Turkey did not become Turkish for quite some time after the Seljuk
Not too sure about the details. I just checked, and historians are not that sure, either, it seems. What seems certain is that the Ottoman Tribe settled in a place called "Sogut" in 1231. At that time, there were Turks settled to the west of Ankara, apparently - Ankara is smack in the middle of Turkey of today, so I guess there were Turkish settlements before then.
I have not looked into this stuff for a long time, but I clearly remember Alp Arslan's 1071 victory over the Byzantine Empire to be cited repeatedly as the beginning of Turkish settlement in Anatolia, as in the link I posted before.
(Not that any of this matters. It's just fun to debate :-)
The irony here is that the Turkish kings of Iran supported and expanded the Persian culture in the society at large, even as they kept Turkish the language of court to varying extents. But in Turkey the culture that was emphasized and expanded in the society was Turkish, even as the kings often emphasized Persian in their courts.
Yes, I always thought that was very bizarre. It got to a certain point where the people could not understand most of what the elite were talking about. Ottoman Divan Literature was in some strange mix of Persian, Arab, and Turkish, and hence incomprehensible to the layman. Very strange indeed...
BTW, Azaris are not as Turkish as you may think.
Not sure about the genetics at all. I was more trying to point out that it is a race of people who came from Central Asia, with the language that has remained behind as proof. I already said, anyway, that I doubt if there is much genetic link left between Turks in Turkey (especially in the west) and those who stayed in Central Asia.
Their two major effects was the conversion of Azaris into "Turks" and the conversion of Iranians into Shia.
I'd like to hear more about that if you have the time to write more... |
