Turkification (Turkish: Türkleştirme) is a term used to describe a process of cultural or political change in which something or someone who is not a Turk becomes one, voluntarily or involuntarily. It can be used in contexts in connection with Anatolian, Balkan, Caucasian and Middle Eastern peoples from different ethnic origins, as for example: Albanians, Arabs, Armenian Muslims, Greeks, Vlachs, Jews, Roma, various Slavic peoples (such as Bosniaks and Pomaks), Iranian peoples, Kurds, as well as Lazs from all the regions of Ottoman Empire and Iran. Another meaning of the term includes the earlier assimilative processes of many of the indigenous peoples in Anatolia. They occurred through religious conversion, cultural and language assimilation, and most importantly, to strengthen these notions, genetic contribution during the time of the Seljuk Empire.

Appearance of Turks in Anatolia

Anatolia was home to many different peoples in ancient times, including the Assyrians, Hittites, Luwians, Hurrians, Armenians, Greeks, Cimmerians, Scythians, Georgians, Colchians, Carians, Lydians, Lycians, Phrygians, Arameans, Arabs, Corduenes, Cappadocians, Cilicians, and scores of others. The presence of many Greeks, especially along the coast and Hellenization gradually caused many of these peoples to abandon their own languages in favor of Greek, especially in cities and along the western and southern coasts, a process reinforced by Romanization. Nevertheless, in the north and east, especially in rural areas, many of the native languages such as Armenian and Assyrian Aramaic continued to survive. Even by the eleventh century, when Turks first appeared, "Greek culture was little more than a veneer so far as the mass of the people were concerned." Especially along the frontiers, the Byzantines persecuted local populations for Christian heretical beliefs, causing these areas to have little sympathy for Greek culture. Beginning in the eleventh century, war with Turks led to the deaths of many in the native population, while others were enslaved and removed. As areas became depopulated, Turkic nomads moved in with their herds.

Once an area had been conquered, and hostilities had ceased, agricultural villagers may have felt little inconvenience with the arrival of these pastoralists, since they occupied different ecological zones within the same territory. Turkic pastoralists remained only a small minority, however, and the gradual Turkification of Anatolia was due less to in-migration than to the conversion of many Christians and Pagans to Islam, and their adoption of the Turkish language. The reasons for this conversion were first, the weak hold Greek culture had on much of the population, and second, the desire by the conquered population to "retain its property or else to avoid being at a disadvantage in other ways." One mark of the progress of Turkification was that by the 1330s, place names in Anatolia had changed from Greek to Turkish.

Andrew Mango describes the diversity of phenotypes amongst the Turkish people as follows:

The Turkish nation took shape in the centuries of Seljuk and Ottoman power. The nomadic Turkish conquerors did not displace the original local inhabitants: Hellenized Anatolians (or simply Greeks), Armenians, people of Caucasian origins, Kurds, Assyrians and – in the Balkans – Slavs, Albanians and others. They intermarried with them, while many local people converted to Islam and 'turned Turk'. They were joined by Muslims from the lands north of the Black Sea and the Caucasus, by Persian craftsmen and Arab scholars, and by European adventurers and converts, known in the West as renegades. As a result, the Turks today exhibit a wide variety of ethnic types. Some have delicate Far Eastern, others heavy local Anatolian features, some, who are descended from Slavs, Albanians or Circassians, have light complexions, others are dark-skinned, many look Mediterranean, others Central Asian, many appear Persian. A numerically small, but commercially and intellectually important, group is descended from converts from Judaism. One can hear Turks describe some of their fellow countrymen as 'hatchet-nosed Lazes' (a people on the Black Sea coast), 'dark Arabs' (a term which includes descendants of black slaves), or even 'fellahs'. But they are all Turks.

