- published: 09 Mar 2013
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The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethnic groups that live in northern, eastern, central, and western Asia, northwestern China, and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds. The term Turkic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of peoples including existing societies such as the Turkish people, Azerbaijanis, Chuvashes, Kazakhs, Tatars, Kyrgyz, Turkmens, Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Bashkirs, Qashqai, Gagauz, Altai, Khakas, Tuvans, Yakuts, Crimean Karaites, Krymchaks, Karakalpaks, Karachays, Balkars, Nogais and as well as past civilizations such as Yenisei Kirghiz, Dingling, Tiele, Chuban, Pannonian Avars, Göktürks, Bulgars, Kumans, Kipchaks, Turgeshes, Khazars, Seljuk Turks, Ottoman Turks, Mamluks, Timurids, Khiljis, and possibly Huns, Xiongnu, Wusun, Tauri and the Tuoba.
The first known mention of the term Turk (Old Turkic: 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 Türük or 𐰜𐰇𐰛 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 Kök Türük or 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰛 Türük,Chinese: 突厥, Old Tibetan: duruggu/durgu (meaning "origin"),Pinyin: Tūjué, Middle Chinese (Guangyun): [tʰuot-küot]) applied to a Turkic group was in reference to the Göktürks in the 6th century. A letter by Ishbara Qaghan to Emperor Wen of Sui in 585 described him as "the Great Turk Khan." The Orhun inscriptions (735 CE) use the terms Turk and Turuk.
The Turkic languages are a language family of at least thirty-five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples from Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are proposed to be part of the controversial Altaic language family.
Turkic languages are spoken as a native language by some 170 million people, and the total number of Turkic speakers, including second-language speakers, is over 200 million. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish, spoken mainly in Anatolia and the Balkans, the native speakers of which account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers.
Characteristic features of Turkish, such as vowel harmony, agglutination, and lack of grammatical gender, are universal within the Turkic family. There is also a high degree of mutual intelligibility among the various Oghuz languages, which include Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, Balkan Gagauz Turkish, and Oghuz-influenced Crimean Tatar.
Turkic languages are null-subject languages, have vowel harmony, extensive agglutination by means of suffixes, and lack of grammatical articles, noun classes, and grammatical gender. Subject–object–verb word order is universal within the family.
Turkish people (Turkish: Türk milleti), or the Turks (Turkish: Türkler), also known as Anatolian Turks (Turkish: Anadolu Türkleri) are a Turkic ethnic group living mainly in Turkey and they speak Turkish, a Turkic language. They are the largest ethnic group in Turkey, as well as the largest ethnic group among the speakers of Turkic languages. Ethnic Turkish minorities exist in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, a Turkish diaspora has been established with modern migration, particularly in Western Europe.
The ethnonym "Turk" may be first mentioned in Herodotus' (c. 484–425 BCE) work "Targitas"; furthermore, during the first century CE., Pomponius Mela refers to the "Turcae" in the forests north of the Sea of Azov, and Pliny the Elder lists the "Tyrcae" among the people of the same area. They attest that these people are followers of Buddha. The first definite reference to the "Turks" come mainly from Chinese sources in the sixth century. In these sources, "Turk" appears as "Tujue" (Chinese: 突厥; Wade–Giles: T’u-chüe), which referred to the Göktürks. Although "Turk" refers to Turkish people, it may also sometimes refer to the wider language group of Turkic peoples. They are closely related to Azerbaijani people, also known as "Azerbaijani Turks", who live primarily in Azerbaijan Republic and Iran. Azeri Turkish and Istanbul Turkish are mutually intelligible.