetically distinct populations, being both an important source and recipient of gene flow."

Regards. E104421 15:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

It is not me who is misquoting, E104421. And please refrain from false accusations and diverting the topic. Tajik's ban was based on a wrong accusation (i.e. that User:Tajik-Professor was his sockpuppet). This accusations was proved wrong, and in the process, Tajik-Professor was unbanned. But Tajik is still banned, and although the case was reported to User:Jimbo Wales (founder of Wikipedia), the responsible admins (who have already unbanned Tajik's suspected sockpuppet Tajik-Professor) refuse to unbann Tajik. They simply do not want to admit their mistakes, and it is extremely unfair of you to still provoke Tajiks and others with this case. What would you do, E, if you get banned because of wrong accusations and if admins refuse to admit their mistakes?! Various users, including admin User:Alex Bakharev have since then suggested to admin Tajik. And while various known vandals, especially those from the Azerbaijan-Armenia arbcom will be back after a 1 year ban, Tajik is permanently banned - because of a wrong accusation and because of people like you who support that wrong accusation! So please keep the discussion to the topic!
There are also other sources, but for some reason, you and others keep ignoring them. Some have been named, here are others:
  • "... Around the third century B.C., groups speaking Turkish languages (...) threatened empires in China, Tibet, India, Central Asia, before eventually arriving in Turkey ... genetic traces of their movement can sometimes be found, but they are often diluted, since the numbers of conquerors were always much smaller than the populations they conquered (p.125) ... Turks ... conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453. ... Replacement of Greek with Turkish ... Genetic effects of invasion were modest in Turkey. Their armies had few soldiers (...) invading Turkish populations would be small relative to the subject populations that had a long civilization and history ... " - Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi (2000). Genes, Peoples and Languages. New York: North Point Press. P.125, 152
  • "... incoming minorities (...) conquer other populations and (...) impose their languages on them. The Altaic family spread in this fashion ..." - Colin Renfrew, World linguistic diversity, Scientific American, 270(1), 1994, p.118
  • "... Analysis of 89 biallelic polymorphisms in 523 Turkish Y chromosomes revealed 52 distinct haplotypes with considerable haplogroup substructure, as exemplified by their respective levels of accumulated diversity at ten short tandem repeat (STR) loci. 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. The expansion times for 20 haplogroup assemblages was estimated from associated STR diversity. This comprehensive characterization of Y-chromosome heritage addresses many multifaceted aspects of Anatolian prehistory, including: (1) the most frequent haplogroup, J, splits into two sub-clades, one of which (J2) shows decreasing variances with increasing latitude, compatible with a northward expansion; (2) haplogroups G1 and L show affinities with south Caucasus populations in their geographic distribution as well as STR motifs; (3) frequency of haplogroup I, which originated in Europe, declines with increasing longitude, indicating gene flow arriving from Europe; (4) conversely, haplogroup G2 radiates towards Europe; (5) haplogroup E3b3 displays a latitudinal correlation with decreasing frequency northward; (6) haplogroup R1b3 emanates from Turkey towards Southeast Europe and Caucasia and; (7) high resolution SNP analysis provides evidence of a detectable yet weak signal (<9%) of recent paternal gene flow from Central Asia. The variety of Turkish haplotypes is witness to Turkey being both an important source and recipient of gene flow. ..." - C Cinnioglu, R King, T Kivisild, E Kalfoglu, S Atasoy, GL Cavalleri, AS Lillie, CC Roseman, AA Lin, K Prince, PJ Oefner, P Shen, O Semino, LL Cavalli-Sforza, and PA Underhill. Excavating Y-chromosome haplotype strata in Anatolia, PubMed.
These sources were once mentioned in the article. Then they were removed from unknown reasons, and whenever others restored them, you showed up and reverted again.
At least you have managed to clean up the numbers. Now the history section needs to be improved. Always assume good faith, E. Not everyone who opposes you wants to mess up articles. I am actually trying to help you! Unfortunately, you have always assumed bad faith. Regards.
  • What about the anonymous ip edits and the User:German-Orientalist? We all tried to help you but you still keep on your obstinate behaviour. I never ignore/underestimate any published work but you always accuse everybody who object your pov. That's the point Tajik. If you promise to stop your aggressive manner, i may support your unblock again, but in the current situation, i do not find it useful. Sorry for writing in this manner but you pushed me to comment in this way. Btw, i tried to add all the results/claims in my latest version which partly includes yours. Regards. E104421 23:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
  • You're not permanently banned but indefinitely. This means after 1 year block you may come back if you state your case clearly to the arbitration committee. This is what i understood of the issue. Regards. E104421 23:37, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
There is no evidence for the claim, that German-Orientalist (whose IP range is NRW/Hessia, contrary to Tajik's which is located in and around Hamburg) was a sockpuppet of Tajik. And even if, E, that would still not change the fact that Tajik was banned because of wrong accusations and false claims. Even if German-Orientalist were his sockpuppet, that account certainly showed up after Tajik was banned because of wrong accusations. NONE of you tried to help Tajik. Some even managed to get a user from Austria banned, also claimed to be a sockpuppet of Tajik: User:DerDoc whose IP is evidently from Vienna in Austria, 1400 kilometers away from Tajik! In fact, deep inside, you were happy about it and kept quite. That's the reason why you still do not support him, why you still accuse him, and why you still come up with irrelevant accusations and claims against him. If you really wanted to help him, as you claim here, you would have participated in the discussion on Jumbo Wales' talk page, as so many others have done (Ali_doostzadeh, Alex Bekharev, KBotany, Beh-nam, etc). So please do not pretend that you really wanted to help him. And for your information: I am not Tajik, but I know Tajik personally. We both studied at the same university (University of Hamburg), and we both work in the German Wikipedia (his account is de:Benutzer:Tajik). I really do not care if you believe me or not. It is irrelevant anyway!
  • Nobody here in Wikipedia is in favor of misplaced results. This was the first time i'm hearing a discussion on Jimbo's talk page. I was unaware of that. My point was that Tajik was experienced enough not to use any sockpuppets. Especially, in the case of Tajik-Professor, it's quite absurd for a user choosing a sockpuppet name which includes his own username. On the other hand, anonymous ips which edited Safavid dynasty is highly likely point Tajik, in addition to the German-Orientalist edits. Btw, de:Benutzer:Phoenix2 seems to be Tajik. Regards. E104421 00:30, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Phoenix2 is certainly not Tajik. I know Phoenix2 personally; he is a medical student and quite younger than Tajik. IP edits on Safavids could have been by someone else. As you say it: Tajik was way to experienced to fool himself by using IPs right after he was blocked. It was just another tricky move by User:Atabek in order to get Tajik banned and to claim the Safavid article for himself. Atabek is by far the most controversial and disruptive person in Wikipedia. He deserves a gold medal for evading and escaping 2 arbcoms which - under normal circumstances - would have got him banned. BTW: I would appreciate it if you tag the history section of the article, asking for experts. It is one sided and it misses important events (most of all the Karamanoglu) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.151.212 (talk) 00:49, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
user: Tajik-Professor doesn't even have the same IP as user: Tajik. They both live in Germany, but different parts of Germany. I know Tajik-Professor personally and actually invited him to Wikipedia (and I really regret that now)). That's why he was asking for help on easy things that obviously as a veteran Tajik wouldn't be asking me how to add a picture (see [here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Beh-nam&diff=prev&oldid=126469057]). A few users who were against user: Tajik's edits just used the similar name and similar IP to get him banned. -- Behnam 03:49, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • What about the user de:Benutzer:Postmann Michael who is also banned indefinitely in German Wikipedia? Tajik's case is getting complicated. Regards. E104421 02:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
It is now agreed by several admins that user: Tajik was not user: Tajik-Professor. Then why was he banned? This case is strange indeed. -- Behnam 22:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] why you are deleting these pics?

it is nice

Meyers Blitz-Lexikon (Leipzig, 1932) shows a Turkish man as an example of the ethnic Turkish type.
Meyers Blitz-Lexikon (Leipzig, 1932) shows a Turkish man as an example of the ethnic Turkish type.

and this

An ethnic Turk at Ephesus, Turkey.
An ethnic Turk at Ephesus, Turkey.

--Ilhanli 22:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

  • One of them is already inserted in the article. I think that's enough for now. Regards. E104421 02:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unsupportable edits

The latest edit by User:SikiciTurk, who is trying to live up to his user name by employing the "broken gramophone record" strategy, taking turns with User:Ilhanli,

  • re-introduces for the n-th time very obviously pov statements not supported by any citation, such as: "This genetic discovery gives Turks the privilege to state that ancient Turks are the fathers to most people on world and fathers to most civilizations on earth";
  • re-introduces material + citations where the sources cited do not support the statements they are claimed to be citations for;
  • re-removes cited material claiming (see the edit summary) that these are "false statements", thereby totally ignoring our verifiability policy, which clearly states: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth."