The imprecise meaning of Türk

The word Türk was used only referring to Anatolian villagers back in the 19th century. The Ottoman elite identified themselves as Ottomans, not usually as Turks. In the late 19th century, as European ideas of nationalism were adopted by the Ottoman elite, and as it became clear that the Turkish-speakers of Anatolia were the most loyal supporters of Ottoman rule, the term Türk took on a much more positive connotation. During Ottoman times, the millet system defined communities on a religious basis, and a residue of this remains in that Turkish villagers will commonly consider as Turks only those who profess the Sunni faith, and will consider Turkish-speaking Jews, Christians, or even Alevis to be non-Turks. On the other hand, Kurdish-speaking or Arabic-speaking Sunnis of eastern Anatolia are often considered to be Turks. The imprecision of the appellation Türk can also be seen with other ethnic names, such as Kürt, which is often applied by western Anatolians to anyone east of Adana, even those who speak only Turkish. Now article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a "Turk" as anyone who is "bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship".

Genetic testing of language replacement hypothesis in Anatolia, Caucasus and Balkans

The region of the Anatolia represents an extremely important area with respect to ancient population migration and expansion, and the spread of the Caucasian, Semitic, Indo-European and Turkic languages, as well as the extinction of the local Anatolian languages. During the late Roman Period, prior to the Turkic conquest, the population of Anatolia had reached an estimated level of over 12 million people. The extent to which gene flow from Central Asia has contributed to the current gene pool of the Turkish people, and the role of the 11th century invasion by Turkic peoples, has been the subject of several studies. These studies conclude that local Anatolian groups are the primary source of the present-day Turkish population. DNA results suggests the lack of strong genetic relationship between the Mongols and the Turks despite the historical relationship of their languages.

Anatolians do not significantly differ from other Mediterranean populations, indicating that while the Asian Turks carried out an invasion with cultural significance (language and religion), the genetic significance is only weakly detectable. Recent genetic research has suggested the local Anatolian origins of the Turkic Asian peoples might have been slight. These findings are consistent with a model in which the Turkic languages, originating in the Altai-Sayan region of Central Asia and northwestern Mongolia, were imposed on the indigenous peoples with relatively little genetic admixture, possible example of elite cultural dominance-driven linguistic replacement. These observations also may be explained by Anatolia having the lowest migrant/resident ratio at the time of Turkic migrations. Analysis suggested that, genetically, Anatolians are more closely related also with Balkan populations than to the Central Asian populations. Analogical results have been received in neighbouring Caucasus region by testing Armenian and Turkic speaking Azerbaijani populations, therefore representing language replacements, possibly via elite dominance involving primarily male migrants. In conclusion, today the major DNA components in Anatolian population are shared with European and neighboring Near Eastern populations and contrast with only a minor share of haplogroups related to Central Asian, South Asian and African affinity, which supports the language replacement hypothesis in the region.

Turkification in Central Asia

Many instances of Turkification of Mongolic speakers occurred during the reign and decline of the Mongol empire. The Chagatai Khanate was a Mongol, and later linguistically Turkicized, khanate that comprised the lands ruled by Chagatai Khan (alternative spellings Chagata, Chugta, Chagta, Djagatai, Jagatai, Chaghtai), second son of the Great Khan Genghis Khan, and his descendents and successors. Initially it was considered a part of the Mongol Empire, but it later became fully independent. The Mughals initially spoke Chagatai, a Uyghuric dialect spoken by the Chagatai Khanate who were a Turkified Mongol Khanate formally speaking the Mongolic languages, thus stating Mongol ancestry among the Mughals. During The Golden Horde, many Mongolic speakers language language shifted to Turkic languages, then assimilated into the greater Bulgar, Kipchak as well as Cuman (the remnants that didn't go to Hungary) population, possibly converting to Islam afterwards.

See also

Turkish nationalism

Pan-Turkism

Turanism

Genetic origins of the Turkish people

Anatolianism

Cultural assimilation

Language shift

Religious conversion

History of Anatolia

Anatolian languages

Genetic history of Europe

Demographics of Turkey

Hellenisation

Romanisation

Devshirmeh

Janissary

References

Sources

Langer, William L. and Robert P. Blake. 1932. “The Rise of the Ottoman Turks and its Historical Background.” The American Historical Review 37:468-505.

