Turkmens


Turkmens are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, living mainly in Turkmenistan, northern and northeastern regions of Iran and Afghanistan. Sizeable groups of Turkmens are found also in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the North Caucasus. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Eastern Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages. Examples of other Oghuz languages are Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai, Gagauz, Khorasani, and Salar.
In the early Middle ages, Turkmens called themselves Oghuz, and in the Middle Ages they took the ethnonym - Turkmen. In Byzantine, then in the European sources, and later in the American tradition, Turkmens were called Turkomans, in the countries of the Near and Middle East - Turkmens, as well as Torkaman, Terekeme; in Kievan Rus - Torkmens; in the Duchy of Moscow - Taurmen; and in the Tsarist Russia - Turkoman and Trukhmen.
Seljuks, Khwarazmians, Qara Qoyunlu, Aq Qoyunlu, Ottomans and Afsharids are also believed to descend from the Turkmen tribes of Qiniq, Begdili, Yiva, Bayandur, Kayi and Afshar respectively.

Etymology

The term “Turkmen” generally applied for the Turkic tribes had been distributed across the Near and Middle East, as well as Central Asia from the 11th century to modern times. Originally, all Turkic tribes that were part of the Turkic dynastic mythological system were designated "Turkmens". Only later did this word come to refer to a specific ethnonym. The term is thought to derive from Türk plus the Sogdian affix of similarity -myn, -men, and means "resembling a Türk" or "co-Türk".
Another view on the etymology of the term "Turkmen" belongs to Arminius Vambery, a Hungarian scholar, who traveled all the way from Iran across the Karakum Desert to Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand with a purpose of establishing link between Turkic and Hungarian languages in 1863. Vambery notes that the word Turkmen consists of the word "Turk" and the suffix -men. He concludes that the suffix -men or -man brings greater intensity to the word "Turk".
Jean Deny’s work of Grammaire De La Langue Turque is another significant source to understand the etymology. In his work, while trying to clarify the meaning of the suffixes -men, -man, the author gives example with turk-men, that he created from the word "turc" and links it to "turcoman". As J.Deny notes, the term “Turkmen” in this case would have a meaning of "the Turk of pure blood" or "thoroughbred Turk", since the "augmentative" suffix -man, possesses a sense of intensification in Turkic languages. G. Nemeth agreed on J. Deny’s view about the suffix -man and -men having the above-mentioned meaning. While H. Husameddin notes that the term means "grand Türk", L. Ligeti states that it means "true, original Turk".
Today the terms are usually restricted to two Turkic groups: the Turkmen people of Turkmenistan and adjacent parts of Central Asia, and the Turkomans of Iraq and Syria.

Origins

Chinese encyclopedia Tongdian mentions that Sogdia had commercial and political relations with China in the 5th century A.D. and was also called 特拘梦 Tèjūmèng. Tejumeng 特拘梦 might be a transliteration of the country name Türkmen.
Türkmens were definitely mentioned near the end of the 10th century A.D in Islamic literature by the Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi in Ahsan Al-Taqasim Fi Ma'rifat Al-Aqalim. In his work, which was completed in 987 A.D, al-Muqaddasi writes about Turkmens twice while depicting the region as the frontier of the Muslim possessions in Central Asia.
Towards the end of the 11th, in Divânü Lügat'it-Türk, Mahmud Kashgari uses “Türkmen” synonymously with “Oğuz”. He describes Oghuz as a Turkic tribe and says that Oghuz are Turkmens.
The modern Turkmen people descend from the Oghuz Turks of Transoxiana, the western portion of Turkestan, a region that largely corresponds to much of Central Asia as far east as Xinjiang. Famous historian and ruler of Khorezm of the XVII century Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur links the origin of all Turkmens to 24 Oghuz tribes in his literary work "Genealogy of the Turkmens".
In the 7th century AD, Oghuz tribes had moved westward from the Altay mountains through the Siberian steppes, and settled in this region. They also penetrated as far west as the Volga basin and the Balkans. These early Turkmens are believed to have mixed with native Sogdian peoples and lived as pastoral nomads until being conquered by the Russians in the 19th century.
Migration of the Turkmen tribes from the territory of Turkmenistan and the rest of Central Asia in the south-west direction began mainly from the 11th century and continued until the 18th century. These Turkmen tribes played a significant role in the ethnic formation of such peoples as Turks, Turkmens of Iraq and Syria, as well as the Turkic population of Iran and Azerbaijan. To preserve their independence, those tribes that remained in Turkmenistan were united in military alliances, although remnants of tribal relations remained until the 20th century. Their traditional occupations were farming, cattle breeding, and various crafts. Ancient samples of applied art indicate a high level of folk art culture.