Is it time for an RfC?  --Lambiam 12:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


Lambian, I don't agree with you about your opinions about me. Your edits are not objective, as you know yourself. Lambian is trying to imply that there is no Turks in Turkey but there is old sivilization's childrens. I have discussed and asked Lambian some questtions. Most of them were answerd stupidly ("If a sample of size 90,000 will support a conclusion for a population of one million individuals, it will also support that conclusion for a population of size one billion. --Lambiam 18:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)") by Lambian. Some of them were unanswered. Lambian is using Wikipedia as a place of propaganda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.122.250.219 (talk) 13:04, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you the same person as who is responsible for this edit?  --Lambiam 15:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


Stop right now everyone- whatever dispute has arisen over the section in question can be solved by first gaining a consensus and by talking it out. I have notified everyone at Wikiproject Turkey to come over and help with this dispute. We can't have an edit war here- the section in question is disputed, and therefore the tag is valid right now.
Now Lambiam, what are your concerns over the validity of the section? Monsieurdl 13:17, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
The major concern I have is over the behaviour of some editors, who keep reverting the page to their preferred version over any possible improvements (by me or anyone else), so that we cannot move to something better even by gradual changes. As you can see higher up on this talk page, attempts at discussion have not been fruitful. Some editors think they are better statisticians than the authors of the articles we cite (see extended discussions above), and that that gives them the right to suppress "false information", even in the form of literal quotations from publications from reliable sources. Never mind that in that discussion they reveal their own complete ignorance of elementary statistics. (If you're not a mathematician yourself, you could ask WikiProject Mathematics or editors in the Category:Wikipedian statisticians to verify this statement.) So another concern is not only the validity of what is there, but the repeated suppression of valid information. I'm not sure over the validity of which of the various versions the article keeps rotating between I should express my concern with. The source offered as citation on the "Blonde Amazon Warrior Women" (not exactly a reliable source) only refers to a Mongolian connection, not a Turkic one. Also the claims "Kirghiz Turks possessed lighter hair color (including reddish), lighter eye colors and they were taller in height and strong people" and "Like most of the Europeans, Asians including Indians and native Americans, most Turks in Turkey share the same Central Asian ancestry" are not to be found in the sources cited. The statement that "This genetic discovery gives Turks the privilege to state that ancient Turks are the fathers to most people on world and fathers to most civilizations on earth" is pov and unsourced. In other cases the information is twisted, for example a statement such as "Some Turkic peoples originated from Central Asia", which is supported by reliable sources, is changed to "The Turkic peoples originated from Central Asia", thus implying that this also holds for the Anatolian Turks; however, this stronger claim is not supported by any of the sources given. The whole drift is to suggest that present-day Turks of Turkey are genetically, if not purely, then still largely, of Central-Asian ancestry, carrying the genetic signature of the Turks that created the ancient Turkish empires. Information not conforming to this MHP-ish ideology is twisted or removed. One wonders what happened to the population of Anatolia when the Turks conquered it. Did they voluntarily stop procreating, knowing they should make place for a greater race than theirs? Were they forcefully stopped from procreating? Or were they silently removed from the map, in such a way that not even a historic record of that removal is left? If none of the above, what happened to their genetic heritage?  --Lambiam 14:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
The behavior is something that can be set aside for now as a separate issue. So far, these are the points that I have broken down:
  • The source offered as citation on the "Blonde Amazon Warrior Women" (not exactly a reliable source) only refers to a Mongolian connection, not a Turkic one.
RESPONSES:
A press release of this nature is NOT a valid source, and it doesn't say anything about Turkish connections. We can do better than this with regards to a source. Monsieurdl 15:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
  • The claims "Kirghiz Turks possessed lighter hair color (including reddish), lighter eye colors and they were taller in height and strong people" and "Like most of the Europeans, Asians including Indians and native Americans, most Turks in Turkey share the same Central Asian ancestry" are not to be found in the sources cited.
RESPONSES:
To quote from the source: "New History Of Five Dynasties said that Kirghiz possessed lighter skin, red hair, green eyes and taller height, and that those Kirghiz with black hair must be the descendants of Li Ling. See Hun section for more descriptions of Non-Mongolian Physiques." It is correct to an extent, but the added reference to strength is not there. He references himself, which is not good. Another source must be found to corroborate this evidence with regard to the Kirghiz.
The general statement that most Turks share the same Central Asian ancestry is not found in the source, and that conclusion cannot be drawn. There is obviously a difference in branches that requires further study and references. Monsieurdl 16:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
The cited source itself does not state that Kirghiz possessed lighter skin, but only that the work New History Of Five Dynasties stated that. New History Of Five Dynasties is an 11-th century neo-Confucianist rewriting of Chinese history.[11] We cannot consider this as a reliable source; if we want to incorporate this text, we must add "According to New History Of Five Dynasties, an 11-th century Chinese history text,". Note that the article Kyrgyz keeps it simply at: "Chinese and Muslim sources of the 7th–12th centuries AD describe the Kyrgyz as red-haired with a fair complexion and green or blue eyes." A question that should also be considered: what is the function of this sentence in the whole of the article? Why is the physiognomy of the Kyrgyz singled out among all the Turkic peoples? What is the relationship – if any – with the topic of this article, the Turkish people? Is this an attempt to suggest by association that the Kyrgyz were ancestral to Anatolian and Thracian Turks?  --Lambiam 15:40, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
That is why I mentioned that we need more reliable source material, and that the difference in branches must be sorted out. Merely referencing the Kirghiz as a representation of all Turks would be incorrect. Monsieurdl 16:23, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
  • The statement that "This genetic discovery gives Turks the privilege to state that ancient Turks are the fathers to most people on world and fathers to most civilizations on earth" is POV and unsourced.
RESPONSES:
I fully agree- that general of a statement had better have some pretty convincing sourced material. I know that there is tremendous pride in being Turkish, but you must see that that statement is going too far. Monsieurdl 16:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
  • In other cases the information is twisted, for example a statement such as "Some Turkic peoples originated from Central Asia", which is supported by reliable sources, is changed to "The Turkic peoples originated from Central Asia", thus implying that this also holds for the Anatolian Turks; however, this stronger claim is not supported by any of the sources given. The whole drift is to suggest that present-day Turks of Turkey are genetically, if not purely, then still largely, of Central-Asian ancestry, carrying the genetic signature of the Turks that created the ancient Turkish empires. Information not conforming to this MHP-ish ideology is twisted or removed.
RESPONSES:
  • One wonders what happened to the population of Anatolia when the Turks conquered it. Did they voluntarily stop procreating, knowing they should make place for a greater race than theirs? Were they forcefully stopped from procreating? Or were they silently removed from the map, in such a way that not even a historic record of that removal is left? If none of the above, what happened to their genetic heritage?
RESPONSES:

We need to address these one at a time in a logical and NPOV manner. Please conduct a civil conversation as we go through this process. It can be done! Monsieurdl 15:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

Grousset, Rene. The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, Harvard, 1970. (Translated by N. Walford)

"In the tenth century, the Persian geography of Hudud al-Alam tells us, what is now the country of the Kirghiz-Kazakhs, north of Lake Balkhash- that is to say, the steppe of the rivers Sary-Su, Turgai, and Emba- was inhabited by Turkic peoples: the Oghuz or Ghuzz... Linguists rank these Ghuzz- together with the old Kimaks of the middle Yenisei of the Ob, the old Kipchaks who later emigrated to southern Russia, and the modern Kirghiz- in one particular Turkic group, distinguished from the rest by the mutation of the initial y sound to j (dj). These are the same Ghuzz who have been known since the Jenghiz Khan era as Turkmen: our Turkomans."

That is a reference to be sure- academically verifiable, in print (not on just any site), and a good start. Add what you can find here in print, and it really will help out a tremendous amount. Monsieurdl 16:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

As far as I am aware there is no contention that the Oghuz Turks originated in Central Asia. But how relevant is this in this article? The Oghuz and the Central Asian connection are already mentioned in the section History (which should also be vetted on pov and verifiability). The Wikipedia article on the Oghuz Turks cites James Stuart Olson, An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires, pg. 647: "... the medieval Oghuz tribes were the direct ancestors of the Turkmen, the Seljuks, the Ottoman Turks, and the Ottomans' descendants, the Anatolian Turks." I have my doubts, however, that "direct ancestors" should be taken here in a literal biological sense rather than an ethnocultural sense. In the book this sentence purports to explain the close relation of the Turkmen language with Turkish and Azeri.  --Lambiam 16:43, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
To be fair though, this article is called Turkish people, and it does not specify which group, only as a general all-encompassing term. I used this reference as a guide by what would be considered an acceptable reference, not one that supplants a part of the section. I should have explained that better... Monsieurdl 16:59, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
The introduction, and perhaps even more so the section Geographic distribution, as well as the entry for Language(s) in the infobox, make clear that this article is about (mainly ethnic) Turks who speak Turkish, as in Ne mutlu Türküm diyene, not just any Turkic people who speak some other Turkic language.  --Lambiam 17:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I was speaking about the title, which doesn't really specify; maybe that is the fault. Anyways, I understand your point. Check out my Findley reference- that says a lot about the ancestry of the Anatolian Turks, and it should most certainly be included in the article. Monsieurdl 18:29, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Findley, Carter Vaughn. The Turks in World History, Oxford, 2005.

"Turkic communities were "polyethnic and political in character" from the beginning. However, although the variety of genetic types available for mixing could not vary beyond a certain range, the bearers of those genes brought different cultures with them; and this fact has greatly heightened Turkic diversity in a way that genetic data alone cannot convey."

"The Kirghiz became "oriental," in short, by migrating westward. In Anatolia, the early Turkish literary evidence reveals how much intermarriage and conversion contributed to the formation of the modern Turkish people, who are just as much descendants of the non-Muslim, non-Turkish peoples who inhabited the region before the Battle of Manzikert (1071) as of the Turks who migrated in from the east thereafter."

And yet, this covers but part of the whole subject on Turkish people. Monsieurdl 16:59, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

An interesting reference is

Ozay Mehmet. Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery. Routledge, 1991. ISBN 9780415043861.