Kushner, David. 1997. “Self-Perception and Identity in Contemporary Turkey.” Journal of Contemporary History 32:219-233.

Mango, Andrew. 2004. The Turks Today. Overlook Press.

Meeker, M. E. 1971. “The Black Sea Turks: Some Aspects of Their Ethnic and Cultural Background.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 2:318-345.

Vryonis, Speros. 1971. The decline of medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the process of Islamization from the eleventh through the fifteenth century. University of California Press.

Contextualising ‘Turkification’: nation-building in the late Ottoman Empire, 1908–18 Author: Ülker, Erol, Nations and Nationalism, Volume 11, Number 4, October 2005, pp. 613–636(24)

Arabs and Young Turks. Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1918 by Hasan Kayali, Author of Review: Christoph Herzog, Die Welt des Islams, New Ser., Vol. 39, Issue 2 (Jul., 1999), pp. 249–251

International Library of Twentieth Century History v. 8, Turkey Beyond Nationalism towards Post-Nationalist Identities. Edited by Hans-Lukas Kieser

Category:Cultural assimilation

Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" (), are a subethnic group of the Turkic peoples, primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Iraq, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania and Syria. In addition, due to migration, a large Turkish community has been established in Western Europe (particularly in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Liechtenstein), as well as in Australia, the Middle East, North America and the former Soviet Union.

Etymology

The name Turk (Old Turkic: Türük or Kök Türük , Pinyin: Tūjué, Wade-Giles: T'u-chüeh, Middle Chinese (Guangyun): ) was first applied to a clan of tribal chieftains (known as Ashina) who overthrew the ruling Rouran Khaganate, and founded the nomadic Göktürk Khaganate ("Celestial Turks") These nomads roamed in the Altai Mountains (and thus are known as Altaic peoples) in northern Mongolia and on the steppes of Central Asia. Türks name refers to two distinct entities both the confederation of medieval Inner Asia, Kok Turks and the Turks of modern Turkey.

The name Türk spread as a political designation during the period of Göktürk imperial hegemony to their subject Turkic and non-Turkic peoples. Subsequently, it was adopted as a generic ethnonym designating most if not all of the Turkish-speaking tribes in Central Asia by the Muslim peoples with whom they came into contact. The imperial era also provided a legacy of political and social organisation (with deep roots in pre-Türk Inner Asia) that in its Türk form became the common inheritance of the Turkic groupings of Central Asia.

History

Origins

in 600.]] Turkic people originated in the vicinity of Altai in Central Asia. The first nomadic empire founded in present day Mongolia was Xiongnu. Some academic scholars argue that ruling class of Xiongnu Empire was proto-Turkic. Xiongnu is sometimes considered related to Huns who were Turkic-speaking peoples according to Richard Frucht. The Kök Türk (or simply Turks) formed the first khanate which uses the word Turk in state name. Kök Türk khan Bilge Khan, his brother Kül Tegin and his prime minister Tonyukuk, immortalized their accomplishments with inscriptions in the Old Turkic script, the oldest known Turkish writings.

The migration of Turks to the country now called Turkey occurred during the main Turkic migration. In the migration period, Turkic language, confined in the sixth century AD to a small region exploded over a vast region including most parts of Central Asia, Turkestan, north of Black Sea, Anatolia, Iran between the sixth and thirteenth centuries. Oghuz Turks who were called Turkomen after becoming Muslim were the main source for Turkic migration to Anatolia. The process was accelerated after the Battle of Manzikert victory of Seljuks against the Byzantines; Anatolia would be called Turchia in the West as early as the 12th century. The Mongols invaded Transoxiana, Iran, Azerbaijan and Anatolia; this caused Turkomens to move further to Western Anatolia. In the case of the migrations, the Turkic peoples assimilated some of the Indo-European peoples encountered; Tocharian as well as the numerous Iranian speakers across the Asiatic steppe were switched to the Turkic language, and ultimately Greek, the majority language of Anatolia, declined in favour of Turkish. The Turkish ethnicity emerged gradually during the process of settlement of the Turcomens in Turkey; Turkomens were designated Turks later.