Genetics

is commonly found in Siberia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia. This haplogroup forms a large percentage of the paternal lineages of Turkmens.
Grugni et al. found Q-M242 in 42.6% of a sample of Turkmens from Golestan, Iran. Di Cristofaro et al. found Q-M25 in 31.1% and Q-M346 in 2.7% for a total of 33.8% Q-M242 in a sample of Turkmens from Jawzjan. Karafet et al. found Q-M25 in 50.0% of another sample of Turkmens from Turkmenistan. Haplogroup Q have seen its highest frequencies in the Turkmens from Karakalpakstan at 73%.
A genetic study on the mitochondrial DNA haplogroups of a Turkmen sample describes a mixture of mostly West Eurasian lineages and minority of East Eurasian lineages. Turkmens also have two unusual mtDNA markers with polymorphic characteristics, only found in Turkmens and southern Siberians.

History

Turkmens belong to the Oghuz tribes, who originated on the periphery of Central Asia and founded gigantic empires beginning from the 3rd millennium BC. Subsequently, Turkmen tribes founded lasting dynasties in Central Asia, Middle East, Persia and Anatolia that had a profound influence on the course of history of those regions. The most prominent of those dynasties were the Ghaznavids, Seljuks, Ottomans, Safavids, Afsharids and Qajars. Representatives of the Turkmen tribes of Ive and Bayandur were also the founders of the short-lived, but formidable states of Kara Koyunlu and Ak Koyunlu Turkmens respectively.
Turkmens that stayed in Central Asia largely survived unaffected by the Mongol period due to their semi-nomadic lifestyle and became traders along the Caspian, which led to contacts with Eastern Europe. Following the decline of the Mongols, Tamerlane conquered the area and his Timurid Empire would rule, until it too fractured, as the Safavids, Khanate of Bukhara, and Khanate of Khiva all contested the area. The expanding Russian Empire took notice of Turkmenistan's extensive cotton industry, during the reign of Peter the Great, and invaded the area. Following the decisive Battle of Geok Tepe in January 1881, a bulk of Turkmen tribes found themselves under the rule of the Russian Emperor. After the Russian Revolution, Soviet control was established by 1921, and in 1924 Turkmenistan became Soviet Socialistic Republic. Turkmenistan gained independence in 1991.

Culture and society

Religion

The Turkmen of Turkmenistan, like their kin in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Iran are predominantly Muslims. According to the CIA World Factbook, Turkmenistan is 89% Muslim and 10% Eastern Orthodox. Most ethnic Russians are Orthodox Christians. The remaining 1% is unknown. A 2009 Pew Research Center report indicates a higher percentage of Muslims with 93.1% of Turkmenistan's population adhering to Islam.
The great majority of Turkmen readily identify themselves as Muslims and acknowledge Islam as an integral part of their cultural heritage. However, there are some who only support a revival of the religion's status merely as an element of national revival.

Language

Turkmen is the language of the nation of Turkmenistan. It is spoken by over 5,200,000 people in Turkmenistan, and by roughly 3,000,000 people in other countries, including Iran, Afghanistan, and Russia. Up to 30% of native speakers in Turkmenistan also claim a good knowledge of Russian, a legacy of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union.
The Turkmen language is closely related to Azerbaijani, Turkish, Gagauz, Qashqai and Crimean Tatar, sharing common linguistic features with each of those languages. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between these languages. A handful of specific lexical and grammatical differences formed within the Turkmen language as spoken in Turkmenistan, Iran and Afghanistan, after more than a century of separation between the people speaking the language; mutually intelligibility, however, has been preserved.
Turkmen is not a literary language in Iran and Afghanistan, where many Turkmen tend towards bilingualism, usually conversant in the countries' different dialects of Persian, such as Dari in Afghanistan. Variations of the Persian alphabet are, however, used in Iran.