For a quote, see this link to Google books.  --Lambiam 17:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Population

According to numerous sources, approximately 80% of Turkey is considered to be inhabited by Turkish people, and according to the calculation from the total population of Turkey as of July 2007, this is about 57 million. We cannot simply call 20% of the population Turkish if it is not so- that wouldn't be fair or accurate. Monsieurdl 15:10, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Amazons redux

What about this claim that Turkish ancestors include mythical warrior women? Is anyone going to do anything about it? 122.167.111.179 (talk) 13:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, please remove it, but until now each time it was removed it was added back immediately, and the perpetrators refuse to engage in meaningful discussion aimed at obtaining consensus, so this action may be somewhat futile.  --Lambiam 22:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More references ...

... that should be added to the article:

  • "... Around the third century B.C., groups speaking Turkish languages [...] threatened empires in China, Tibet, India, Central Asia, before eventually arriving in Turkey [...] genetic traces of their movement can sometimes be found, but they are often diluted, since the numbers of conquerors were always much smaller than the populations they conquered (p.125) [...] Turks [...] conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453. [...] Replacement of Greek with Turkish [...] Genetic effects of this invasion were modest in Turkey. Their armies had few soldiers [...] invading Turkish populations would be small relative to the subject populations that had a long civilization and history ... " - from: Dr. Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi (2000). Genes, Peoples and Languages. New York: North Point Press. S.125, 152
  • "... During the 11th century A.D., Turkic nomads (such as the Seljuqs and the Ottomans, among others) occupied the grassland in the interior of Asia Minor, imposing their language and replacing Anatolian, an extinct branch of the Indo-European family (Ruhlen 1991, pp. 35–36), by an élite dominance process (Renfrew 1987, pp. 131–133). Whereas the historical and cultural consequences of the Turkic invasion of Anatolia were profound, the genetic contribution of the Turkic peoples to the modern Turkish population seems less significant. ..." - from: "Trading Genes along the Silk Road: mtDNA Sequences and the Origin of Central Asian Populations" in Comas, D. et al. 1998
  • "... Turks cluster with Turkomans, who share the ancient Turks' derivation from the Oguz tribe. Moreover, Turks clearly belong to European groups and resemble the populations of neighboring countries. Therefore the present data support the hypothesis that the ancient Turkish tribes, who started to enter Anatolia 1000 years ago, contributed little to the gene pool of the preexisting Anatolian populations. ..." - from: "Study of 15 protein polymorphisms in a sample of the Turkish population" in Brega et al. 1998
  • "... incoming minorities [...] conquer other populations and [...] impose their languages on them. The Altaic family spread in this fashion ..." - from: Colin Renfrew, "World linguistic diversity", Scientific American, 270(1), 1994, S.118 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.133.46 (talk) 16:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


What is the sample size? 5? 3? --Ilhanli (talk) 17:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC) If sample size is not given, this information is nothing! You MUST give the sample size! If the sample size is few, then it is not reliable, too. --Ilhanli (talk) 17:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules does not mention sample size. If this is reliable sources, this is good and can be added. To scientists which use bad statitistics, other scientists will critique them. Ilhanli go search these critique in reliable sources and if you find you can add them to the article. Or go publish your critique in reliable source and we will add it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.102.193.187 (talk) 21:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
"Wikipedia rules does not mention sample size." That why Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Wikipedia rules have to start to mention sample size.--Ilhanli (talk) 13:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Last edit by Lambiam

Hello Lambiam. You made this edit. Can you tell me the page no. in the referenced documents, where Cinnioglu makes such a claim, please? Otherwise I will delete again your edit. thanx in advance 85.178.185.30 (talk) 00:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

On page 135, in the section entitled "Minor genetic influence of Turkic speakers", the following is said about the analysis of the Di Benedetto study resulting in the 30% estimate: "uncertainties regarding source populations and the number of such episodes between Central Asia and Europe confound any assessment of the contribution of the 11th century AD Oghuz nomads responsible for the Turkic language replacement." (My emphasis by underlining. Translation: because of certain problems one can't draw reliable conclusions from their material.) Then the article continues, contrasting this with their own study: "These new Y-chromosome data provide candidate haplogroups to differentiate lineages specific to the postulated source populations, thus overcoming potential artifacts caused by indistinguishable overlapping gene flows." (Translation: with our material we are able to avoid such problems.) In the Abstract on p. 127, this is called "high resolution SNP analysis".  --Lambiam 07:07, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry you have misunderstood those lines in the document. It is stated that any assessment includes uncertainties. The Cinnioglu analysis is also uncertain.
The new Y-chromosome data references to the Y-chromosome data of the Oghuz nomads who arrived after the 11. century in Anatolia. The sentence references to the Y chromosome data of these newly to Anatolia migrated Oghuz nomads.
I think the article is not the place for your translations. We need the translations of scholars. I am removing your edit because it is your own unsourced interpretation. greets 85.178.162.50 (talk) 15:55, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Whether the any refers to all studies or just to those mentioned, it is clear from the text that the "uncertainties" referred to correspond with "potential artifacts caused by indistinguishable overlapping gene flows", and that Cinnioğlu et al. claim to be able to overcome these potential artifacts. The "new Y-chromosome data" does definitely not reference the Y-chromosome data of Oghuz nomads (how would those have been obtained?), but of 523 contemporary inhabitants of Turkey (see Section "Materials and methods" on p. 128). I think the misunderstanding of the text is more yours than mine. I do not think it is fair and reasonable to attack me as attempting to add "my" translation as being my "own unsourced interpretation". It is an unavoidable necessity to paraphrase when writing material for encyclopedic articles; you cannot just use only quotations lifted from other publications. If you see a mission for yourself in fighting strange interpretations, perhaps you should have done something about the absurd claims of the Amazon Blonde Warrior Women, and many more remaining.  --Lambiam 18:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't like the format in which you partially edited the section, Lambiam. It just looks really strange talking about Cinnioglu, going to Di Benedetto, and then putting a parenthesized statement saying that A disproved B because of X reason. The whole section in my mind is a complete mess, and really should be taken on by people less emotionally vested in the subject. That's just my opinion... Monsieurdl (talk) 18:38, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the whole section is a mess. I've proposed before to just delete all of it, since the importance for the topic is in no relation to the disgrace it is to the article. I edited the paragraph to counteract the distortion caused by the way it was presented, as if the editor adding it was not at all aware that this very study was critically discussed by Cinnioğlu but just another study found in the literature offering another view. It is not a coincidence that it was put in antichronological order after the later study, with an attempt to justify this by the lame argument that the other order in which it is presented in its context violates some copyright.[12] The order of presentation, allowing to introduce this by the word "However", makes clear that the purpose was to neutralize the Cinnioğlu study.
I personally don't care who the Turks descend from. If scholars write in reliable sources that they all descend from a grey wolf, we should report that. My problem is with selective reporting and distortions, apparently aiming at proving preconceived notions. If I had not removed it, we could still read about the "reality" that the origins of Blonde Amazon Warrior Women were traced back to ancient Turks, and that most Turks in Turkey share the "same Central Asian ancestry". (Although I expect this to reappear any moment.)  --Lambiam 23:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi Lambiam. Could you also try to incorporate the above mentioned sources into that section? That would be great. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.144.56 (talk) 00:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Are we back to the "Turks are Mongols" and "Turks of Turkey are not Turkish" propaganda again? Please read the archives and earlier versions of this article. You will see efforts to include the the ideas like "maybe one third of the Turks in Turkey are ethnic Turks", "Turks are minority in Turkey" by torturing the results of random articles in genetics. Please read the history of the article and the discussion archives. If one is not interested in reading an encyclopedia article and the discussion about it, it is unlikely that his/her edits will improve the article. AverageTurkishJoe (talk) 04:21, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
The worst of all this is that it is only one person who obtrudes all the time these monotonous discussions both here in English and in German wikipedia to convince the people by its personal view of the "truth" for years. It is User:Tajik or his IP 82.83.xx.xx or his newest sock puppet User:07fan or de:Benutzer:Phoenix2 (or his compatriots who proxy for him). It is awful, that one single person who hates the Turks and wants to make Central Asian history Persian dominated by declaring the Turks as not existent, can have so much power to fill the wikipedia platform with his bullshit entries and private theses for years.
Have a look at the German wikipedia: de:Diskussion:Turkvölker#Überarbeiten, de:Diskussion:Türken#Vorschlag zur Löschung, de:Diskussion:Türken#TF Abschnitt gelöscht, de:Diskussion:Türken#Weiter. It is the same endless discussions about "the Turks who are (allegedly) no Turks" by distorted sources. It seems that a fanatic has found a free platform for spreading his view. I told Phoenix2/Tajik very often at German wikipedia that he shall write a book if he wants his private theses inserted into WP. But he knows that scientists would discover immediately his distortion falsifications of the sources than wiki authors do. The wiki platform will not get rid of him, I fear. greets 85.178.143.217 (talk) 12:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Tencere dibin kara...  --Lambiam 20:00, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Our HanseNet-friend 85.178.xxx.xxx, also known as User:Moorudd (as checkuser has proved: [13]), also known as de:Benutzer:Westthrakientürke is openly propagating Pan-Turkist propaganda and Anti-Armenian slanders in the German Wikipedia, and he is notorious for history revisionism. Maybe he should read this:
  • ... The word Türk which was used at the beginning in such meanings as "nomad and peasant," later on departed from these meanings and came to be used to mean "stupid, doll-witted" (aptal, idraksiz). The Seljuqids [...] used the word to distinguish themselves from the nomadic Turcoman tribes ("Türk") and from those who were non-urban ... (Soykut, Mustafa. "Historical Image Of The Turk In Europe", Isis Press, Istanbul 2003, p. 14, ISBN 9754282471)
... or the Turkish poetry of Ottoman scholars:
  • ... Mahrem idinme kendine her Türk-tab'i kim -- Elbette ahmak olanın olmaz sadakati ... (translation: "Do not be intimate with one who is Turk-natured -- Certainly, the one who is foolish does not have fidility"; Hayretî, Dîvân, ed. Mehmed Çavoşuğlu, M. Ali Tanyeri, Istanbul 1981, p. 414)
  • ... Nedir bildin me sin âlemde Türk'ü -- Ola eğninde kürkü, başında börkü -- Ne meszheb bile, ne din, ne diyânet -- Yumaz yüzün ne abdest ü tehâret ... (translation: "Did you know who is the Turk in this world? -- The one who has fur on his back and a fur hat on his head -- He does not know about religion, or religious sects, or piety -- Never washes his face, perform ablutions, or cleans himself"; Agha Sırrı Levend, Divan Edebiyatı, Istanbul 1984, p. 597)
I wonder why you people do not want to bring this sourced and historical information into the article?! Why do you want to hide the fact that not even 100 years ago the people in Anatolia wanted to be called "Türk" until the Turkish identity was forced on them by Atatürk?! I guess there is not much room for the truth in this article.
I have a large distaste for bringing nationalist biases into the simple act of writing verifiable material that is NPOV and is sourced properly. Theories based upon research are numerous, and should all be included regardless as long as they come from legitimate academic sources. I thought this whole business was done, and if someone feels the need to bring POV items into the article, it will be glaringly noticeable and it can be dealt with expediently. Monsieurdl (talk) 16:53, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Very good. I have (in addition to the ones above) more sources for the article:
  • ... in the Imperial society of the Ottomans the ethnic term Turk was little used, and then chiefly in a rather derogatory sense, to designate the Turcoman nomads or, later, the ignorant and uncouth Turkish-speaking peasants of the Anatolian villages ... (Bernard Lewis quoted in O. Mehmet, "Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery mentions", 1990, p. 115)
  • ... The! surest way to insult an Ottoman gentleman is to call him a 'Turk'. His face will straightway wear the expression a Lon­doner's assumes, when he hears himself frankly styled a Cockney. He is no Turk, no savage, he will assure you, but an Ottoman subject of the Sultan, by no means to be confounded with certain barbarians styled Turcomans, and from whom indeed, on the male side, he may possibly be descended. ... (Davey (1907), quoted in O. Mehmet, "Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery mentions", 1990, p. 115)
  • ... One consequence was to reinforce these officers sense of their Turkish nationality, and a sense of national grievance arising out of the contrast between the non-Muslim communities, with their prosperous, European-educated elites, and 'the poor Turks [who] inherited from the Ottoman Empire nothing but a broken sword and an old-fashioned plough.' Unlike the non-Muslim and non-Turkish communities, they noted with some bitterness, the Turks did not even have a proper sense of their own national identity, and used to make fun of each other, calling themselves 'donkey Turk' ... (Handan Nezir Akmeshe, "The Birth Of Modern Turkey: The Ottoman Military And The March To World War I", I.B.Tauris, 2005. p. 50)
So, in accordance with the given sources, it should be mentioned that in Anatolia, the expression "Türk" was pejorative until the time of Ataturk who promoted the Turkish identity. The overwhelming majority of modern-day Turks are not "Turks" or Turcomans by origin. They are descendants of the Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Emperors, most of them being descendants of European and Anatolian Muslims. Although all Ottoman Muslims were designated "Turks" in European countries, within the Ottoman Empire the term was regarded as an insult. It was not until the reign of the Young Turks and Ataturk that it came to be the widespread selfdesignation of the (linguistically Turkicized) Muslims of Anatolia. Promoting fake identity of Central Asian nomads was nothing uncommon in those days. The German elite, for example, declared that the Scythians were the ancestors of the Germans, gave them the name "Aryan" (because "Scythian" had a pejorative meaning in ancient Greek sources, meaning "barbarian") and propagated the new "Aryan identity" throughout their Empire. The Russian elite glorified ancient Slavic nomads. And the Turkish elite (Young Turks) simply copied that by propagating the Turkish identity (which they eventually also renamed in "Turanian"). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.143.172 (talk) 18:21, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV editing