Seljuk era

at its zenith upon the death of Malik Shah I in 1092.]]

The Seljuks (Turkish Selçuklular; Ṣaljūqīyān; Arabic سلجوق Saljūq, or السلاجقة al-Salājiqa) were a Turkish tribe from Central Asia. In 1037, they entered Persia and established their first powerful state, called by historians the Empire of the Great Seljuks. They captured Baghdad in 1055 and a relatively small contingent of warriors (around 5,000 by some estimates) moved into eastern Anatolia. In 1071, the Seljuks engaged the armies of the Byzantine Empire at Manzikert (Malazgirt), north of Lake Van. The Byzantines experienced minor casualties despite the fact that Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes was captured. With no potent Byzantine force to stop them, the Seljuks took control of most of Eastern and Central Anatolia. They established their capital at Konya and ruled what would be known as the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. The success of the Seljuk Turks stimulated a response from Latin Europe in the form of the First Crusade. A counteroffensive launched in 1097 by the Byzantines with the aid of the Crusaders dealt the Seljuks a decisive defeat. Konya fell to the Crusaders, and after a few years of campaigning, Byzantine rule was restored in the western third of Anatolia. Although a Turkish revival in the 1140s nullified much of the Christian gains, greater damage was done to Byzantine security by dynastic strife in Constantinople in which the largely French contingents of the Fourth Crusade and their Venetian allies intervened. In 1204, these Crusaders conquered Constantinople and installed Count Baldwin of Flanders in the Byzantine capital as emperor of the so-called Latin Empire of Constantinople, dismembering the old realm into tributary states where West European feudal institutions were transplanted intact. Independent Greek kingdoms were established at Nicaea (present-day Iznik), Trebizond (present-day Trabzon), and Epirus from remnant Byzantine provinces. Turks allied with Greeks in Anatolia against the Latins, and Greeks with Turks against the Mongols. In 1261, Michael Palaeologus of Nicaea drove the Latins from Constantinople and restored the Byzantine Empire. Seljuk Rum survived in the late 13th century as a vassal state of the Mongol Empire, who had already subjugated the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad. Mongol influence in the region had disappeared by the 1330s, leaving behind gazi emirates competing for supremacy. From the chaotic conditions that prevailed throughout the Middle East, however, a new power was to emerge in Anatolia, the Ottoman Turks.

Ilkhanate rule and Beyliks era

Anatolian Beyliks (, Ottoman Turkish: Tevâif-i mülûk) were small Turkish principalities governed by Beys, which were founded across Anatolia at the end of the 11th century. Seljuk Sultanate of Rum was collapsed after the Mongol invasion and Anatolia were administered by Mongol military governors after Mongol conquest. On the other hand, Anatolia was separated to several small regions under the domination of different beyliks (principalities) from the 14th century to the beginning of the 16th century. Eventually, the Ottoman principality which was established in the Eskişehir, Bilecik and Bursa areas, subjugated other principalities and restored political unity in a large part of Anatolia.

Ottoman era

effectively started the modernization of the Ottoman Empire and paved the way for the Tanzimat reforms which also influenced the modern Republic of Turkey.]]

