Turkic Peoples

I

Introduction

Turkic Peoples, peoples indigenous to northern and Central Asia. The Turkic peoples constitute majority populations in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China. Substantial Turkic populations are also found in Russia (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, North Caucasus, Siberia), Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Many have shared histories. They speak distinct languages deriving from a common linguistic ancestor.

II

History

The ancient habitat of the earliest speakers of Turkic, c. 3000 bc, was probably in southern Siberia and north north-eastern Mongolia. They did not have a common name. Turkic tribes are first noted among the subject Xiongnu peoples in Mongolia and in neighbouring regions in the early 2nd century bc. The dispersal of the Xiongnu peoples by the mid-2nd century ad under Chinese pressure pushed Hunnic groupings, including Turkic peoples, westward to the Black Sea steppes by the latter half of the 4th century ad. The rise and expansion of the Rouran (Asian Avar) state in the early 5th century in Mongolia sent more Turkic tribes westward. These tribes spoke a distinct form of Turkic (Oghuric) that survives today only in Chuvash.

In 552, the Turk tribe in the Altai, unmentioned until the 540s, overthrew their overlords, the Rouran. Led by Bumin of the Ashina clan, who took the title of qaghan (“emperor”), the Turks quickly established their hegemony over other Turkic peoples (Uygur, Ghuzz (Oghuz), Qarluq, and Qïrghïz (Kyrgyz) among others), founding an empire that reached from Manchuria to the Black Sea and gaining control of the Silk Route. The name Turk spread to their subjects as a political designation. China, under the Sui (581-617) and Tang (618-907) dynasties, exploiting the frequent succession struggles among the Ashina who had divided their empire into eastern and western halves, subjugated the eastern qaghan in 630 and the fractious western Turks in 659. In c. 630-650, the Khazar Qaghanate split off from the western Turk realm, forming a powerful state in the Volga-Ponto-Caspian region that was destroyed, c. 965-969, by the Rus’ and Ghuzz. The revival and collapse of the eastern Qaghanate (682-742) pushed more tribes westward, the building blocks of the modern Turkic peoples. The Uygurs subsequently succeeded the Turks in Mongolia and adjacent areas (744-840). The Qarluqs, who fled the Uygur takeover, supplanted the western qaghans (766), who had been weakened by the contest for dominion in Central Eurasia between China, Tibet, and the Arabian Caliphate. They and the Ghuzz, who had also migrated westward, were closest to hitherto largely Iranian and now Muslim-dominated Transoxiana or Transoxania (the region between the Oxus (now called the Amu Darya) and Jaxartes (now called the Syr Darya) rivers). Islam began to spread among them through warfare and missionary activities. Muslim authors popularized the ethnonym Turk as a common designation for Turkic-speaking Central Asian nomads. Several Turko-Islamic states emerged: the Qarakhanids (992-1212) in Western and Eastern Turkistan and the Seljuks (c. 1040-1194, of Ghuzz origin) who invaded the Near East and founded a powerful state in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia (1081-1307).

In the early 13th century, the Chinggisid Mongols subjugated the Turkic peoples. The ensuing displacements produced their present-day distribution. The Ottoman Empire (c. 1300-1922) was founded by a dynasty pushed to the Byzantine-Seljuk frontier in Anatolia. It expanded into the Balkans and took Constantinople in 1453. At its zenith in the 16th to 17th century Ottoman power extended from Hungary to Arabia and North Africa, including much of the Arab world. In Eurasia the fragmenting Chinggisid realms, following the death of Tamerlane (1405) who attempted to reunite them, emerged as regional khanates: Crimea (1443-1783), Kazan (c.1438-1552), and Astrakhan (1466-1556), as well as more ephemeral nomadic polities, for example, the Uzbek union of Abu’l-Khair Khan (d. 1468). From the latter the Uzbeks who conquered Transoxiana (in 1500, giving rise to modern Uzbekistan) and the Kazakhs emerged. The Uzbek and Kazakh khanates were brought under Russian rule in the latter half of the 19th century. The Manchus (Qing dynasty in China 1644-1911) gained control of the Turko-Muslim peoples of Eastern Turkistan (mid-18th century), which became Xinjiang. The Turks of Turkey emerged from the Turkic and Turkicized population of Ottoman Anatolia. The other Turkic peoples were shaped into their modern configurations by the ethnic policies of the Russian/Soviet and Qing/Chinese governments.

III

Economy

Most Turkic peoples through much of their recorded history were pastoral nomads. Those that conquered settled societies, sedentarized over time. The Turkic peoples of the Near East, Tatarstan, Uzbekistan, and Xinjiang are largely engaged in agriculture or urban occupations. Others, such as the Turkmen, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz, still have substantial pastoral nomadic populations.

IV

Modern Turkic Languages and Peoples

Turkic is an Altaic language, a linguistic family that also includes Mongolian and Tungus languages, and perhaps more distantly Korean and Japanese. The nature of the Altaic relationship, genetic or resulting from centuries of borrowing and interaction, remains a matter of contention. The significant modern Turkic languages are, in the south-west: Turkish (about 50 million speakers in Turkey); North Azerbaijani (over 6 million in Azerbaijan); South Azerbaijani or Azeri (23.5 million in Iran); and Turkmen (over 3 million in Turkmenistan and 2 million in Iran). In the north-west, in the Volga-Ural zone, North Caucasus in Russia, Crimea, and Central Asia: Tatar (1.6 million in Russia, China, and İstanbul, Turkey); Kazakh (over 8.1 million, of whom 1.1 million are in China); and Kyrgyz (3.1 million). In south-eastern areas: Northern Uzbek (nearly 18.8 million in Uzbekistan and China); Southern Uzbek (1.4 million in Afghanistan); and Uygur (7.6 million, largely in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China). Languages in north-eastern areas are subdivided into various national groupings ranging from the Tuvinians (Tuvin; 209,400) and Khakas (64,810) to the Chulym (500) and the Karagas (25-30). Chuvash is spoken by 1.8 million in the Middle Volga zone. The Judeo-Tatar spoken by small groups of Rabbanite and Qaraite Jews (their coreligionists, the Qaraim in Lithuania, Poland, and western Ukraine, spoke a language derived from medieval Cumano-Qipchaq) is nearing linguistic extinction.