This recent edit added the text "which means that the 11th century invasion by Oghuz nomads entailed a massive movement of people, females as well as males", as if this is implied by the DiBenedetto study. The study does not make this claim; in fact, it is clear from the wording used in the abstract (substantial immigration ... not historically documented; easier to reconcile with continuous migratory contacts) that the authors are rather sceptical about this massive-movement hypothesis .  --Lambiam 10:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

You should have read my editing commentary. There I had annotated the page no. from which I had this info. The di Benedetto study implies in fact this. Page 153 says An instantaneous input of Asian alleles, accounting for 30% of the current gene pool, means that the 11th century invasion entailed a massive movement of people, females as well as males.
The pov was in your edit when you said the study would claim only the scenario of a "continuous gene flow from Asia into Anatolia, at a rate of 1% for 40 generations". This is only one scenario made by di Benedetto. Scenario No. 2 is "3) if there was a single, nearly instantaneous admixture event, some 30% of the current Anatolian genes have a Central Asian origin;" (page 152). greets 85.178.143.217 (talk) 11:44, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Lambiam, you didn't read page 153- he specifically addresses the fact that despite the historical opinion, the research confirms that it is very possible that the history could be wrong and needs to be revised. That's the wonder of science- it may in fact lead us to new theories grounded in fact that go against what has been written about in the past. I'm all in favor of adding this material. Monsieurdl 20:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I think I have understood the article, which is rather clear, perfectly well, but apparently it needs some explanation. Throughout the article, two models are considered, which I'll call for short the instantaneous model and the continuous model. In their discussion at the end, the authors contrast once more these two models in light of the genetic results. What they are saying in the text our HanseNet friend 85.178 quotes is that if the instantaneous model is correct, it entails there has been a massive movement of a whole mixed population (not just a male-dominated army), something that, as they proceed to observe, "is in contrast with historical reconstructions" and means that "the Oghuz invasion had a much greater demographic impact than is commonly believed by historians."
So do they now conclude that the historians should revise this common belief? No, because this instantaneous model is only one hypothesis. What about the continuous model? The authors continue: "The alternative is a continuous input of alleles from Central Asia ... Is it realistic to imagine 40 generations of gene flow from Central Asia into Anatolia, at a rate of m = 0.01? ... Therefore, the immigration rate obtained for Anatolia is not unreasonably high for western Eurasia."
The most outspoken is the final sentence of the article, wrapping it all up: "At this stage, continuous immigration from Central Asia seems the model which is simplest to reconcile with the available data."
 --Lambiam 20:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] That's it- Genetic links section revised

I was really hoping you all could fix the problems with the section, but it just was not meant to be. Most of the material was plagiarized- you must, must, must either quote direct material or paraphrase it- if you don't, it is plagiarism... I have both pdf files, so I saw it with my own eyes. I fixed what I could, and reordered it chronologically by study. Monsieurdl 20:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blonde Amazon Warrior Women and other "restored right information"

The "Blonde Amazon Warrior Women" have made a comeback (as I predicted). I'm sick and tired of trying to make something reliable of this section. Does anyone have constructive proposals how to keep some editors from re-inserting the same material ad nauseam, citing unreliable sources that do not even support the material inserted?  --Lambiam 10:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I should also mention that the same edit removed properly sourced material without any justification.  --Lambiam 10:40, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal: put this genetic stuff in a separate article

The genetic stuff in the article is (A) obviously not maintainable in a stable form (see the edit history of the last year or two), (B) totally incomprehensible and utterly confusing; (C) not really that relevant to the main topic.

Therefore I propose to delegate this to a separate article, and to state here something that basically says that researchers have obtained a variety of results, referring to a separate article for details.  --Lambiam 23:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Support
  •  --Lambiam 23:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • It's better to separate the controversial section. E104421 (talk) 17:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Stong Support- YES! put this information on another page, it has made this article far to long --15:53, 3 march 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.166.132 (talk)


Oppose
  • It is not necessary! The result is clear. Jingby (talk) 08:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)


Comments/further discussion
Can Jingiby explain to me why all the material about genetics (haplogroups and such) is presented in the first part of the section "Turkish phenotypes and diversity" and not in the subsection "Possible genetic links"? Can Jingiby explain why, conversely, all content referring to physical appearance is under "genetic links" and not under "phenotypes"? Can Jingiby further explain why extensive quotations were introduced from the study by Cinnioğlu et al. without even mentioning that study? What happened to proper source citations? Is the reader supposed to know what "(Di Benedetto et al.2001)" refers to? And what exactly is it about the result that is clear? I understand from the material presented that the Central Asian gene flow contribution is both about 30% and less than 9%.  --Lambiam 14:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Using Central Asian Y-chromosome data from either 13 populations and 149 samples (Underhill et al. 2000) or 49 populations and 1,935 samples (Wells et al. 2001) where these diagnostic lineages occur at 33% and 18%, respectively, their estimated contributions range from 0.0153/0.329×100=4.6% to 0.0153/0.180×100=8.5%.

An article on the origin of the Nogays from the Caucasus (Phylogeographic Analysis of Mitochondrial DNA in the Nogays: A Strong Mixture of Maternal Lineages from Eastern and Western Eurasia) a convenient characterization of the mtDNA of a sample of 218 Turks, taken from Richards 2000.