The Ottoman Empire (Old Ottoman Turkish: دولت عالیه عثمانیه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish: Osmanlı Devleti or Osmanlı İmparatorluğu) was known as the Turkish Empire or Turkey by its contemporaries. (See the other names of the Ottoman State.) Starting as a small tribe whose territory bordered on the Byzantine frontier, the Ottoman Turks built an empire that was at the height of its power in the 16th century. The empire spanned three continents, controlling much of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

As the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum weakened in the late 13th century, warrior chieftains claimed the lands of Northwestern Anatolia, along the Byzantine Empire's borders. Ertuğrul gazi ruled the lands around Söğüt, a town between Bursa and Eskisehir. Upon his death in 1281, his son, Osman, from whom the Ottoman dynasty and the Empire took its name, expanded the territory to 16,000 square kilometers. Osman I, who was given the nickname "Kara" (Turkish for black) for his courage, extended the frontiers of Ottoman settlement towards the edge of the Byzantine Empire. He shaped the early political development of the state and moved the Ottoman capital to Bursa.

1299 – 1923]]

By 1452 the Ottomans controlled almost all of the former Byzantine lands except Constantinople. On May 29, 1453, Mehmed the Conqueror captured Constantinople after a 53-day siege and proclaimed that the city was now the new capital of his Ottoman Empire. Sultan Mehmed's first duty was to rejuvenate the city economically, creating the Grand Bazaar and inviting the fleeing Orthodox and Catholic inhabitants to return. Captured prisoners were freed to settle in the city whilst provincial governors in Rumelia and Anatolia were ordered to send four thousand families to settle in the city, whether Muslim, Christian or Jew, to form a unique cosmopolitan society.

During the growth of the Ottoman Empire (also known as the Pax Ottomana), Selim I extended Ottoman sovereignty southward, conquering Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. He also gained recognition as guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina; he accepted pious the title of The Servant of The Two Holy Shrines.

Suleiman I was known in the West as "Suleiman the Magnificent" and in the East, as "the Lawgiver" (in Turkish Kanuni; , al‐Qānūnī), for his complete restructuring of the Ottoman legal system. The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent is known as the "Ottoman golden age".

In the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire was as powerful as European states but it was superior no more. Reformist Sultans such as Mahmud II modernized the Empire. However, they were unable to stop decline. Eventually, after World War I, the Ottoman Empire came to an end. By 1923 the nationalist government had driven out the invading armies; replaced the Treaty of Sèvres with the Treaty of Lausanne and abolished the Ottoman State; promulgated a republican constitution; and established Turkey's new capital in Ankara.

During a meeting in the early days of the new republic, Atatürk proclaimed:

Genetics

It is difficult to understand the complex cultural and demographic dynamics of the Turkic speaking groups that have shaped the Anatolian landscape for the last millennium. During the Bronze Age the population of Anatolia expanded, reaching an estimated level of 12 million during the late Byzantine Empire period. Such a large pre-existing Anatolian population would have reduced the impact by the subsequent arrival of Turkic speaking groups from Seljuk Persia, whose ethno-linguistic roots could be traced back to the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea basin in Central Asia. The Seljuk Turks were the main Turkic people who moved into Anatolia, starting from the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. Around 2,000,000 Turkic migrants settled in Anatolia during the 12th and 13th centuries.

The question of to what extent a gene flow from Central Asia, via Persia, to Anatolia has contributed to the current gene pool of the Turkish people, and the role of the 11th century invasion by Seljuk Turks, has been the subject of several studies. It is concluded that aboriginal Anatolian groups may have given rise to the present-day Turkish population. DNA analysis research studies suggest that the Anatolians do not significantly differ from other Mediterraneans, indicating that while the Seljuk Turks carried out a permanent territorial conquest with strong cultural, linguistic and religious significance, it is barely genetically detectable.

Geographic distribution

Turks primarily live in Turkey; however, when the borders of the Ottoman Empire became smaller after World War I and the new Turkish Republic was founded, many Turks chose to stay outside of Turkey's borders. Since then, some of them have migrated to Turkey but there are still significant minorities of Turks living in different countries such as in Northern Cyprus (Turkish Cypriots), Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Macedonia, the Dobruja region of Romania, Pakistan, Kosovo, Syria, India, China, Central Asia, and Iraq.