Literature

Turkmen literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in old Oghuz Turkic and Turkmen languages. Turkmens have joint claims to a great number of literary works written in Old Oghuz Turkic and Persian languages with other people of the Oghuz Turkic origin, mainly of Azerbaijan and Turkey. This works include, but are not limited to the Book of Dede Korkut, Gorogly and others. The medieval Turkmen literature was heavily influenced by Arabic and Persian, and used mostly Arabic alphabet.
There is general consensus, however, that distinctively Turkmen literature originated in 18th century with the poetry of Magtymguly Pyragy, who is considered the father of the Turkmen literature. Other prominent Turkmen poets of that era are Döwletmämmet Azady, Nurmuhammet Andalyp, Abdylla Şabende, Şeýdaýy, Mahmyt Gaýyby and Gurbanaly Magrupy.

Cuisine

Characteristics of traditional Turkmen cuisine are rooted in the largely nomadic nature of day-to-day life prior to the Soviet period coupled with a long local tradition, dating back millennia before the arrival of the Turkmen in the region, of white wheat production. Baked goods, especially flat bread typically baked in a tandoor, make up a large proportion of the daily diet, along with cracked wheat porridge, wheat puffs, and dumplings. Since sheep-, goat-, and camel husbandry are traditional mainstays of nomadic Turkmen, mutton, goat meat, and camel meat were most commonly eaten, variously ground and stuffed in dumplings, boiled in soup, or grilled on spits in chunks or as fingers of ground, spiced meat. Rice for plov was reserved for festive occasions. Due to lack of refrigeration in nomad camps, dairy products from sheep, goat, and camel milk were fermented to keep them from spoiling quickly. Fish consumption was largely limited to tribes inhabiting the Caspian Sea shoreline. Fruits and vegetables were scarce, and in nomad camps limited mainly to carrots, squash, pumpkin, and onions. Inhabitants of oases enjoyed more varied diets, with access to pomegranate, fig, and stone fruit orchards, vineyards, and of course melons. Areas with cotton production could use cottonseed oil and sheep herders used fat from the fat-tailed sheep. The major traditional imported product was tea.
In sharp contrast to other Central Asian and Turkic ethnic groups, Turkmen do not eat horse meat, and in fact eating of horse meat is prohibited by law in Turkmenistan.
Conquest by the Russian Empire in the 1880s introduced new foods, including such meats as beef, pork, and chicken, as well as potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, and cucumbers, though they did not find widespread use in most Turkmen households until the Soviet period. While now consumed widely, they are, strictly speaking, not considered "traditional".

Nomadic heritage

Before the establishment of Soviet power in Central Asia, it was difficult to identify distinct ethnic groups in the region. Sub-ethnic and supra-ethnic loyalties were more important to people than ethnicity. When asked to identify themselves, most Central Asians would name their kin group, neighborhood, village, religion or the state in which they lived; the idea that a state should exist to serve an ethnic group was unknown.
Most Turkmen were nomads and were not settled in cities and towns until the advent of the Soviet government. This mobile lifestyle precluded identification with anyone outside one's kin group and led to frequent conflicts between different Turkmen tribes. In collaboration with the local nationalists, the Soviet government sought to transform the Turkmen and other “backward” ethnic groups in the USSR into modern socialist nations that based their identity on a fixed territory and a common language.
The Soviet-led standardization of the Turkmen language, education, and projects to promote ethnic Turkmen in the industry, government and higher education had led growing numbers of Turkmen to identify with a larger national Turkmen culture rather than with sub-national, pre-modern forms of identity. Before the Soviet era, a proverb stated that the Turkmen's home was where his horse happened to stand. After gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Turkmen historians went to great lengths to prove that the Turkmen had inhabited their current territory since time immemorial; some historians even tried to deny the nomadic heritage of the Turkmen.
Turkmen lifestyle was heavily invested in horsemanship and as a prominent horse culture, Turkmen horse-breeding was an ages old tradition. In spite of changes prompted by the Soviet period, a tribe in southern Turkmenistan has remained very well known for their horses, the Akhal-Teke desert horse – and the horse breeding tradition has returned to its previous prominence in recent years.
Many tribal customs still survive among modern Turkmen. Unique to Turkmen culture is kalim which is a groom's "dowry", that can be quite expensive and often results in the widely practiced tradition of bridal kidnapping. In something of a modern parallel, in 2001, President Saparmurat Niyazov had introduced a state enforced "kalim", which required all foreigners who wanted to marry a Turkmen woman to pay a sum of no less than $50,000. The law was abolished in March 2005.
Other customs include the consultation of tribal elders, whose advice is often eagerly sought and respected. Many Turkmen still live in extended families where various generations can be found under the same roof, especially in rural areas.
The music of the nomadic and rural Turkmen people reflects rich oral traditions, where epics such as Koroglu are usually sung by itinerant bards. These itinerant singers are called bakshy and sing either a cappella or with instruments such as the two-stringed lute called dutar.