In this sample, the following non-Caucasoid haplogroups were detected:

2.78% of L (Negroid) 0.46% of A (Mongoloid) 0.46% of A (Mongoloid) 1.39% of C (Mongoloid) 1.85% of D (Mongoloid) 0.46% of F (Mongoloid) 0.46% of Y (Mongoloid)

Therefore, 2.78% of Negroid admixture and 5.08% of Mongoloid admixture, for a total of 7.86% non-Caucasoid admixture. There is an additional occurrence of 1.5% of lineages of Indian origin, which however should not be labeled as non-Caucasoid.

We can also examine the non-Caucasoid admixture in Turkish patrilineages, using the large sample of 513 Anatolian Turks published by Cinnioglu.

0.38% of A (Negroid) 0.19% of E3a (Negroid) 0.38% of E3* (Negroid) 0.38% of C*(xC3) (Mongoloid) 0.96% of C3 (Mongoloid) 0.19% of O3 (Mongoloid) 2.87% of N*(xN3a) (Mongoloid) 0.96% of N3a (Mongoloid) 0.19% of Q2 (Mongoloid) 1.72% of Q*(xQ2) (Mongoloid)

There is thus 0.95% of Negroid admixture and 7.27% of Mongoloid admixture, for a total of 8.22% non-Caucasoid admixture.

Based on these numbers, the non-Caucasoid admixture in Turks can be quantified as 1.87% Negroid, and 6.18% Mongoloid, total 8.05%. Also by 6.18% Mongoloid admixtures is not seriously to talk about Asiatic ancestry of the Turkish people.Jingby (talk) 15:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it should be removed, primarily because it is a very notable distinction between the Turks of Turkey versus Turkic peoples of Central Asia. Turks are heavily mixed with the indigenous populations of Asia Minor and West Asia (The Seljuks mixed with Persians, later on the Turks would mix with Assyrians, Greeks, etc.) I think there are still some wording problems and perhaps it should be simplified so its easier for everyone to read it. I did make some grammar changes. Similarly, there is an inclusion of genetic data in articles on Azeris I believe, since whether or not their origins are Turkic or Iranic are still debated. -Rosywounds (talk) 07:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit]  ?

What is the relevance of the following sentence in this article?!?

  • Throughout history, Turks have established numerous states in various geographical regions on the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa. They brought their culture to the places to which they had migrated or invaded and were also affected by the existing cultures of these regions.

I think this paragraph should be removed since it is not dealing with the Turkish people but speaks in a general way of all Turkic peoples. This is like starting the article English people with:

Throughout history, Indo-Europeans have established numerous states in various geographical regions on the continents of Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas and Australia. They brought their culture to the places to which they had migrated or invaded and were also affected by the existing cultures of these regions.

This paragraph then could be copied into all articles dealing with some Indo-European people. What I am trying to say is that it is irrelevant. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.82.128.9 (talk • contribs) 05:16, January 7, 2008 (UTC) – Please sign your posts!

The paragraph was introduced in this edit, which aimed at being a compromise before another edit war erupted. Although not quite irrelevant, I agree it is not informative, and especially not because the section offers no information about the culture of the Turkic invaders (were they horse-riding nomads gallopping in from the steppes of Central Asia?); it would be more helpful to the reader to explain the relationship between the Oğuz "who moved into Anatolia" and the Seljuks.  --Lambiam 12:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Turkish phenotypes and diversity (2)

Look above, i've explained why! Please do not add researces which sample sizes are not big enough!!! --Ilhanli (talk) 17:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

You are not a specialist and your opinion is not professional! Pleace, read Genetic history of Europe before editing! When you are going to be an Professor in genetics as Cinnioğlu your opinion would be relevant! Jingby (talk)

Don't you know?! To conclude something your sample must be at leas 5% of the total population (even, it can not be consistent), but that research contains only 0.1% ot the total population, it means that you know the facts about 1 person out of 1000, what abou other 999? I mean you do not have enough data to generilaze. Oo, i'm not big spcialist but i know what says the data; which i explained above and above, again and again. --Ilhanli (talk) 22:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Ilhanli, can you give a citation for this statement from some textbook on statistics? I have explained several times in great detail why your statement is wrong, but you just keep repeating it like a broken gramophone record, without giving any justification.  --Lambiam 23:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Cited studies by geneticists that have been published should not be deleted. These are not partisan works, and I think those that did the samples understood what they were doing. Moreover, there is no "bottom number" for statistics. The larger the sample, the smaller the margin of error is. That doesn't mean you need 5% for a sample to be valid. A 5% sample is actually a massive sample; that would mean you would need to poll/sample millions of individuals. No statistician would ever do a sample that large (e.g. according to a "5% rule," one would need to poll 15,000,000 Americans in order to get a valid number for the USA presidential election - sorry, but that is impossible). The content was sourced, published scientific literature. It should not be deleted; especially by a nonprofessional. If these studies are good enough for Stanford University (see here), then they are good for Wikipedia.-Rosywounds (talk) 16:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Too much importance is given to this single article. Linking the ehnicity to haplotypes is futile. Using this argument one can prove that the English is actually Spanish and the Russians are Indians and every ethnic group in Eurasia is a minority on the land they live. See the world haplogroup map here [[14]] in the textbook material [[15]] and see that population of Anatolia is very similar to Caucaus, Iran, Turkmen,Uzbek,Uygur. Textbook materials are secondary sources that are preferred over the primary sources and in this specific case this textbook material helps us break free of the tunnel vision this single article creates. AverageTurkishJoe (talk) 04:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History Section

I made it chronological and restructured it. I deleted some information that pertained to other Turkic peoples; this article is about Turks from Turkey. I think this section ought to be expanded slightly, only because it discusses empire-building and nation-building almost exclusively. The Turks have done more in history than simply build empires; I think the history section ought to touch on some other things briefly that are notable to Turkish history. Does anyone think that's a good idea? At the minimum, some aspects of the Seljuks (other than expansion) should be mentioned. -Rosywounds (talk) 18:25, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 90 Million ???

The numbers are wrong ... again. 77m Turks in Turkey? That's even more than the total population of Turkey! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.131.39 (talk) 16:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article bloat

The article has recently dramatically expanded and is now far too long. As of January 1st, it was 35,050 bytes; now, less than three weeks later, it is 65,846 bytes, almost twice as large. Note that the rule of thumb for the "ideal article" is that it is less than 5000 words!

The recommended solution for when an article gets too long is to break it up. What has happened here is almost the opposite: all kinds of topics related to Turkish history and culture that are already dealt with in other articles have now also got extensive coverage here.

Please stop adding material to the article that is already dealt with elsewhere, or if it isn't, don't add it here but add it to another article where it properly belongs, such as Ottoman Empire, History of Turkey, Culture of Turkey, Turkish language, Turkish cuisine, etcetera, etcetera.

 --Lambiam 07:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Right now it is 71,071 bytes, meaning it grew by another 8% in the less than 18 hours since my previous post. At that rate of growth we will surpass one million bytes in 25 days from now.  --Lambiam 00:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it has started to get out of hand; would it be possible to protect the article from anonymous editors? They have done the bulk of the "bloating." -Rosywounds (talk) 00:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] It really adds up

It really adds up if you start counting Turkic peoples as Turkish people (Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Central Asian Turks in Tajikistan), as is done in the infobox of Turkish people! Each is counted for 200,000 people, and another 200,000 in Macedonia, although the most recent census (cited as a source) has only 77,959. Also, are the Syrian Turkmen really Turkish Syrians?  --Lambiam 23:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe it had been previously clarified that Turkish people refers specifically to citizens of Turkey. I think you should begin reverting/deleting some of the excessive and unnecessary content. I have been too busy with other articles and have been unable to make some fixes here. -Rosywounds (talk) 23:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately it is not that simple; see the introductory section of the article, which does not give a precise definition but uses a different notion than simply citizens of Turkey.  --Lambiam 06:04, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Because of the heavy migration rates starting from the ottoman era it is as lambiam said 'not that simple' to distinguish the diaspora rates of the turks. for example the iraq turkmen today are still seen as turkish people due to that fact that they form a distinct group within the Oghuz Turks (which includes Ottoman Turks and modern Turks)—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.159.101.26 (talk) 14:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Syrian turkmen are of course turkish! its is like saying are turkish cypriots turkish... we know that the answer is of course yes. Also there is actually high figures of turks in the turkic countries however it is harder to find this information, as turkish people are not seen as another race within these countries  --Thetruthonly 14:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I think that the numbers are actually quite prudent, if anyting there may be more turkish people than stated in the info box, i also think that this page is more accurant then other pages on ethnic groups e.g. if you look at spanish people they have 80 million spanish people, however say there is 135 million decendants! now thats what is exaggeration . However maybe we should include decendants as well (that is if there is reliable refrencing!). -Ozipozi (talk) 17:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
The article on the Demographics of Kazakhstan gives detailed census data (although rather old) on the ethnic composition of the Kazakhstan population, in which I can't find anything even vaguely resembling the 200,000 from our article (unless you identify the category "Other" with "Turkish people"). In general these data are really fictitious, since there are no objective criteria for the labels applied, and they are certainly not consistently applied in census taking in different countries. In France it is even illegal to ask for ethnicity in official data collection. In Syria, many Turkmen do not speak a Turkic language and do not self-identify as Turks; should they nevertheless still be counted as such? However, in Wikipedia the criterion for the inclusion of data is verifiability, not truth. Really, we should not discuss whether the data is right, but whether it can be verified in reliable published sources. We should not make up our own definitions to fill in gaps in the existing material.  --Lambiam 05:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Lambiam we must try to fill in the gaps rather than questionn the refrences, however i have read up on the Syrian Turkmen and found that linguistically the name 'Turkmen' can be divided into two words; Turk and men. The word Turk is used as synonym to the word 'Turkic' of the international literary. The word Men means “'I'. Figuratively it refers to the braveness; accordingly the word Turkmen can be explained as: I am a Turkish man or We are Turkish brave men (supported by Y. J. Diny and K. Kahin see also Ibrahim Kafesoglu, “Turkmen Kelimesi’nin Anlami” – The Meaning of the name Turkmen- Kardashlik Journal, issue 807, Baghdad 1971, p 18-19.)
Also according to the Encyclopedia Britannica the name Turkmen is a synonym of Oghus which includes all the Turkish population who live to the southwest of Central Asia. Finally i would like to point out what is written in Syrian Turkmen where many turkish people migrated to Syria during the ottoman period; this therefore can be argued that they are actually like the Turkish cypriots.  --Justinz84 16:14, 02 June 2008 (UTC)
More precisely, in many cases the Syrian Turkmen (or rather their ancestors) did not migrate to Syria during the Ottoman period, but had already been living there for centuries when Syria became part of the Ottoman Empire. In any case, an essential difference between the Turkmen of Syria and the Turkmen of, say, Turkmenistan, is that the former, if they still speak a Turkic language at all, speak essentially standard – although a bit old-fashioned – Turkish, whereas the latter speak the Turkmen language, clearly a different language. Although men means 'I' in the Turkmen language, I'm not so sure about the etymological analysis of the word 'Turkmen'. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the origin is Persian Turkman, literally "Turk-like", from Turk + -man "like".  --Lambiam 04:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
We should probably leave these statistics in the info box because the term Turkmen for the Iraqi Turks and Syrian Turks was created during the discussion of Mosul issue in the 1930s- to isolate these Turks from the ones in Turkey. However, the statistics of Turks of Iran are not actually related turkish people (whereas Iraqi and syrians are)  --Thetruthonly 15:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Turk"