Turks in Turkey

People who identify themselves as ethnic Turks comprise 80% of Turkey's population. Regions of Turkey with the largest populations are İstanbul (+12 million), Ankara (+4.4 million), İzmir (+3.7 million), Bursa (+2.4 million), Adana (+2.0 million) and Konya (+1.9 million).

The biggest city and the former capital İstanbul is the financial, economic and cultural heart of the country. Other important cities include capital city Ankara, İzmir, Bursa, Adana, Trabzon, Malatya, Gaziantep, Erzurum, Kayseri, Kocaeli, Konya, Mersin, Eskişehir, Diyarbakır, Kahramanmaraş, Antalya and Samsun. An estimated 70.5% of the Turkish population live in urban centers. In all, 18 provinces have populations that exceed 1 million inhabitants, and 21 provinces have populations between 1 million and 500,000 inhabitants. Only two provinces have populations less than 100,000.

Turks in Europe

As a legacy of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, there are significant Turkish minorities in Europe such as the Turks in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia.

The post-World War II migration of Turks to Europe began with ‘guest workers’ who arrived under the terms of a Labour Export Agreement with Germany in October 1961, followed by a similar agreement with the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria in 1964; France in 1965 and Sweden in 1967. As one Turkish observer noted, ‘it has now been over 40 years and a Turk who went to Europe at the age of 25 has nearly reached the age of 70. His children have reached the age of 45 and their children have reached the age of 20’.

Despite the United Kingdom not being part of the Labour Export Agreement, it is still a major hub for Turkish emigrants, and with a population of half a million Turks (an estimated 100,000 Turkish nationals and 130,000 nationals of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus currently live in the UK. These figures, however, do not include the much larger numbers of Turkish speakers who have been born or have obtained British nationality), it is home to Europe's third largest Turkish community. High immigration has resulted in the Turkish language being the seventh most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom.

Due to the high rate of Turks in Europe, the Turkish language is also now home to one of the largest group of pupils after German-speakers, and the largest non-European language spoken in the European Union. Turkish in Germany is often used not only by members of its own community but also by people with a non-Turkish background. Especially in urban areas, it functions as a peer group vernacular for children and adolescents.

Turks in the Americas

Anglo-America

The US Census reported in 2006 that approximately 170,000 Americans identify as having at least partial Turkish ancestry, while the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History states that there is an estimated 500,000 Turks living in the United States; the largest Turkish communities are found in Paterson, New York City (i.e. Brooklyn and Staten Island), Long Island, Cleveland, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Washington D.C. (mostly in Northern Virginia), Boston (esp. the suburb of Watertown), Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Since the 1970s, the number of Turkish immigrants has risen to more than 4,000 per year. There is also a growing Turkish population in Canada, Turkish immigrants have settled mainly in Montreal and Toronto, although there are small Turkish communities in Calgary, Edmonton, London, Ottawa, and Vancouver. The population of Turkish Canadians in Metropolitan Toronto may be as large as 5,000.

Latin America

Turkish immigrants can be found in smaller numbers in Latin America, limited to Chile (about 1,000), Brazil (estimated at 5,000) and Mexico (fewer than 2,000). They are not to be confused with heavily numerous Christian Arab immigrants called "Turcos", an inaccurate name for Lebanese and Syrian refugees, due to the nickname came from their "Turkish" nationality passports on arrival, whom fled the World War I. in the Ottoman Empire in the 1910s and 1920s. Both ethnic Turk and smaller "Turco" Arab communities can be found in South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

Culture

is ubiquitous in Turkish homes]] Turkish people have a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements of the Oğuz Turkic and Anatolian, Ottoman, and Western culture and traditions since the start of Westernization of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish culture is mixed with those of the peoples inhabiting the areas of their migration from Central Asia to West.

