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| Türkic | |
|---|---|
| Name | Türkic |
| Region | Central Asia; Anatolia; Siberia; Eastern Europe; Qinghai; Xinjiang |
| Familycolor | Altaic |
| Fam1 | Turkic languages |
Türkic is a broad designation for a family of peoples, languages, and cultures historically centered in Central Asia and extending into Anatolia, Siberia, Eastern Europe, and East Asia. Major historical polities and figures associated with these peoples include steppe confederations, imperial dynasties, and modern nation-states that shaped Eurasian geopolitics. Archaeological cultures, migratory routes, and linguistic links connect groups from the Eurasian steppes to the Ottoman court, the Qing frontier, and the Russian Empire.
The scholarly debate over the designation engages sources such as the Orkhon inscriptions, the Book of Zhou, the New Book of Tang, the Mahmud al-Kashgari compendium, the Baburnama, and the Ibn Fadlan account. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century researchers including Johann Reinhold Forster, W. von Humboldt, Vasily Bartold, Friedrich von Schlegel, Ármin Vámbéry, Clauson, Gerard and András Róna-Tas contributed to terminological formation alongside institutions like the British Museum, the École des Hautes Études, the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and the Collège de France. Comparative work in philology and historiography connects the labels used by Byzantine sources such as Nikephoros I and Constantine VII with Chinese annals like the Tang shu.
Early polities include the Gokturk Khaganate, the Uyghur Khaganate, the Khazar Khaganate, and the Khanate of Kazan; later states include the Seljuk Empire, the Mongol Empire (Golden Horde context), the Timurid Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Safavid Empire (Turkic elements). Interaction with neighbors appears in diplomatic records from the Byzantine Empire, the Sui dynasty, the Tang dynasty, the Abbasid Caliphate, the Mamluk Sultanate, and the Russian Empire. Notable figures include Bilge Khagan, Kül Tigin, Alp Arslan, Suleiman the Magnificent, Mehmed II, Timur, Babur, Ibrahim Muteferrika, and Abdülhamid II. Key battles and treaties linking steppe and settled polities include the Battle of Manzikert, the Battle of Ankara, the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, and the Treaty of Nerchinsk.
Major language branches are represented by languages such as Turkish language, Azerbaijani language, Turkmen language, Kazakh language, Kyrgyz language, Uyghur language, Uzbek language, Tatar language, Bashkir language, and Chuvash language. Historic and literary languages include Old Turkic, Middle Turkic, Karahanlid Turkic, Ottoman Turkish, Kipchak languages, and the dialectal corpora of Kök Türk inscriptions and the Divanü Lügati't-Türk. Influential philologists and linguists include Mahmud al-Kashgari, H. V. Bailey, Clauson, Gerard, Baskakov, N.A., I. M. Diakonoff, and Nicholas Ostler. Writing systems documented include variants of the Old Uyghur alphabet, the Arabic script in Ottoman registers, the Latin script reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Cyrillic script in Soviet policy, and the Orkhon script.
Contemporary ethnic groups include the Turks in Turkey, the Azerbaijanis, the Turkmens, the Kazakh people, the Kyrgyz people, the Uyghurs, the Uzbeks, the Tatars, the Bashkirs, the Chuvash people, the Salar people, the Karakalpak people, the Gagauz people, the Crimean Tatars, and the Nogais. Historical or regional identities feature the Oghuz Turks, the Kipchaks, the Karluks, the Onogurs, the Pechenegs, the Cumans, and the Seljuks. Diaspora and minority communities appear across Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, United States, and Russia.
Material and literary culture spans works and institutions such as the Orkhon inscriptions, the Divan literature tradition, the Masnavi-ye Ma'navi circulation, the Dede Korkut epics, the Epic of Manas, and the poetic canons nurtured in courts like Topkapi Palace and Istanbul salons. Architectural and visual examples include the Selimiye Mosque, the Hagia Sophia (Ottoman conversion), the Kunya-Urgench monuments, the Itchan Kala, and the mausolea of Samarkand and Bukhara. Musical forms and instruments tie to Ashik traditions, Maqam repertoires, Kobyz and Dutar use, and performance spaces such as Konya and Bursa. Culinary and textile arts intersect with craft centers like Silk Road bazaars, the Grand Bazaar (Istanbul), and artisanal guilds documented by travelers including Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo.
Pre-Islamic belief systems involved shamanic practices recorded among the Tengrism milieu and rituals cited in Yenisey inscriptions and Mongolian chronicle narratives. Conversion and syncretism are visible through contacts with Nestorian Christianity, Manichaeism, Buddhism, and the later predominance of Sunni Islam in Anatolia and Central Asia; Sufi orders such as the Naqshbandi order and the Mevlevi Order played roles in spiritual life. Missionary and clerical exchanges are attested with figures like Al-Farabi being part of broader intellectual currents, and legal-religious transformations occurred under courts influenced by the Sharia jurisprudential schools and imperial patronage in institutions such as the Ulama networks.
Archaeological cultures tied to steppe expansions include the Yamnaya culture and the Saka horizon, with material evidence from sites excavated by teams from the Institute of Archaeology (Russian Academy) and the National Museum of Uzbekistan. Genetic studies reference haplogroups and admixture analyses published by groups at institutions like Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Harvard Medical School, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and McMaster University. Ancient DNA from graves associated with Pazyryk culture, Scythians, Xiongnu, and Sogdians shows complex ancestries linking West Eurasian and East Eurasian components, corroborated by scholars such as David Reich, Eske Willerslev, Morten Allentoft, and Johannes Krause. Environmental and paleoecological data come from projects coordinated with UNESCO World Heritage sites and national programs in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Turkey.