Turks : what are the origins of Turkish people?

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Pala Remzi

we all come from Homo Sapiens

racex

The Ottoman Empire spread from North Africa, Middle East and right to the borders of Russia, why are you saying that Turks only mixed with Greeks.. what happened to the Egyptians, Slavs, Armenians, Tunisians, Morrocans, Syrians..etc? Did they magically dissapear from the Ottoman Empire map and only Greece was in it?

I mean come on, seriously..

Totally Blunt

Well, it seems you didn't read the answers.

I agree with Trotsky, but only want add that "European looking" isn't very descriptive.

Do you mean to say the stereotypical Spaniard and the stereotypical Finn share the same physical traits?

Keyser S

this is a long and difficult question to answer,and im late for work so ill make it as short as i can.

the 'origins' of turkish people means the start,and the birthplace of the turk.its NOT the turks living in turkey today that people here are trying to answer as the 'origins'.

turks appearing in central asia does not mean they were fully racially 'asian' or 'mongoloid' because turkic and mongolian are seperate ethnic groups although they are linked through time and mixing on SOME scale.Turks in central asia were first reported by the chinese as lighter skinned,bigger,fairer haired with predominatly more 'caucasian' features.

As far as mixing with greeks,iranians ect.From the hours and hours iv spent on this subject,its extremley foolish to say or think that any 'caucasian turk' HAS to be the result of a mixed child from a caucasian people in south eastern europe or the middle east or russia.do you honestly think that the seperate ethnic groups of the regions the turks conquerd would have children so fast or on such a large scale? No...absolutly not,because human beings dont live that way unless you lived in nazi germany in the 30-40's.

Turks were more naturally caucasian than people think,and if you think they were not,then genetically that fails to.Darker genes are dominant,mongolic genes are dominant also.It would take alot of breeding with caucasians over 100's of years on every new generation to dilute any oriental features on a mass scale to produce what you see as the present day turk.

Which settles my point that the origins of turks were a unique caucasian race with a thin layer of central asian feautures in some of thier population.No more no less.

ps.Fatih Terim,dont play emre or make him captain,he had a terrible season at newcastle.;)

Trotsky vs Kerensky- ÐÐµÐºIÐ¾!

No that doesn't make us a mix of Greeks, your theory would make us a mix of Hellenized Anatolians. There were people living in Anatolia when the Byzantines invaded it. These people were Hellenized and thus indistinguishable from the Greeks.

I do not believe your empiric observations are of value, the one regarding Western Turks. The only reason why people in Western, Central Anatolia look lighter compared to the ones living in the East is because most people in the east have Middle Eastern, i.e Kurdish, Arabic, Iranian or Armenian origins. However, the Turks living there still have more lighter features and I have even seen blonde ones. So where you live does not necessarily determine your ethnicity. The blonde man you see in Ä°zmir may not be from Ä°zmir at all. My dad's family and my mom's similarly, have been living in Ä°stanbul for years but they came to Turkey from Crimea and Northern Caucasus (NOT from Russia :p) that is from the "East" so you see, "european look" has nothing to do with West or with East. I can only guess what you mean by "european look" and I have seen Greeks, Sicilians or Spaniards who certainly did not posses it. How would you place them then?

Mixing happens all around the world, how can you determine who mixed with whom in the past? Rapes, immigrations, wars...Ernest Renan says even ancient Greeks were not pure, despite the fact that they mostly married to their relatives in small city states, because even for one ancient Greek, you never can know how much mixing took place between the ancestors of that certain individual. You never know how much of genetic information is revealed in the phsyionomy of the individual. There's a saying in Russian "Scratch a Russian and find a Tatar".

Final word, who cares what are origins are, we all consider ourselves Turkish, we have common memories of the past and common hopes for the future and that is what it counts (*) It is only disturbing to see people always digging this up uselessly.

Edit: I checked your profile, level 1 user hmm...Who are you, Suddenly Skopje's brother?

adventurous

Ok, open this image: http://www.ottoman-traders.com/pix/ottomanmap.jpg it is the map of Ottoman Empire when it was largest in area... So, not only Greeks, but also a lot others were included in Ottoman Empire... and not for some decades, for centuries(not allways the same map ofcourse)... So, i think you get why we look alike, now...

turkishdlite

Well during the ottoman empire time the people that were already in Turkey and the people that were coming in from europe and central asia all mixed together. So there are people whos ancesters are from hungary, russia, or georgia. If you go more east the people start to get darker and tan. If you go more west they get lighter and some parts they have an asian look. For me, my ancestors are from russia so I look very european light hair hazel green eyes and light skin. But I don't think turks ever mixed that much with the greeks im sure they did but I havnt heard anything like that. Hope this helped.

Olley

you're kinda hot <3

satilatrom

I agree with Trotsky, as for your question regarding ancestors of modern Turks; there is no such thing. Because modern Turks, or people living in Turkey doesn't belong to same ethnicity. Actually there are one of the most mixed peoples because Anatolia surrounded by seas at three sides has been a cradle for many civilizations; Hittites, Greeks, Hellenistic civilizations, Byzantine and Ottoman Empire.

There have been many invasions done by this or that civilization, but an invasion doesn't mean to kill all people living at a certain region and then settle yourself, invasion always includes mixing between people from different ethnicities. And if you look at just the Ottoman Empires borders, you'll understand who are the ancestors of modern Turks.

brand_new_pops

Because of the geographical location of Turkey, Turks believed to have mixed origins including Mongols & Tatars, Arabs, Persians, Romans, Greeks, Kurds & Armenians. As a matter of fact, about 1/3 of modern Turkey's territory (eastern parts) belonged to Armenians. Throughout past couple of milleniums these territories were conquered and taken over by Alexander the Great, Mongols, Ottoman Empire, Young Turks, etc. The Turkish population in western parts of Turkey definetely has its origins mixed with Balkan nations such as Greeks, Serbs, Croatians, Bulgarians, etc. as well as Romans (Italians) dating back to Roman Empire.

anlarm

I would say mixed with Eastern Romans (Byzantines) more than with Greeks. But yes, the Turks mixed with all those ethnic groups that came under the Ottoman rule. That spread from the Caucasian region all the way to Vienne, from the north shores of the Black Sea to north Africa.
As for your question: the origins of Turkish people goes all the way back to that man and woman who were kicked out of Heaven for eating that apple.

Ã‡etin

http://web.mst.edu/~gdoty/poems/altaic/origin.html#leaves
http://web.mst.edu/~gdoty/poems/altaic/creation.html
http://web.mst.edu/~gdoty/poems/altaic/er-kishi.html
http://web.mst.edu/~gdoty/poems/altaic/falling.html
http://web.mst.edu/~gdoty/poems/altaic/notes.html
OK?

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