Architecture

was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1994 due to its well-preserved Ottoman era houses and architecture.]] Turkish architecture reached its peak during the Ottoman period. Ottoman architecture, influenced by Seljuk, Byzantine and Islamic architecture, came to develop a style all of its own. Overall, Ottoman architecture has been described as a synthesis of the architectural traditions of the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

During the zenith of the Sultanate of Rum, Seljuk architects undertook extensive public works projects. Using the abundant Anatolian stone and clay, they built mosques, medreses, and türbes. To safeguard their profitable trade in silks, spices and to provide rest for merchants, the Seljuk’s built over 100 kervansarays along Anatolian highways, each spaced a day’s ride away from the next. These rest stops featured mosques, storage rooms, stables, coffeehouses, hamams, private rooms and dormitories. The most impressive of its kind is the Sultan Han outside Kayseri. Seljuk buildings were characterised by their elaborate stone carvings. In addition to carvings, the Seljuk’s enhanced their mosques with glazed earthenware (faience) which was used to cover walls and minarets with the best examples at Konya in the Karatay Medrese.

, on the Bosporus]] The first Ottoman capital, Bursa, is a museum of 14th and 15th century Ottoman architecture. With the capital of Istanbul in 1453, Ottoman architects were challenged to exceed the vaults and pendentives of the Hagia Sophia's dome. Ottoman architecture reached its peak under the unprecedented benefaction of Suleiman the Magnificent. During his rule alone, over 80 major mosques and hundreds of other buildings were constructed. Divan Yolu, Istanbul’s processional avenue, boasts a collection of these structural wonders. The master architect, Mimar Sinan served Suleyman and his sons as Chief Court Architect from 1538–1588, during which time he created a unified style for all Istanbul and for much of the empire.

Many Ottoman mosques stand at the centre of a ‘külliye’ (complex) designed to serve all of a community’s needs. Külliyes often included a school, markets, soup kitchens and a medical centre, all integrated architecturally into a single whole. The most impressive külliyes are those of the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, and the Bayezid II Mosque and Hospital in Edirne. Most külliyes were established as charitable foundations, although economic instability has jeopardised these institutions financially, many of them still function today.

Arts and calligraphy

of Sultan Mahmud II.]]

A transition from Islamic artistic traditions under the Ottoman Empire to a more secular, Western orientation has taken place in Turkey. Turkish painters today are striving to find their own art forms, free from Western influence. Sculpture is less developed, and public monuments are usually heroic representations of Atatürk and events from the war of independence. Literature is considered the most advanced of contemporary Turkish arts. The reign of the early Ottoman Turks in the 16th and early 17th centuries introduced the Turkish form of Islamic calligraphy. This art form reached the height of its popularity during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–66). As decorative as it was communicative, Diwani was distinguished by the complexity of the line within the letter and the close juxtaposition of the letters within the word.

Music

The roots of traditional music in Turkey span centuries to a time when the Seljuk Turks colonized Anatolia and Persia in the 11th century and contains elements of both Turkic and pre-Turkic influences. Much of its modern popular music can trace its roots to the emergence in the early 1930s drive for Westernization.

Traditional music in Turkey falls into two main genres; classical art music and folk music. Turkish classical music is characterized by an Ottoman elite culture and influenced lyrically by neighbouring regions and Ottoman provinces. Earlier forms are sometimes termed as saray music in Turkish, meaning royal court music, indicating the source of the genre comes from Ottoman royalty as patronage and composer. Neo-classical or postmodern versions of this traditional genre are termed as art music or sanat musikisi, though often it is unofficially termed as alla turca. In addition, from the saray or royal courts came the Ottoman military band, Mehter takımı in Turkish, considered to be the oldest type of military marching band in the world. It was also the forefather of modern Western percussion bands and has been described as the father of Western military music.

Turkish folk music is the music of Turkish-speaking rural communities of Anatolia, the Balkans, and Middle East. While Turkish folk music contains definitive traces of the Central Asian Turkic cultures, it has also strongly influenced and been influenced by many other indigenous cultures. Religious music in Turkey is sometimes grouped with folk music due to the tradition of the wandering minstrel or aşık (pronounced ashuk), but its influences on Sufism due to the spritiual Mevlevi sect arguably grants it special status. It has been suggested the distinction between the two major genres comes during the Tanzîmat period of Ottoman era, when Turkish classical music was the music played in the Ottoman palaces and folk music was played in the villages.

