The Turkic people (Turkish: Türk, pl. Türkler) are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common Turkish culture, descent, and speaking the languages of the Turkish language family as a mother tongue. Within suzerain Turkish states, Turkish people are defined by citizenship (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, etc.), distinguished from people of Turkish ancestry. Within non-Turkish states, Turkish people are defined by their ethnicity, and may constitute a recognized organized political body (China, Russia, etc.). Historically, the Turkish people tended to stay together, reassembling and recombining as a community after every cataclysm in their history, and be open to other ethnicities, easily absorbing and incorporating people of other ethnicities.
The terms Turk and Turkish arose and gained wide circulation in the 6th c. AD, with an ascend and political expansion of the Turkic Kaganate, but even then most of the Turkic people did not adopt these super-ethnic terms, and some remained unaware of their Turkish affiliation until the 18th and 19th centuries, when the modern nationalism made them cognizant of their distinct ethnicity. Historically, any Turkish community was poly-ethnic, and people were differentiated by the name of their tribe, clan, tribal union, or geographical location. One of the general terms, used before the term "Türk", was the term "Hun". "Significantly, in the written sources all or nearly all ancient Turkish tribes (Turks, Kirkuns, Agach-eri, On-ok, Tabgach, Comans, Yomuts, Tuhses, Kuyan, Sybuk, Lan, Kut, Goklan, Orpan, Ushin and others) carried the name "Huns". In other words, the term "Hun in each separate case was equivalent to the self-name of a tribe, but at the same time it was a wider concept, reflecting a certain commonality of the ethnic origin".[1] In ancient Turkish languages, the term "hun" meant "kin", and designated kindered people.[2] The second general term was "Tele", in Chinese pinyin transcription spelled Tiele, which covered a large number of Turkish Siberian tribes, and survived to the present as a root of the ethnic terms like Teleut and Telengit, and in the placenames (lake Tele).[3] A third general term was "Tatar", it was a common ethnonym for a large Central Asian tribal confederation, and in the Middle Age for a time it became a common exoethnonym for many European Turkish peoples.
It is accepted that the first Turkish people were native to a region extending from Central Asia to Siberia, starting from the end of the 2nd millennium BCE their centre of life and power was in the mainland China, and north and west of it. The exact time period when the Huns reached China remains determined only vaguely: Sima Qian stated that in the earlier pre-historic period the Huns were called Hu and Jung, in the late pre-historic period they were called Xunyu, in the literate period starting with the Yin Dynasty (殷代 , 1600-1046 BC) they were called Guifan, in the Zhou period (周, 1045–256 BC) they were called Xianyun, starting from the Qin period (秦朝, 221-206 BC) the Chinese annalists called them Xiongnu.[4][5] Scholars state that the Huns were one of the earlier Turkish tribes, while some other scholars supported a Mongol origin.[6] Otto Maenchen-Helfen's linguistic studies also support a Turkish origin for the Huns.[7][8] The Chinese historic reference Bamboo Annals mentioned that the Xiongnu's ruling clan were descendants of Chunwei (淳維 "Chun tribes"), possibly a son of Jie, the final ruler of the legendary Xia Dynasty. Morphologically, the Turkic people are arguably a mix of Caucasoid, Uraloid, and Mongoloid types(when?), with clines varying from predominantly Caucasoid type in the west to the Mongoloid type in the east, reflecting the span of the Eurasian steppes, in the literature that morphology is termed South Siberian, Paleosiberian and Uraloid. Genetical studies corroborate observations of the earlier and modern studies in physical anthropology.
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In the historical times, the main migration of Turkish peoples occurred between the 5th and 10th centuries AD, when they spread across most of Central Asia and into Europe and the Middle East from their homeland in western China.[9] Migrations in the pre-historical (pre-literate) times are deduced from archeological and osteological indicators.
The precise date of the initial expansion from the early homeland remains unknown. The first state known as "Turk", giving its name to the many states and peoples afterwards, was that of the Göktürks (gog = "blue" or "celestial") in the 6th century AD. The head of the Asena clan led his people from Liqian (in modern Yongchang County, China) to the Rouran seeking inclusion in their confederacy and protection from China. His tribe were famed metal smiths and were granted land near a mountain quarry which looked like a helmet from which they got the Chinese rendition of the name "Türk" 突厥 (tūjué). Among other etymologies is that "Türk" means strong, and that the name comes from the Turkish words for law and state (toru). A century later their power had increased such that they conquered the Rouran and set about establishing their Gök Empire,[9] also known as "Great Turkish Kaganate" and "First Turkish Kaganate".
Later Turkish peoples include the Karluks (mainly 8th century), Uyghurs, Kyrgyz, Oghuz (or Ğuz) Turks, and Turkmens. As these peoples were founding states in the area between Mongolia and Transoxiana, they came into contact with Muslims, and most gradually adopted Islam. However, there were also (and still are) small groups of Turkish people belonging to other religions, including Christians, Jews (see Khazars), Buddhists, and Zoroastrians.
Turkish soldiers in the army of the Abbasid caliphs emerged as the de facto rulers of most of the Muslim Middle East (apart from Syria and Egypt), particularly after the 10th century. The Oghuz and other tribes captured and dominated various countries under the leadership of the Seljuk dynasty, and eventually captured the territories of the Abbasid dynasty and the Byzantine Empire.[9]
Meanwhile, the Kyrgyz and Uyghurs were struggling with one another and with the Chinese Empire. The Kyrgyz people ultimately settled in the region now referred to as Kyrgyzstan. The Tatar peoples conquered the Volga Bulgars in what is today Tatarstan, following the westward sweep of the Mongols under Genghis Khan in the 13th century. The Bulgars were thus mistakenly called Tatars by the Russians. Native Tatars live only in Asia; European "Tatars" are in fact Bulgars. Other Bulgars settled in Europe in the 7–8th centuries, exchanging their original Turkic tongue for what eventually became the Slavic Bulgarian language. Everywhere, Turkic groups mixed with the local populations to varying degrees.[9]
As the Seljuk Empire declined following the Mongol invasion, the Ottoman Empire emerged as the new important Turkish state, that came to dominate not only the Middle East, but even southeastern Europe, parts of southwestern Russia, and northern Africa.[9]
The Ottoman Empire gradually grew weaker in the face of maladministration, repeated wars with Russia and Austro-Hungary, and the emergence of nationalist movements in the Balkans, and it finally gave way after World War I to the present-day republic of Turkey.[9]
The Mughal Empire (Turkish: Babür İmparatorluğu) was a Muslim dynasty that at its greatest territorial extent ruled most of the Indian subcontinent, then known as Hindustan, and parts of what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan from the early 16th to the mid-18th century. The Mughal dynasty was founded by a Persianised Chagatai prince named Babur (reigned 1526–30), who was descended from the Mongol conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) on his father's side and from Chagatai, second son of the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan, on his mother's side.
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