Turkoman (ethnonym)

The current majority view for the etymology of the ethnonym Türkmen or Turcoman is that it comes from Türk and the Turkic emphatic suffix -men, meaning 'most Turkic of the Turks' or 'pure-blooded Turks'.^[6] A folk etymology, recorded by scholars active during the Oghuz Turkmen period, al-Biruni and Mahmud al-Kashgari, instead derives the suffix -men from the Persian suffix -mānind, with the resulting word meaning 'like a Turk'. While earlier scholarship often repeated the Persian-based derivation, more recent studies describe the Turkic suffix explanation as the more likely interpretation.^[7][8]

The first-known mention of the term "Turkmen", "Turkman" or "Turkoman" occurs 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.^[9] According to medieval Islamic authors Al-Biruni and al-Marwazi, the term Turkmen referred to the Oghuz who converted to Islam.^[10] There is evidence, however, that non-Oghuz Turks such as Karluks also have been called Turkomans and Turkmens; Kafesoğlu (1958) proposes that Türkmen might be the Karluks' equivalent of the Göktürks' political term Kök Türk.^[11][12] Later during the Middle Ages, the term was extensively employed for Oghuz Turks, a western Turkic people, who established a large tribal confederation called Oghuz Yabgu in the 8th century A.D. This polity, whose inhabitants spoke Oghuz Turkic, occupied an area between the Aral and Caspian seas in Central Asia.^[13][14]

The Seljuqs appeared in the beginning of the 11th century in Mawarannahr.^[15] Muslim Oghuz people, generally identified as Turkmens by then,^[16] rallied around the Qinik tribe that made up the core of the future Seljuq tribal union and the state they would create in the 11th century.^[17]

Since the Seljuk era, the sultans of the dynasty created military settlements in parts of the Near and Middle East to strengthen their power; large Turkmen settlements were created in Syria, Iraq, and Eastern Anatolia. After the Battle of Manzikert, the Oghuz extensively settled throughout Anatolia and Azerbaijan. In the 11th century, Turkmens densely populated Arran.^[18] The 12th-century Persian writer al-Marwazi wrote about the arrival of Turkmens to Muslim lands, portraying them as people of noble character who are strong and persistent in battle because of their nomadic lifestyle, and calling them sultans (rulers).^[19]

"Turkoman" entered into the usage of the Western world through the Byzantines in the 12th century.^[20] By the beginning of 13th century, it became an endonym among Oghuz Turks themselves.^[21]

The Turkmens also included the Yiva and Bayandur tribes, from which the ruling clans of the states of Qara Qoyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu emerged. After the fall of Aq Qoyunlu, the Turkmen tribes—partly under their own name, for example Afshars, Hajilu, Pornak, Deger, and Mavsellu—united in a Turkmen Qizilbash tribal confederation.^[22]

By the 10th century A.D, Turkmens were predominantly Muslim. They later found themselves divided into Sunni and Shia branches of Islam.^[23] Medieval Turkmens markedly contributed to the expansion of Islam with their extensive conquests of previously Christian lands, specifically those of Byzantine Anatolia and the Caucasus.^[24]

Language

Main articles: Oghuz languages, Middle Turkic languages, Old Anatolian Turkish, and Ottoman Turkish

Turkmens primarily spoke languages that belong or belonged to the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages, which included such languages and dialects as Seljuq, Old Anatolian Turkish, and old Ottoman Turkish.^[25] Kashgari had cited phonetic, lexical and grammatical features of the language of Oghuz-Turkmens;^[26] he also identified several dialects and presented a couple of examples displaying the differences.^[27]

Old Anatolian language, introduced to Anatolia by Seljuk Turkmens^[28][29] who migrated westward from Central Asia to Khorasan and further to Anatolia during the Seljuk expansion in the 11th century, was widely spoken by Turkmens of the area until the 15th century.^[30] It is also one of the known ancient languages within the Oghuz group of Turkic languages, along with old Ottoman.^[31] It displays certain characteristics peculiar to eastern Oghuz languages such as modern Turkmen and Khorasani Turkic languages,^[32][33] rather than western Oghuz languages such as Turkish or Azerbaijani. Such Old Anatolian Turkic features as bol- 'to be(come)', also present in modern Turkmen^[34] and Khorasani Turkic,^[35] is ol in modern Turkish.^[36]