Musical relations between the Turks and Europe can be traced back many centuries, and the first type of musical Orientalism was the Turkish Style. European classical composers in the 18th century were fascinated by Turkish music, particularly the strong role given to the brass and percussion instruments in Janissary bands. Joseph Haydn wrote his Military Symphony to include Turkish instruments, as well as some of his operas. Turkish instruments were also included in Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony Number 9. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote the "Ronda alla turca" in his Sonata in A major and also used Turkish themes in his operas, such as the Chorus of Janissaries from his Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782). This Turkish influence introduced the cymbals, bass drum, and bells into the symphony orchestra, where they remain. Jazz musician Dave Brubeck wrote his "Blue Rondo á la Turk" as a tribute to Mozart and Turkish music.

Literature

The literature of the Turkish Republic emerged largely from the pre-independence National Literature movement, with its roots simultaneously in the Turkish folk tradition and in the Western notion of progress. One important change to Turkish literature was enacted in 1928, when Mustafa Kemal initiated the creation and dissemination of a modified version of the Latin alphabet to replace the Arabic alphabet based Ottoman script. Over time, this change, together with changes in Turkey's system of education, would lead to more widespread literacy in the country.

Language

introducing the new Turkish alphabet to the people of Sivas. September 20, 1928. (Cover of the French L'Illustration magazine)]]

The Turkish language is a member of the ancient Oghuz subdivision of Turkic languages, which in turn is a branch of the proposed Altaic language family. About 40% of Turkic language speakers are Turkish speakers.

With the Turkic expansion during Early Middle Ages (c. 6th–11th centuries), peoples speaking Turkic languages spread across Central Asia, covering a vast geographical region stretching from Siberia to Europe and the Mediterranean. The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, Oghuz Turkic—the direct ancestor of today's Turkish language—into Anatolia during the 11th century. Also during the 11th century, an early linguist of the Turkic languages, Mahmud al-Kashgari from the Kara-Khanid Khanate, published the first comprehensive Turkic language dictionary and map of the geographical distribution of Turkic speakers in the Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Arabic: Dīwānu'l-Luġat at-Turk). In 1277 Karamanoğlu Mehmet Bey declared Turkish as the sole official language of the Karamanoğlu Beylik in Anatolia.

After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey and the script reform, the Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established in 1932 under the patronage of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, with the aim of conducting research on Turkish. One of the tasks of the newly-established association was to initiate a language reform to replace loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents. By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred foreign words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, it also opted for reviving Old Turkish words which had not been used for centuries.

Istanbul Turkish is established as the official standard language of Turkey. Turkish is the official language of Turkey and is one of the official languages of Cyprus. It also has official (but not primary) status in the Prizren District of Kosovo and several municipalities of Republic of Macedonia, depending on the concentration of Turkish-speaking local population.

Religion

Secularism in Turkey was introduced with the Turkish Constitution of 1924, and later Atatürk's Reforms set the administrative and political requirements to create a modern, secular state aligned with the Kemalist ideology. Thirteen years after its introduction, laïcité (February 5, 1937) was explicitly stated as a property of the State in the second article of the Turkish constitution. Therefore the current Turkish constitution neither recognizes an official religion nor promotes any while majority of citizens subscribe to Islam.

References and notes

Bibliography

External links

General profiles

By the BBC News

By the CIA Factbook

By the Council of Europe

By the Economist

By the US Department of State

People

Category:Articles with inconsistent citation formats Category:Turkic peoples Category:Oghuz Turks Category:Ethnic groups in Asia Category:Ethnic groups in Europe Category:Ethnic groups in Russia Category:Ethnic groups in Turkey Category:Muslim communities