Society today

Since Turkmenistan's independence in 1991, a cultural revival has taken place with the return of a moderate form of Islam and celebration of Novruz or New Year's Day.
Turkmen can be divided into various social classes including the urban intelligentsia and workers whose role in society is different from that of the rural peasantry. Secularism and atheism remain prominent for many Turkmen intellectuals who favor moderate social changes and often view extreme religiosity and cultural revival with some measure of distrust.
The five traditional carpet designs that form motifs in the country's state emblem and flag represent the five major Turkmen tribes.

Sport

Sports have historically been an important part of Turkmen life. Such sports as horseback riding and Goresh have been praised in Turkmen literature. During the Soviet era, Turkmen athletes competed in numerous competitions, including Olympic games as part of the Soviet Union team and, in 1992, as part of the Unified Team.
After Turkmenistan gained her independence, new ways of establishing physical and sports movements in the country began to emerge. To implement a new sports policy, new multi-purpose stadiums, physical education and health complexes, sports schools and facilities were built in all regions of the country. Turkmenistan also has a modern Olympic village which hosted 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, and is unparalleled in Central Asia.
Turkmenistan supports the country's sports movements and encourages sports on a state level. While football remains the most popular sport, such sports as Turkmen goresh, horseback riding and lately ice hockey are also very popular among Turkmens.

Turkmens in Iran

are a branch of Turkmen people who live mainly in northern and northeastern regions of Iran. Their region is called Turkmen Sahra and includes substantial parts of Golestan province. Representatives of such contemporary Turkmen tribes as Yomut, Goklen, Īgdīr, Saryk, Salar and Teke have lived in Iran since the 16th century, though ethnic history of Turkmens in Iran starts with the Seljuk conquest of the region in the 11th century.

Turkmens in Afghanistan

The Afghan Turkmen population in the 1990s was estimated at around 200,000. The original Turkmen groups came from east of the Caspian Sea into northwestern Afghanistan at various periods, particularly after the end of the 19th century when the Russians moved into their territory. They established settlements from Balkh Province to Herat Province, where they are now concentrated; smaller groups settled in Kunduz Province. Others came in considerable numbers as a result of the failure of the Basmachi revolts against the Bolsheviks in the 1920s. Turkmen tribes, of which there are twelve major groups in Afghanistan, base their structure on genealogies traced through the male line. Senior members wield considerable authority. Formerly a nomadic and warlike people feared for their lightning raids on caravans, Turkmen in Afghanistan are farmer-herdsmen and important contributors to the economy. They brought karakul sheep to Afghanistan and are also renowned makers of carpets, which, with karakul pelts, are major hard currency export commodities. Turkmen jewelry is also highly prized.

Turkmens of Stavropol krai' of Russia

In the Stavropol Krai of southern Russia, there is a long established colony of Turkmen. They are often referred to as Trukhmen by the local ethnic Russian population, and sometimes use the self-designation Turkpen. According to the 2010 Census of Russia, they numbered 15,048, and accounted for 0.5% of the total population of Stavropol Krai.
The Turkmens are said to have migrated into the Caucasus in the 17th century, in particular in the Mangyshlak region. These migrants belonged mainly to the Chaudorov, Sonchadj and Ikdir tribes. The early settlers were nomadic but over time a process of sedentarization took place. In their cultural life the Trukhmens of today differ very little from their neighbours and are now settled farmers and stockbreeders.
Although the Turkmen language belongs to the Oghuz group of Turkic languages, in Stavropol it has been strongly influenced by the Nogai language, which belongs to the Kipchak group. The phonetic system, grammatical structure and to some extent also the vocabulary, have been somewhat influenced.

Demographics and population distribution

The Turkmen people of Central Asia live in: