Who are the Turks? Origin, History and DNA assessment

[Kheliks]

My ancestors are from the Kayı tribe of the Oghuz, who migrated starting from 1071 and remained in small villages (Eskisehir) in Central Anatolia until 1950, isolated from the outside world, very small village surrounded my hills&mountains ... My grandfather passed away at the age of 96. They were settled there by the Seljuks during their time, and they never left that place. He told the stories of Central Asia and the times they migrated have been passed down from generation to generation. he told me when i was 10 years old, ''we were nomads and come this land via seljuks, tell our stories to next generation like those before us'' . The entire village is related to each other and resembles Central Asians in terms of appearance...I checked old ottoman registry, my grandpa was right about past and genetic roots. I live in Istanbul right now, people constantly asking ''are you korean/ tatar/uzbek/turkmen'' ? due to my asian eyes :)

[billrener]

Mehmet Oz, MD, is a popular American doctor and television personality. His DNA test showed him to be Ashkenazi Jewish. I think the truth is that Ashkenazi Jews, like myself, have a lot of Turkish blood. In the year 740, a group of Turks converted, the Khazars, became Jewish. Centuries later, they migrated into Poland.

[reefjosey]

We Anatolians are aware of our genetic diversity. We are honored by this., we know everything. What some Armenians and Greeks dont want to understand is Your language and your culture is a thing and your DNA is a different thing because the DNA It is very open to environmental influences and that not explain what your culture or language. Being a nation is not about genes, it is about will and ideas. We are interested in glorifying One Anatolia instead of calling our homeland anatolia's part like Greeater Kurdistan, Greeater Armenia, Greeater Greece or Pontus. You have different narratives that break it up into pieces. We anatolians have not yet assimilated enough to think that we need to divide our homeland into pieces. For us Anatolia is first. that's why we are clearly very different. Because here is our motherland. It is not the genes that make up great nations. It is their struggle together. never forget this.

The concept of Turkish nation is not based on a race, origin or racism, but on the concept of "Turkish Citizenship" and the principle of "Equality", framed by Articles 66 and 10 of the Constitution.

According to the provision of Article 66/1 of the Constitution, the Turkish nation does not refer to a race but to all citizens in this country and is a concept that embraces all people living on these lands. The concept of Turkishness is not an ethnic and biological concept, but a sociological and cultural one. It does not express belonging to race, but to the country and the Turkish Nation.

Like Brazilian nation, Australian, Canadian or American nation. You know what I'm saying? For us Turk means our unite not like an origin. it is a cultural consept. just like how you feel when you hear irish, germans, british or africans living in America says that ''I'm an American first''. and same expression here, When we say we are Turkish nation and this is our unite idea, it does not mean that we reject our roots. when all ottoman ethnics living in anatolia says that I'm a part of Turkish nation first, this is same idea as being American nation first. they want to express their unity. To fail to understand this, one must persist in bad faith or devalue the law of existence of one's own country. one day the world will understand us more clear, respect our struggle for unity and will stop developing distorted interpretations of history about us that caused major world wars. We are peaceful people and our unity must be respected. Turkish nation with its people in both east and west are the only people in the world who carry Anatolian spesific pool genes at the highest rate. So in accordance with the laws you are subject in your country; Please respect their right to exist as a nation and their ideas. Anatolia means "Land of Mothers" in Turkish. Here is our motherland. Respect our will for peace!

[selindenizcebi]

That is sure that Turkish are very genetically diversified, because I am originally from Trabzon and our ancestors came from Crimea Ukraine. This means that we have mixed with all a lot of people.

[CeciliaPeng]

My grandfather was from Tuva, Russia. He had light blue eyes. Through Google research, l have found out —just a few months ago—that l am without any doubt Turkic, although l do look Mongolian or Chinese.

[sapphyrus]

The thing with Anatolia is that its local peoples never really went anywhere. From Hittite Empire to Persian, then Greek colonization to Roman times, locals adopted the culture of whomever in charge over time and mixed. Considering that the incoming Turks were in effect a minority since Anatolia has always been a highly populated region due to its capability to support living with farming, fishing, water sources and such, the current DNA composition isn't that surprising. It's kind of like what happened with Britons followed by Romans, then Angles, Saxons and Normans in England.

