|
|
|
|
Turkmen people
|
| |
|
| |
The Turkmen (Türkmen or ???????, plural Türkmenler or ??????????) are a Turkic people found primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan and in northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language which is classified as part of the Western Oghuz branch of Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Gagauz, Salar and Turkoman spoken in Iraq.
Origins
Originally, all Türkic tribes that were not part of the Türkic dynastic mythological system (for example, Uigurs, Karluks, Kalaches and a number of other tribes) were designated "Turkmens".
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Turkmen people' Start a new discussion about 'Turkmen people' Answer questions from other users |
Encyclopedia
The Turkmen (Türkmen or ???????, plural Türkmenler or ??????????) are a Turkic people found primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan and in northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language which is classified as part of the Western Oghuz branch of Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Gagauz, Salar and Turkoman spoken in Iraq.
Origins
Originally, all Türkic tribes that were not part of the Türkic dynastic mythological system (for example, Uigurs, Karluks, Kalaches and a number of other tribes) were designated "Turkmens". Only later did this word come to refer to a specific ethnonym. The etymology of the term derives from Türk plus the Sogdian affix of similarity -myn ,-men, and means "resembling a Türk" or "co-Türk" . A prominent turkic scholar Mahmud Kashgari also mentions the etymology Türk manand (like turks). The language and ethnicity of the Turkmen were much influenced by their migration to the west. Kashgari calls the Karluks Turkmen as well, but the first time the etymology Turkmen was used was by Makdisi in the second half of the 10th-century AD. Like Kashgari, he wrote that the Karluks and Oghuz Turks were called Turkmen. Modern scholars agree that the element -man/-men acts as an intensifier, and have translated the word as "pure Turk" or "most Turk-like of the Turks" . Among Muslim chroniclers such as Ibn Kathir the etymology was attributed to the mass conversion of two hundred thousand households in AH 349 (971 CE), causing them to be named Turk Iman, which is a combination of "Turk" and "Iman" ????? (faith, belief), meaning "believing Turks", with the term later dropping the hard-to-pronounce hamza .
Historically, all of the Western or Oghuz Turks have been called Türkmen or derisive Turkoman; however, today the terms are usually restricted to two Turk groups: the Turkmen people of Turkmenistan and adjacent parts of Central Asia, and the Turkomans of Iraq and Syria, which are similar but not identical.
During the Ottoman period these nomads were known by the names of Türkmen and Yörük or Yürük (Türkic "Nomad", other phonetic variations include Iirk, Iyierk, Hiirk, Hirkan, Hircanae, Hyrkan, Hyrcanae, the last four known from the Greek annals) . These names were generally used to describe their nomadic way of life, rather than their ethnic origin. However, these terms were often used interchangeably by foreigners. At the same time, various other exoethnonym words were used for these nomads, such as 'Konar-göçer', 'Göçebe', 'Göçer-yörük', 'Göçerler', and 'Göçer-evliler'. The most common one among these was 'Konar-göçer' - nomadic Turcoman Turks. All of these words are found in Ottoman archival documents and carry only the meaning of 'nomad'.
The modern Turkmen people descend, at least in part, from the Oghuz Turks of Transoxiana, the western portion of Turkestan, a region that largely corresponds to much of Central Asia as far east as Xinjiang. Oghuz tribes had moved westward from the Altay mountains in the 7th-century CE, through the Siberian steppes, and settled in this region. They also penetrated as far west as the Volga basin and the Balkans. These early Turkmens are believed to have mixed with native Sogdian peoples and lived as pastoral nomads until the Russian conquest of the 19th-century..
History
Signs of advanced settlements have been found throughout Turkmenistan including the Djeitun settlement where neolithic buildings have been excavated and dated to the 7th millennium BCE. By 2000 BCE, various Ancient Iranian peoples began to settle throughout the region as indicated by the finds at the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. Notable early tribes included the nomadic Massagatae and Scythians. The Achaemenid Empire annexed the area by the 4th century BCE and then lost control of the region following the invasion of Alexander the Great, whose Hellenistic influence had an impact upon the area and some remnants have survived in the form of a planned city which was discovered following excavations at Antiocheia (Merv). The Parni invaded the region as the Parthian Empire was established until it too fractured as a result of tribal invasions stemming from the north. Ephthalites, Huns, and Göktürks came in a long parade of invasions. Finally, the Sassanid Empire based in Persia ruled the area prior to the coming of the Muslim Arabs during the Umayyad Caliphate by 716 CE. The majority of the inhabitants were converted to Islam as the region grew in prominence. Next came the Oghuz Turks, who imparted their language upon the local population. A tribe of the Oghuz, the Seljuks, established a Turko-Iranian culture that culminated in the Khwarezmid Empire by the 12th century. Mongol hordes led by Genghis Khan conquered the area between 1219 to 1221 and devastated many of the cities which led to a rapid decline of the remaining Iranian urban population.
The Turkmen largely survived the Mongol period due to their semi-nomadic life-style and became traders along the Caspian, which led to contacts with Eastern Europe. Following the decline of the Mongols, Tamerlane conquered the area and his Timurid Empire would rule, until it too fractured, as the Safavids, Uzbeks, and Khanate of Khiva all contested the area. The expanding Russian Empire took notice of Turkmenistan's extensive cotton industry, during the reign of Peter the Great, and invaded the area. Following the decisive Battle of Geok-Tepe in January 1881, Turkmenistan became a part of the Russian Empire. After the Russian Revolution, Soviet control was established by 1921 as Turkmenistan was transformed from a medieval Islamic region to a largely secularized republic within a totalitarian state. By 1991, with the fall of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan achieved independence as well, but remained dominated by a one-party system of government led by the authoritarian regime of President Saparmurat Niyazov until his death in December 2006.
Language
Turkmen (Latin: Türkmen, Cyrillic: ???????) is the name of the language of the titular nation of Turkmenistan. It is spoken by over 3,600,000 people in Turkmenistan, and by roughly 3,000,000 people in other countries, including Iran, Afghanistan, and Russia. Up to 50% of native speakers in Turkmenistan also claim a good knowledge of Russian, a legacy of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union.
Turkmen is not a literary language in Iran and Afghanistan, where many Turkmen tend towards bilingualism, usually conversant in the local dialects of Persian. Variations of the Perso-Arabic script are, however, used in Iran.
Genetic Evidence
Genetic studies on Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) restriction polymorphism confirmed that Turkmen were characterized by the presence of European mtDNA lineages, similar to the Eastern Iranian populations, but strong northern Mongoloid genetic component observed in Turkmens and Eastern Iranian populations with the frequencies of about 20%.. Phenotype diversity can be discerned amongst the Turkmen, who exhibit full continuum between northern Mongoloid and Mediterranean Caucasoid physical types. This most likely indicates an ancestral combination of Iranian groups and Turco-Mongol that the modern Turkmen have inherited and which appears to correspond to the historical record which indicates that various Iranian tribes existed in the region prior to the migration of Turkic tribes who are believed to have merged with the local population and imparted their language and created something of a hybrid Turko-Iranian culture.
Culture and society
Nomadic heritage
|
| |
|
|
