Turcomans

Turkoman (Middle Turkic: تُركْمانْ, ota, تركمن, Türkmen and ''Türkmân''; az, Türkman and ', tr, Türkmen, tk, Türkmen, Persian: ترکمن sing. ''Turkamān'', pl. ''Tarākimah''), also called Turcoman and Turkman, is a term that was widely used during the Middle Ages for the people of Oghuz Turkic origin. Oghuz Turks were a western Turkic people that, in the 8th century A.D, formed a tribal confederation in an area between the Aral and Caspian seas in Central Asia, and spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family.

''Turkmen'', originally an exonym, dates from the High Middle Ages, along with the ancient and familiar name " Turk" (), and tribal names such as " Bayat", "Bayandur", " Afshar", " Kayi", and others. By the 10th century, Islamic sources were calling Oghuz Turks as Muslim Turkmens, as opposed to Shamanist or Buddhist Turks. It entered into the usage of the Western world through the Byzantines in the 12th century, since by that time Oghuz Turks were overwhelmingly Muslim. Later, the term "Oghuz" was gradually supplanted by "Turkmen" among Oghuz Turks themselves, thus turning an exonym into an endonym, a process which was completed by the beginning of the 13th century.

In Anatolia, since the Late Middle Ages, "Turkmen" was superseded by the term " Ottoman", which came from the name of the Ottoman Empire and its ruling dynasty. It remains as an endonym of semi-nomadic tribes of the Terekeme, a sub-ethnic group of the Azerbaijani people.

Today, a significant percentage of residents of Azerbaijan, Gagauzia, Turkey, and Turkmenistan are descendants of Oghuz Turks (Turkmens), and the languages they speak belong to the Oghuz group of the Turkic language family. As of the early 21st century, this ethnonym is still used by the Turkmens of Central Asia, the main population of Turkmenistan, who have sizeable groups in Iran, Afghanistan and Russia, as well as Iraqi and Syrian Turkmens, the other descendants of Oghuz Turks.

Etymology and history

The current majority view for the etymology of the ethnonym ''Türkmen'' or ''Turcoman'' is that it comes from ''Türk'' and the Turkic emphasizing suffix ''-men'', meaning "'most Turkish of the Turks' or 'pure-blooded Turks.'" A folk etymology, dating back to the Middle Ages and found in 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 formerly the dominant etymology in modern scholarship, this mixed Turkic-Persian derivation is now viewed as incorrect.

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. According to medieval Islamic authors Al-Biruni and al-Marwazi, the term Turkmen referred to the Oghuz who converted to Islam.Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur,
Genealogy of the Turkmens

Commentary 132
''Then the name "Turkmen" was assigned to one of the most powerful tribal associations - to the Oghuz people.'' There is evidence, however, that non-Oghuz Turks such as Karluks also have been called Turkomans and Turkmens. 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.

Originally an exonym, the term "Turkmen" was used along with the ancient and familiar name "Turk" (türk), and tribal names such as "Bayat", "Bayandur", "Afshar", "Kayi", and others. By the 10th century, Islamic sources were referring to Oghuz Turks as Muslim Turkmens, to distinguish them from Shamanist or Buddhist Turks.

11th century was the era of the Seljuq conquests in Central Asia and the Middle East. Muslim Oghuz people, generally identified as Turkmens by then, 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. These Seljuk Turkmens moved from their homeland in Transoxiana through the Qara Qum desert to the edges of Ghaznavid Khorasan in the 1020s. Later, large groups of Turkmens moved with their flocks and herds westward to Ray and Jebal, and as far west as Azerbaijan by 1030. Punitive Ghaznavid counter-attacks pushed some of these Turkmens back, but other bands were already plundering towns across the whole of northern Khorasan, severely impeding caravan traffic and commercial life, as well as destroying the oases by the pasturing of their sheep and horses. The decisive Seljuk victory over the Ghaznavid army at Dandanaqan in 1040 enabled the Seljuq dynasty to establish their own polity in Iran and beyond.

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. The 12th-century Persian writer al-Marwazi wrote:

It was during those years that "Turkoman" entered into the usage of the Western world through the Byzantines in the 12th century, since by that time Oghuz Turks were largely Muslim. Later, the term "Oghuz" was successively superseded by the term "Turkmen" among Oghuz Turks themselves, thus becoming an endonym. This process was completed by the beginning of the 13th century.

Towards the High Middle Ages, the eastern part of Anatolia became known as "Turkomania" in European texts and as "Turkmeneli" in Ottoman sources. The center of the Turkmen settlement in the territory of modern-day Iraq became Kirkuk. The Turkmens also included the Ive 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.

Modern use

In Anatolia in the late Middle Ages, the term "Turkmen" was gradually supplanted by the term "Ottomans". The Ottoman ruling class identified themselves as Ottomans until the 19th century. 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.

The use of "Turkmen" as an ethnonym for the Turks living in Iranian Azerbaijan disappeared from common use after the 17th and 18th centuries. It continued to be used interchangeably with other ethnohistorical terms for the Turkic people of the area, including Turk, Tatar

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