[Yarenoglu]

I did a bit of an extended research into this, since there is very little information available on the surface. The reason it's so hard to pinpoint the exact ancestors of the Turks, is because there isn't a single ancestor, we are a mixed people. Most historians agree that the Ashina clan is definitely at least one ancestor of the Turks. The Ashina were a nomadic people from today's China. They lived around modern Pingliang. Ashina was first attested to in the year 439, as reported by the Book of Sui: on the 18th day of the 10th month, the Tuoba ruler Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei overthrew Juqu Mujian of Northern Liang in eastern Gansu, and 500 Ashina families fled northwest to the Rouran Khaganate near Gaochang (Bayingolin area today). Here they encountered the Tocharians (who lived in Tarim Basin) and joined the Goache (göçebe) Turkic tribes that were migrating from the North West, Altai region (they originally came from around Crimea and were probably related to the Schytians. They lived between the Black Sea and the Altai mountains and were migrating east). Ashina mixed with the Goache tribes, and then for an unknown reason (possibly through a defeat and subjugation as was common) joined the Rouran Khanate. Rouran was a more mixed tribe made of many ethnic minorities like the Xianbei (ancestors of Mongols) and Tungusic people. This brings us to the Xianbei, which is another part of the Turkic ancestry. Xianbei were nomadic people from the North East, from Korea and Siberia regions, one of the most notable Xianbei federation is the Tungusic people. So, Xianbei came from the North East, Goache came from the Nort West, and the Ashina came from the South, around the area between Tarim Basin and Ordos Plateau is where all these different people met and mingled with each other. They mixed with each other, and at one point, the Ashina overthrew the Rouran dynasty and founded the Gokturk Empire. It's important to know that there were other Gokturk tribes and confederations that coexisted with the Gokturks, and were usually crushed by the Ashina. The Oghuz was one such confederation, they were later broken up and incorporated into the Gokturks. So, although Ashina's Gokturk empire might be the first one recorded in history thanks to the Northern Wei documents (who were a Xianbei dynasty themselves) they weren't the only ones or probably even the first ones. Ashina was just one tribe, but the Goache, and Xianbei, were a whole confederacy made of many people, and when they all mixed with the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Tocharians, Goache, etc, there were dozens and dozens of Turkic tribes and confederations small and large. We didn't even touch the other confederacies such as the Dingling which were a Turkic confederacy of horse cart nomads that is believed to have travelled more from South West maybe from around Iran or India to China. We just happen to know more about the most famous one because that's the main one we have written evidence of primarily.

[Serkanizm_TR]

The famous Turkish thinker and scholar Hoca Ahmed Yesevi has a saying: Turkishness is destiny, religion is a choice.
What I want to say is that Turkish is a race and it contains many different religious beliefs, can you imagine it from the Siberian steppes to Central Asia, from the Balkans to the Danube river, from the Ural mountains to the Finnish steppes?
We can give a few examples of this: Gökoğuz (Gagauz) Turks or Sekel Turks living in Moldova or the regions of Romania close to the Hungarian border The Sekel Turks or Cuman Kipchak Turks in Hungary are Christian Orthodox or Christian Catholic.
Turks in the Balkans generally adopted the Anatolian Bektashi tradition.
Various Hungarian Turcologists stated that Hungarian is of Finno-Ugric in terms of linguistics and of Turkic origin in terms of genetics. Sami Group in Finland One of them is not to mention the Finnish Tatars: ) they already belong to the kuman-kipchak branch of Turkishness.
Let's come to the Khazars, Karaites and Karaims Turkish Group. These groups are generally accepted as Jewish Karaim, Caspian and Karaite Turks living in Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania in the mountainous regions of Azerbaijan and Khazars of Karachays.
The Turks living in the Altai Khakasya and Yakut, istan regions, which are considered to be the homeland of the Turks living in the Siberian region of Russia, generally continue to believe in Tengrizim (Shamanism), which is the first belief of the Turks.
As a note, Greetings and Love from Turkey to everyone reading this article. Thank you for this video you made.

[nzvr]

0:27 This ancient Turks facial reconstruction is accurate, at least for their ruling class. recently, The first genetic analysis on the Empress Ashina in 2023 by Xiaoming Yang et al. found nearly exclusively Northeast Asian ancestry (97, 7%) next to minor West-Eurasian components (2, 7%). The ancient Türkic royal family of the Göktürk Khaganate was found to share genetic affinities to post-Iron Age Tungusic and Mongolic pastoralists, while having heterogeneous relationships towards various Turkic-speaking groups, suggesting genetic heterogeneity and multiple sources of origin for the population of the Turkic Khaganate. According to the authors, these findings "once again validates a cultural diffusion model over a demic diffusion model for the spread of Turkic languages" and refutes "the western Eurasian origin and multiple origin hypotheses" in favor of an East Asian origin for the Türks.[4]

[yusufpolatkesen]

My family are Turkmen from birecik urfa, and according to the great professor Ilber ortayli the oldest form of Turkish spoken in turkey is in birecik urfa.

[bantorio]

... I visited Türkiye last year and I'm fascinated with all I saw, the people, the food, the architecture, the language ( I even started studying Turkish ... it's so difficult though ... ), the geography ... etc ... I can say that I felt safe and welcome ... Istanbul is a jewel ... I want to go again. I had been in Ephesus, Izmir, Kusadasi ... beautiful places and a lot of history ... Greetings from Miami ... !!!