While the articles claims that "the word Turk first documented in the 6th century in Central Asia", it does not mention the fact that "Turk" was not a self-designation of the majority in Anatolia until the 20th century. The word was considered pejorative by the ruling elite and was used to distinguish the urban and elite Anatolian population from the semi-nomadic Turkish-speaking peasants. The evidence, including quoted from Bernard Lewis, have been given further above. Here is a summary:

  • ... The word Türk which was used at the beginning in such meanings as "nomad and peasant," later on departed from these meanings and came to be used to mean "stupid, doll-witted" (aptal, idraksiz). The Seljuqids [...] used the word to distinguish themselves from the nomadic Turcoman tribes ("Türk") and from those who were non-urban ... (Soykut, Mustafa. "Historical Image Of The Turk In Europe", Isis Press, Istanbul 2003, p. 14, ISBN 9754282471)
  • ... Mahrem idinme kendine her Türk-tab'i kim -- Elbette ahmak olanın olmaz sadakati ... (translation: "Do not be intimate with one who is Turk-natured -- Certainly, the one who is foolish does not have fidility"; Hayretî, Dîvân, ed. Mehmed Çavoşuğlu, M. Ali Tanyeri, Istanbul 1981, p. 414)
  • ... Nedir bildin me sin âlemde Türk'ü -- Ola eğninde kürkü, başında börkü -- Ne meszheb bile, ne din, ne diyânet -- Yumaz yüzün ne abdest ü tehâret ... (translation: "Did you know who is the Turk in this world? -- The one who has fur on his back and a fur hat on his head -- He does not know about religion, or religious sects, or piety -- Never washes his face, perform ablutions, or cleans himself"; Agha Sırrı Levend, Divan Edebiyatı, Istanbul 1984, p. 597)
  • ... in the Imperial society of the Ottomans the ethnic term Turk was little used, and then chiefly in a rather derogatory sense, to designate the Turcoman nomads or, later, the ignorant and uncouth Turkish-speaking peasants of the Anatolian villages ... (Bernard Lewis quoted in O. Mehmet, "Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery mentions", 1990, p. 115)
  • ... The! surest way to insult an Ottoman gentleman is to call him a 'Turk'. His face will straightway wear the expression a Lon­doner's assumes, when he hears himself frankly styled a Cockney. He is no Turk, no savage, he will assure you, but an Ottoman subject of the Sultan, by no means to be confounded with certain barbarians styled Turcomans, and from whom indeed, on the male side, he may possibly be descended. ... (Davey (1907), quoted in O. Mehmet, "Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery mentions", 1990, p. 115)
  • ... One consequence was to reinforce these officers sense of their Turkish nationality, and a sense of national grievance arising out of the contrast between the non-Muslim communities, with their prosperous, European-educated elites, and 'the poor Turks [who] inherited from the Ottoman Empire nothing but a broken sword and an old-fashioned plough.' Unlike the non-Muslim and non-Turkish communities, they noted with some bitterness, the Turks did not even have a proper sense of their own national identity, and used to make fun of each other, calling themselves 'donkey Turk' ... (Handan Nezir Akmeshe, "The Birth Of Modern Turkey: The Ottoman Military And The March To World War I", I.B.Tauris, 2005. p. 50)

The meaning of the word "Turk" and its history in Anatolia is relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.157.30 (talk) 20:39, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Although we can refer to the name turk somewhere in the article, we must remember that this is an article of TURKISH PEOPLE and not all turks. Also these things seem quite anti-turk to me and therefore should not be added to the article--- 81.159.195.40 14:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Genetics

Spencer Wells says: "... The Turkish and Azeri populations are atypical among Altaic speakers (Table 1) in having low frequencies of M130, M48, M45, and M17 haplotypes. Rather, these two Turkic-speaking groups seem to be closer to populations from the Middle East and Caucasus, characterized by high frequencies of M96- and/or M89-related haplotypes. This finding is consistent with a model in which the Turkic languages, originating in the Altai-Sayan region of Central Asia and northwestern Mongolia (31), were imposed on the Caucasian and Anatolian peoples with relatively little genetic admixture---another possible example of elite dominance-driven linguistic replacement. ..." [16]

The Turks of Turkey have the same position among the "Turkic peoples" as Hazaras have among the "Iranic peoples" or Afro-Americans among the "Germanic peoples". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.131.209 (talk) 18:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

  • There is nothing suprising here. BTW, the article says "the Caucasian and Anatolian peoples", not the "Turkish people", there is a nuance in this. Regards. E104421 (talk) 10:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
The quote is clear. Present-day Turkish-speakers in Turkey (so-called "Anatolian Turks") are predominantly descendants of Non-Turkic, native inhabitants of Anatolia (i.e. Greeks, Assyrians, Kurds, etc) who were linguistically Turkified by a small but powerful Turkic group from Central Asia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.144.211 (talk) 21:21, 19 February 2008.
  • Actually, the definition of a Turk/Turkic is quite clear, which is based on the linguistics rather than the genetics. The genetics data is not quite relevent here, since it deals with the data in terms of tens of millennia. Regards. E104421 (talk) 17:30, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
You are being dishonest. While in the article Iranian peoples, you stubbornly push for a contrary POV-version in which you persist on mentioning the (alleged) origins of the Aimak and Hazara peoples, despite the fact that these two groups speak an Iranian language and have - to a considerable degree - mixed with the local populations (as is explained in the respective articles in Encyclopaedia Iranica and Encyclopaedia of Islam), your view of the Turkic peoples and Turkic languages is totally different. Why the double-standards?! You tell me: are the Turkish-speaking people in Turkey a "Turkic people" despite the fact that they are NOT descendants of the original Turkic population that conquered Anatolia in the 12th-15th centuries?! If your answer is "yes", based on the linguistics: why do you claim that that the Hazaras and Aimak are not Iranian peoples, despite the fact that they speak Persian?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.82.143.206 (talk) 18:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
  • "The genetics data is not quite relevent here, since it deals with the data in terms of tens of millennia." Tajik, your edits are being reverted, since you are banned by the WP:ArbCom. Keep in mind that reverting the banned users does not count! Regards. E104421 (talk) 19:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Don't change the toppic. You always revert the parts you do not like. And revrting for the sole purpose to actually falsify Wikipedia articles and delete reliable sources (which has always been the main purpose of your edits; 90% of your latest 150 edits were removing sources and reverting to old and false versions) is not in the interest of Wikipedia. In an Afghanistan-related article, you reverted back to the version of banned User:NisarKand (who has been caught using 80+ sockpuppets). Your revert in that articles may be interpreted as meatpuppetry and proxying for a banned user: here you reverted to this version by banned user NisarKand. So, again: you are being dishonest! So please stop pretending. And please do not change the toppic of discussion. It's already a shame that you admit that you rather destroy the quality of an article, falsify its content than to accept a good edit by an admin. And, by the way: you claim that you were merely reverting the article is not correct. Here, you actually changed and falsified the article without reverting. In fact, you did not anyone else but only the good contribution of admin "Dbachmann". (see the proof)

[edit] Macedonia

According to the 2002 census, there are 77,959 Turks in the Republic of Macedonia. The table needs to be updated. --121.221.141.212 (talk) 12:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

But i have looked at the refrences shown in the info box, they clearly state 200,000. also the turkish weekly was written in 2006 and it therefore a more recent statistical data --11:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.156.49.24 (talk)
Those reference are obviously incorrect. In this case, official state censuses hold more weight. The Turkish Weekly would have a Turkish bias and therefore more likely to inflate the figure. In any case, saying there are 200,000 Turks in the Republic of Macedonia is mathematically impossible. --121.221.141.212 (talk) 03:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
well this is a Macedonian source. is this realiable enough? Geo-Native Macedonia--19:27, 02 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.121.47 (talk)



[edit] Genetics - Why are Turks compared to Mongols, Why is R1a associated with being European

The Turks arn't Mongols, thus trying to quantify Turkicness by their genetic affinity with Mongols is ludacris.