Literature

Main articles: Azerbaijani literature, Turkish literature, and Turkmen literature

The Book of Dede Korkut is considered an Oghuz masterpiece.^[37][38] Other prominent works of literature produced during the High Middle Ages also include the Oghuzname, Battalname, Danishmendname, Köroğlu epics, which are part of the literary history of Azerbaijanis, Turks of Turkey, and Turkmens.^[39]

The Book of Dede Korkut is a collection of epics and stories bearing witness to the language, the way of life, religions, traditions and social norms of the Oghuz Turks.^[40]

Modern use

In Anatolia in the late Middle Ages, the term "Turkmen" was gradually supplanted by the term "Ottomans".^[41] The Ottoman ruling class identified themselves as Ottomans until the 19th century.^[42] In the late 19th century, as the Ottomans adopted European ideas of nationalism, they preferred to return to a more common term Turk instead of Turkmen, whereas previously Turk was used to exclusively refer to Anatolian peasants.^[43]

The term continued to be used interchangeably with other ethnohistorical terms for the Turkic people of the area, including Turk, Tatar and Ajam, well into the early 20th century.^[44][45][46] In the early 21st century, "Turkmen" remains as the self-name for the semi-nomadic tribes of the Terekime, a sub-ethnic group of the Azerbaijani people.^[47]

In the early 21st century, the ethnonyms "Turkoman" and "Turkmen" are still used by the Turkmens of Turkmenistan,^[48] who have sizeable groups in Iran,^[49][50] Afghanistan,^[51] Russia,^[52] Uzbekistan,^[53] Tajikistan^[54] and Pakistan,^[55] as well as Iraqi and Syrian Turkmens, descendants of the Oghuz Turks who mostly adhere to an Anatolian Turkish heritage and identity.^[56] Most Iraqi and Syrian Turkmens are descendants of Ottoman soldiers, traders, and civil servants who were taken into Iraq from Anatolia during the rule of the Ottoman Empire.^[57] Turks of Israel^[58] and Lebanon,^[59] Turkish sub-ethnic groups of Yoruks,^[60][61] Karapapaks (sub-ethnic group of Azerbaijanis)^[62] are also referred to as Turkmens.^[63][64]

"Turkoman", "Turkmen", "Turkman" and "Torkaman" were – and continue to be – used interchangeably.^[65][66][67]

Although the term has been mostly associated with Oghuz Turks, the term was also used by other non-Oghuz groups, most notably the Karluks, also renowned state builders of the Turkic world and the ancestors of modern Uzbeks and Uyghurs. The first Islamised Turkic state, the Karluk Kara-Khanid Khanate, comprised the first work called Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, written by Mahmoud Al-Kashgari, mentioned the term and expression in some occasions, and the Karakhanid rulers also evoked themselves as "Turcomen" at some points, though infrequently; this practise continued during the Chagatai Khanate.^[68][69]

The Karluk ruler and founder of the Timurid Empire, Timur, in his heated exchange message with Bayezid I, proclaimed himself as a Turcoman, and threatened war against the Ottomans:

Believe me, you are but pismire ant: don't seek to fight the elephants for they'll crush you under their feet. Shall a petty prince such as you contend with us? But your rodomontades (braggadocio) are not extraordinary; for a Turcoman never spake with judgement. If you don't follow our counsels you will regret it^[70]

Despite the Karluk descendants didn't express the "Turcoman" feeling so prominently like the Oghuz ones, their use of "Turcoman" identity did persist on, albeit via forms as "Turk" or "Turki", notably among the Uyghurs of Altishahr, the Karlukified Shaybanid Uzbeks of Transoxiana, and various South Asian Muslim groups inhabiting modern Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India (via the Mughal Empire); this link hanged on even after the modern designations of identities of both Uzbek and Uyghur ones and played a crucial role in facilitating Oghuz–Karluk connection after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.^{[71][72][73][74]}