[turkcukayi]

I am from Paphlagonia region in the Western Black Sea Region. Civilizations such as Palaic, Bithynians, Paphlagons, Hittites, Lydians and Phrygians ruled here. Later, the Turks came and added sauce to this soup. Therefore, as Turks researching our past, we know that we are the descendants of a mixture of all these peoples.

[godfreyzilla]

I recently discovered an ant colony in my back yard. I was watching hundreds of ants coming and going from the same hole in the ground. I couldn't tell the difference between one or the other. If a superior race of beings visited the earth I suspect they would hover over us and think to themselves "Hmmm, look at all of those ants."

[muhammadshehreyarkhan]

This clearly means that nationalism is often wrongly correlated ethnicity when it has more to do with culture assimilation. This true for Turkiye as well as historical Turkic states such as Golden Horde & Chaghtai Khanate whose rulers were ethnic Mongols but assimilated in the culture and religion of their Bulgar, Tatar and Cuman-Kipchak population. Same goes for Ikhanate who adopted the culture of their Iranian and Persian populace. Kazakhs have threee jhuzz; Senior, Middle and Junior comprising of both Turkic and Mongolic ancestry.

[itvurann]

3:39 This Example is Half Turk Half Sogdian, Also The Turkmens Are Mixture Of Oghuz And Persian People And Not Pure Oghuz. Ancient Oghuzs Are Most Similar to Modern Karakalpaks, Nogais, Bashkirs and Siberian Tatars. The Turks who settled in Anatolia for the first time are closer to the Nogai and Karakalpaks than the Turkmen and they have around %50 East Asian genetics. The Turkmens Are %25 East Asian.

[QwertQwert-rh]

Who cares what you are just be human love is all we need. The world is my country and the people in it are all my brothers and sisters. And all living beings including all nature we are all one . Peace ✌️.
By the way I am Turk .😊❤

[AdultThirdCultureKid]

My ancestry on my father's side, as far as I know, is North and West African, possibly Arabian Peninsula, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

[Paradis]

As a Uzbek, when I visit Turkey, I don’t face any difficulties in understanding Turkish people, of course there are some differences in pronunciation but I can get by

[gurkeschurke]

I myself am from Trabzon our geographical location is very mountainous which leads to very isolated communities, which means that every village could have a vastly different genetic admixture. Including the fact that villagers rarely married outside of their village.

[papazataklaattiranimam]

Western authors give additional details about mixed marriages and the children born into such unions. The Latin historians of the Crusades noted in Anatolia a specific group of the Turkopouli (that is, 'the children of the Turks') who were born of a Greek mother and a Turkish father.53 For the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Catalan soldier and chronicler Ramon Muntaner reports that the Turks of western Anatolia married girls from noble Greek families. It is especially interesting that the male children of these mixed marriages 'became Turks and were circumcised', while for female children the choice of religion was free. The same difference between the religious affiliation of boys and girls was reported by Ludolf von Suchen in the middle of the fourteenth century. Von Suchen maintains that when the Turks married Christian women, the boys of the mixed marriages followed the Muslim religion of their fathers while the girls maintained the Christian faith of their mothers.54 However, as we have seen in Byzantine canonical texts, boys also could be baptised by their mothers.
These reports confirm that, firstly, mixed marriages between Muslims and Greek women were common throughout the centuries, and, secondly, that the children of both Muslim and mixed marriages were baptised according to Orthodox Greek rites. The popularity of mixed marriages in Muslim lands has been very clearly demonstrated by a passage from the Byzantine historian of the fifteenth century, Doukas, who, with considerable arrogance, made the following observance about the Ottoman Turks:

The people of this shameless and savage nation, moreover, do the following: if they seize a Greek woman or an Italian woman or a woman of another nation or a captive or a deserter, they embrace her as an Aphrodite or Semele, but a woman of their own nation or of their own tongue they loathe as though she were a bear or a hyena. 55

The predominance of Greek women at the Seljuk harem thus seems to have been merely a royal variation of a common practice in Muslim Anatolia. Greek women were valued as the most prestigious marriage partners among all strata of Muslim society. It was Greek women who guided their Muslim husbands and masters into the refined Byzantine way of life and the world of Byzantine luxury, introducing among other things new cuisines and ways of structuring the household. Although the information on Seljuk marriage policy in the eleventh to twelfth century is scarce, it seems highly probably that the Seljuk harem was modelled along similar lines as other strata of Muslim Anatolian society, with a preference of marriage to Greek women who in turn acted as mediators to the old world of the 'empire of the Romans'.

Peacock, A. and Yildiz, S., 2012. The Seljuks of Anatolia.