Then there is the obvious fact that there is no "Turkic" genetics, actually no nation has its own set of uniqeu genetics.

Also, R1a is noted as a European genetic marker when the highest R1a results are present in Kyrgyzistan and the Altai region.

--Torke (talk) 00:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)



I agree. While it's clear that some recent mongoloid admixture is present in west asia, the idea of turks being racially mongoloid, or anywhere near mongoloid, is absurd. In fact, it's worth pointing out that most Turks and a fair percentage of Iranians are primary caucasoids as indicated by global Principal component maps. This is because A) West Asia is the major LGM evolutionary site for a great percentage of the early (and current) genetic identities of Europeans, West Asians, Middle Easterners, Indians, and North Africans. B) their is relatively low foreign admixture in Turks and a significant Iranian subset. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.224.35.158 (talk) 00:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Turkmen and turkomans

These people are different from turkish people, although related. They should not be in the turkish people infobox. They should be added at their own infobox.

I can see that some turkmen in iraq and syria identify as turkish, but in iran and uzbekistan also?(!) Also the source (6) is from a turkish magazine or newspaper, not very reliable or NPOV...

[edit] The hun state...

This article is starting to get together nicely, especially the historical section however shouldnt we also mention the huns? becauce it is accepted by many that Turkish political history began in Asia and started with the Huns. After the collapse of the Asian Hun State, a new state called the Gokturk was founded by the Turkish tribes who adopted the traditions and administrative experiences of the Huns. Therefore i believe we should include this information as it is extremley significant.--Justinz84 (Justinz84 ) 16:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree because this is a significant part of turkish history I have found a reference from ataturk.com which states 'The 16 Great Turkish Empires'

Please go to the hun articte for that info. There it says that there is no scientific proof for the relation of huns and turkish people. 89.210.20.133 (talk) 14:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV and controversial sources need to go

I'm taking about Mirora(5), a turkish translation company. It's not official and not even NPOV, how can such a source be accepted in an encyclopedia?

Second, I can't believe you have joshua project as a source (28 and 29)! Their numbers are not sourced and should considered original research. If you want to have joshua project as a source then do it for all the countries listed in the infobox, but I guess that's not acceptable because they find 'only' 56 million turkish speakers in the world, far away from the 75m you claim here! So please remove them along with all the inflated numbers from the infobox. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.210.20.133 (talk) 21:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. First source is Nilgun Gulcan, not Mirora. They just translated it. I removed the joshuaproject. Now, I wonder if we need fact tags for the ones that are not referenced. 128.211.202.45 (talk) 08:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort. All numbers must be backed by reliable sources. Reliable sources are official censi from the countries. Check the greek people and bulgarian (turkeys neibours), they cite only reliable sources, even if they don't favour them! (like official censi from Albania and FYRoM), a big improvement! Also turcomans and turkmens should be in their own infoboxes and not in the turkish one. Thanks again for your efforts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.210.20.133 (talk) 10:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A simple, logical point on genetics

I realize that the question of genetics may be a sensitive one to a lot of people, but I would nonetheless like to present one simple argument, which I think most should be able to accept as relatively logical. In short, unless you assume that the invading Central Asian Turkic peoples (or whatever you choose to call them) committed large-scale genocide on the original inhabitants of modern-day Turkey, it seems extremely unlikely that they would somehow constitute a majority of the descendants of modern Turks. The area was fertile and fairly densely populated for the time. I honestly don't see how any invaders could realistically have "outpopulated" them, especially given the obvious difficulties of large-scale transfers of people at the time. In fact, I generally believe (and this seems to be confirmed by a wide range of recent studies) that relatively large, settled, indigenous populations are practically never swamped by invaders to the extent that would be required for the levels of Central Asian genetic origins suggested by some here. Even in Latin America, where the indigenous population was decimated by disease, war, slavery, etc., they still form a significant (genetic, if not necessarily cultural) majority in most areas. So, to return to my original point, it seems absurd to suggest that the original population would contribute anything less than 50% (and even that seems like a stretch) of the genetic makeup of modern Turks without assuming an extermination of almost unprecedented scale. In any case, I honestly don't see why this would be insulting to Turks, or anyone else for that matter. Modern Turks are in all likelihood a healthy mix of a wide range of peoples, along with practically all modern human populations.

Maitreya (talk) 15:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

We do have reliable references, and if they seem to be conflicting each other, we need to have all of them and presented in the correct way. I checked the text now, and it turned out to be better than I envisioned (the facts are there, but they are written in an essay'ish way). I guess I had low expectations. I am no expert on genetics, but I can see that if the "Asian gene" was the more dominant one, it would survive even in the case you mentioned. The Turks who came to Anatolia numbered in ten thousands; and that was when the non-Chinese, non-Indian old continental Earth people were numbering in several hundred millions or maybe less. Ten thousand in hundred million is not that small. I don't know what the population of eastern Anatolia was one millennium ago, but I know that the population of the whole Ottoman Empire was 26 mi at the end of 19th century. Should the genes have been equally dominant, should the intercultural marriages have happened often enough, certainly in thousand years of Turkish presence in Anatolia, the genes would have mixed well.
Also, Turks were people who migrated from just east of the Caspian Sea/Lake to just the west of that lake a thousand years ago. I don't see any reason to shun the possibility that they might have migrated from west of the lake to the east of the lake, say a few more thousand years ago. 128.211.202.45 (talk) 20:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not a geneticist either, so I'll admit immediately that I may have misunderstood how this works, but as far as I understand, studies in genetic genealogy are done on Y-chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Y-chromosomes are passed exclusively from father to son and mtDNA is similarly passed exclusively from mother to daughter. Thus, you can basically use this to quite accurately trace the paternal or maternal line back millennia (look it up here on wikipedia for a better explanation than I can provide). There tends to be some mutation every now and then, but generally this gives a fairly good picture of the origins of a human population (assuming there's a sufficient number of representative samples in the study, which there all too often isn't in these studies). Anyway, this was a rather roundabout way of saying that no genes would be dominant or recessive, as Y-chromosomes and mtDNA are passed on unchanged (with the exception of mutations) from father to son and mother to daughter, regardless of the ethnicity of the parents. Dominant genes would, I assume, affect the phenotype (fancy word for physical appearance) of descendants, but several studies have shown that the link between genetic origins and phenotype is weaker than one might think (in the sense that, to use a common example, a person of primarily sub-Saharan African ancestry with some European admixture might in some cases "look white" or vice versa). All this being said, however, it is my impression (which may of course be incorrect) that genetic genealogy is still a scientific discipline in its infancy (possibly puberty?), which is why I chose to make an argument based primarily on simple logic rather than any specific studies out there. According to the article "Excavating Y-chromosome haplotype strata in Anatolia" (http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/HG_2004_v114_p127-148.pdf), which also seems to be one of the most well-founded of the sources mentioned in this Wikipedia article (in particular because it appears to draw on a significantly larger number of samples), the population of Anatolia at the end of the Roman period was an estimated 12 million. Thus, in my opinion, it seems highly unlikely that the contribution of the Oghuz to the genetic makeup of modern Turks could be as great as the highest suggestions in the Wikipedia article, even assuming significant later immigration. Maitreya (talk) 10:08, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


"I don't see a reason why not, therefore it is."

The main fallacy of the genetic argument in this context is that we do not know the genetic admixture of neither the indigenous populations of Asia Minor nor the incoming Turkish tribes before 1000 CE.

The genetic argument is based on the assumption that "Turks must have been like Mongols so the haplotypes commonly found in Mongolia could be used as tracers to estimate the Turkish genetic contribution to Asia Minor."

The "indigenous" population has never been a uniform group of people in Asia Minor. In fact it is impossible to identify an "original inhabitant group" in that land. Haplotypes are much older than the "nations", "ethnicities" and the "languages". First IE language appeared in 1900-1700 BCE in the western and 1300-700 BCE in the eastern Asia Minor. Before that the whole Asia Minor spoke a non-IE language. The civilization founded in Çatalhöyük goes back to 10,000 years ago. We can construct a similar seemingly logical genetic argument that "it is unconscienceable to think that anybody that came after them could have "outpopulated" them."

If there was a definite set of "Çatalhöyük haplotypes" who could argue that they were more like Greek or Turkish or Kurdish or Armenian haplotypes considering that the genetic admixture of the said ethnicities are pretty much the same in the modern populations?

This line of thinking is also erroneous in the light of the facts that have been recorded in the recent history. Two major Mongolian and myriad of Arab invasions that lasted 200 years of the Asia Minor and two major Plagues (Justinian 541–542 CE. and the Black Death of 1300 CE) have changed the demographics and Asia Minor considerably. The Mongolian tracer haplotypes that were found in the experiments could be a relic of the Turks interaction with the Mongolians or it could be brought directly to Asia Minor by the Mongol invasions or they could have been there from the Çatalhöyük times or even before.

Whatever I said above does not even scratch the surface of the complexities of what transpired in Asia Minor if we adopt a timeframe comparable to the lifecycle of haplotypes. In that frame of reference we have to be thinking in 10,000 and 50,000 years. Seemingly logical arguments fail drastically before such magnificent quantities. That is exactly why people thought that the Earth was flat not comprehending that the Earth could be such magnificently large that it would look flat whereever you are on it. AverageTurkishJoe (talk) 02:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The population numbers in this article are inflated

First, according the CIA World Factbook, Kurds are 20% of Turkey's population of 72 million, which equals 14.5 million. So 72 million minus 14.5 million equals 57.5 million, not 60. Second, the numbers for Iran, Iraq and Syria are also inflated. In the case of Iran, the figure of 1.5 million applies to the Turkmen of northeastern Iran, which are different from the Turkish people of Turkey. The same goes for the Turkmen of Iraq, and the figure of 2.5 million seems much higher than what I've seen in the literature and is moreover from a dubious source. As for Syria, the figure of 1.5 million seems also highly inflated and is from some dubious Turkish nationalist website. Including these figures here is incorrect and smacks of pan-Turkism. Also, the definition of a Turkish person as someone who simply speaks the language is similar in spirit, as that would include Azerbaijanis and all Turkmen. A better definition of a member of the Turkish people would be someone who would espouse Ataturk's dictum of "Ne mutlu Türküm diyene", which would not apply for the turkmen of Central Asia. --Tsourkpk (talk) 06:04, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

    Yes, they are very inflated and not only that, because it is assumed that there are only kurds and turks in turkey.
    From those 57 million there are included all the non turkish minorities, like arabs, jews, armenians, greeks, georgians,
    circassians, albanians, bulgarians etc... So the real numbers is even below that. I already commented for the turkmens
    and turkomans (see above). I also edit warred about the turks in Greece. The infobox stated 250.000, with a source from
    before the 1923 population exchange!!!! I won't also comment the figures of kazakstan, uzbekistan and etc... 89.210.20.133 (talk) 14:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
         Good work! Now check source no 5. http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=29895
         The best are: Yunanistan(ie Greece): 200-250,000 (Including Western Thrace Turks)
         Like there are other than Western Thrace turks!, Irak: 3,5-4,000,000
         Yay,we are as much as the Kurds there, we own them!!! Belgium: 200-300,000 (no comment!)
         Avustrlia: 150,000 (They mean Australia) --- we own the cangaroos!
         And many more from www.turkishweekly.net, your daily NPOV and neutral data about turkey!
         Also all turkic numbers need to go, like uzbekistan—Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.210.20.133 (talk) 23:07, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
This point has been made, correctly, in past discussions. The total population of Turkey is not the same as the total number of Turkish people in the country. Any attempts to go over the number of 60 million is just blind nationalism to prove a point, I'm afraid. Monsieurdl mon talk-mon contribs

17:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RACIST PEOPLE IN THE DISCUSSION BOARD

turks migrated from khazar into anatolia, in every book in everywhere you may find it. there are many tuckicized greeks in here who want to make a revenge because of the ottoman empire's genetic policy. for example greek presiden karamanlis carry karamanid gens who were originated from central asia... in everywhere you can find turkic gens but you cant find any indo-european gens in turkey.. sorry but thats why people call ottomans as a real f*ckers... sorry greeks and armenians and other europeans. but you are turkish--Orkh (talk) 12:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Race has absolutely nothing to do with it- you can identify someone as being of another group and still have them as a Turkish citizen. The Ottoman history of dealing with non-Turkish peoples is just that, history, and doesn't factor into accounting for the number of Turkish people in Anatolia and beyond. I do not think that if you went to let's say the Lake Van area and told everyone there that they were Turkish people that they would agree. I completely understand the hatred and the suffering that occurs from both sides, but this article is about identifying the number of Turkish people, and it does a very good job. Monsieurdl mon talk-mon contribs

13:28, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit war over population figures

Can we please stop the edit war and discuss the issues? As far as I can see all versions are poorly supported by the cited sources. For instance, the data from Deutsche Welle very likely includes a large number of Turkish Kurds, while here we are trying to count "ethnic Turks" – by itself already a somewhat fuzzy concept.  --Lambiam 20:11, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you lambiam I have agreed with many of the things that you say on this discussion board and hope that we can finally solve this edit war that is going on. I would foremost like to state with reference to the Turks in Germany; vast deals of statistics articulate that there are 3million Turks in Germany; however the info box does show a more prudent figure. Touching onto the ethnic Turks; I trust that it is imperative to have these figures, if we demonstrate Turks of Turkey, Cyprus and Greece, why not Bulgaria, Syria and Iraq?

I sincerely believe that this edit war is due to anti-Turks on wikipedia. The Turkish population being stated as 70million is not absurd; as at one point it was written as 90million! And now there are people trying to say there is only 60mil which is outrageous. People have also deleted the statistics of Turks in Australia but why? We should keep the current figure of 70million but as always I agree that better statistics are necessary.  --Justinz84 00:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I balanced both the statistics which are being edited in the info box; it is likely that there maybe anti-Turks who are editing the article e.g. user: Tsourkpk stated that they were ‘rv bogus numbers from bogus sources’ however it is surely a political thought as:
  • They keep changing the Turkish population of Greece (even though the Human Rights Watch has stated there is roughly 80-120,000 Turks in Greece)
  • The Kosovo Turks are also being reverted to being part of Serbia even though Kosovo has gained its independence
  • They have removed some of the ethnic Turks
  • Also if we look at their references one can see that they have not used recovered referencing; they have used the French and Azeri census of 1999 (it is now 2008- we need a more up-to-date reference) and for Belgium they have used Gulcan, Nilgun's article which states that there is 200-300,000 Turks in Belgium (even though they have reverted this to a mere 39,419). Turks in Cyprus are also written as 200,000- as a Turkish Cypriot I know this is not correct as there are also Turks from Turkey in Cyprus. And finally for the United Kingdom they have used a reference of Turkish Cypriots only…however there has been an immense increase of Turks from Turkey coming to the UK in recent years.
  • We should leave the figure at 70million and try and use better references as I havve just touched on SOME of the incorrect factors of the infor box.  --Somethindifferent 11:39, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Turkish timeline

why dont we make it more simple; instead of putting random events why dont we put the 16 major empires? The Turkish Presidential Seal is composed of a sun (16 points/rays) surrounded by 16 stars. The sun represents the present Turkish Republic and the stars represent the 16 independent Turkish Empires that have been founded throughout history. These are:

  • 1. The Great Hun Empire (204 BC - 216 AD)

founded by Mete (Bagatir) bordering Siberia in the North, Tibet-Kashmir in the South, the Pacific Ocean in the East and the Caspian Sea in the West (total area 18,000,000 sq. km).

  • 2. The Western Hun Empire (48 - 216 AD)

founded by Panu covering the area over present day Central Asia.

  • 3. The European Hun Empire (375 - 454 AD)

founded by Muncuk, Oktar, Rua and Aybars (brothers) covering the area of present day Southern Russia, Romania, Northern Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Southern and Central Germany (total area 4,000,000 sq. km). Gradual decline after 454 AD.

  • 4. The White Hun Empire (420 - 552 AD)

founded by Aksuvar (Aksungur) covering half of Northern India, Afghanistan and part of Turkistan (total area 3,500,000 sq. km).

  • 5. The Gokturk Empire (552 - 743 AD)

founded by Bumin Khan (Tumen) in the inaccessible valleys of the Altai Mountains (Ergenekon)(total area 18,000,000 sq. km).

  • 6. The Avar Empire (562 - 796 AD)

founded by Bayar Khan covering the area between the Volga River, Hungary and Bessarabiya.

  • 7. The Hazar Empire (602 - 1016 AD)

founded by the Hazar tribe of Gokturks who migrated to the West and settled in the area stretching from the Caucasian Mountains to the Danube River and to the middle of Russia. Its greatest ruler was Hakan Yusuf.

  • 8. The Uygur State (740 - 1335 AD)

founded by Kutlug Bilgekul Khan covering Central Asia and northern Mongolia.

  • 9. The Karahan (932 - 1212 AD)

founded by Saltuk Bugra Khan covering the Trans-Oxus area including Issyk and Balkash lakes.

  • 10. The Gazneli (962 - 1183 AD)

founded by Alptekin covering the area from the Trans-Oxus to the Ganges River, from the shores of the Caspian Sea to the steppes of the Pamir (total area 4,700,000 sq. km).

  • 11. The Great Seljuk Empire (1040 - 1157 AD)

founded by Seljuk Khan bordering Balkash and Issyk lakes and Tarim Derya in the East, Aegean and the Mediterrenean shores in the West, Aral Lake, Caspian Sea, Caucasian and the Black Sea in the North and Arabia and Gulf of Oman in the South (total area 10,000,000 sq. km).

  • 12. The Harzemshah (1077 - 1231 AD)

founded by Kudrettin Mehmet (Harzemshah) covering Persia, Southern Caucasia, Dagestan, Afghanistan and most of Central Asia (total area 5,000,000 sq. km).

  • 13. The Golden Horde (1224 - 1502 AD)

founded by Batur Khan covering Eastern Europe, the Western Urals, the Crimea and the area to the north of the Volga.

  • 14. The Great Timur Empire (1369 - 1501 AD)

founded by Timur Gurgani bordering the Balkans in the West, the Volga in the North, Indian Ocean in the South and Central Asia in the East.

  • 15. The Babur Empire (1526 - 1858 AD)

founded by Babur Shah covering Afghanistan and India (total area 2,700,000 sq. km).

  • 16. The Ottoman Empire (1299 - 1922 AD)

founded by Osman covering Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Iraq, Anatolia, Caucasia, the Crimea, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus (total area 20,000,000 sq. km).

As the intro of the article states, the topic of this article are the Turkish people, defined mainly as being the speakers of Turkish (Türkçe) as a first language. "Turkish" here means the Turkish language that is spoken in Anatolia and Thracia. This article is not about the Turkic peoples; we have a separate article for that. We should resist the temptation to put information about the Turkic peoples in general in this article unless it is somehow specifically relevant to the Turkish-speaking Turks.  --Lambiam 04:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)