Turkmens

Turkmen

A Turkmen man of Central Asia in traditional clothes, around 1905–1915.
Regions with significant populations
Turkmenistan:    4,150,000 Iraq:    700,000-5,000,000 [1] Iran:    2,000,000 Afghanistan:    500,000 Russia:    85,000[2][3]
Languages
Turkmen
Religion
Sunni Islam,Atheism
Related ethnic groups
Turkic peoples Oghuz Turks

Turkmen people (Türkmen or Түркмен, plural Türkmenler or Түркменлер) is a name currently applied to two Turkic peoples.

The origin of the word Turkmen remains unclear. According to popular etymologies as old as the eleventh century, the word derives from Turk plus the Iranian language element manand, and means "resembling a Turk." Modern scholars, on the other hand, have proposed that the element -man/-men acts as an intensifier and have translated the word as "pure Turk" or "most Turk-like of the Turks." ^[4]

The ending of the name has no relation to the English words "man" or "men."

Historically, all of the Western or Oghuz Turks have been called Türkmen or Turkoman, but nowadays the term is usually restricted to two Western Turkic groups: the Turkmen people of Turkmenistan and adjacent parts of Central Asia, and the Turkmen people of northern Iraq.

Turkmen in Central Asia

A Central Asian Turkmen girl and baby

The Turkmen people of Central Asia live in:

• Turkmenistan, where some 85% of the population, or about 4,300,000 people, are ethnic Turkmen
• Iran, where they are primarily concentrated in the provinces of Golestan and North Khorasan. Ethnologue puts the Turkmen-speaking population of Iran in 1997 at about 2,000,000.
• Afghanistan, where in 1995 there were some 500,000 speakers of Turkmen according to Ethnologue, concentrated primarily along the Turkmenistan border in the provinces of Faryab, Jowzjan, and Baghlan.

They speak the Turkmen language, one of the Western or Oghuz Turkic languages.

They traditionally wear large fur hats, a custom unique in the Turkic world.

Turkmen in Iraq

A people known as Turkmen (or Turkoman) live in northern Iraq, notably in the city of Kirkuk (where until recent decades they were the majority of the population), and in other northern cities and towns including Mosul and Arbil.

Estimates of their numbers vary dramatically, from 300,000 according to Ethnologue figures [5] up to 3,500,000. [6] Like the Turks of Turkey and the Azeris of Azerbaijan, they are descendants of the Turkic peoples who migrated out of Central Asia in numerous waves starting primarily in the 9th and 10th centuries, although there are earlier references to the presence of Turks in the region. Ethnologue and Linguasphere classify their spoken language as a form of South Azerbaijani. For their written language, however, the Turkmen of Iraq use the standard Turkish language of Turkey. [7]

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraqi Turkmen have emerged as a key political force in the controversy over the future status of northern Iraq and the Kurdish Autonomous Region. The government of Turkey has helped fund such political organizations as the Iraqi Turkmen Front, which opposes Iraqi federalism and in particular the proposed annexation of Kirkuk to Kurdistan.[8]

According to Zaman Daily Newspaper [9], some ten Turkmen individuals were elected to the transitional National Assembly of Iraq in January 2005, including 5 on the United Iraqi Alliance list, 3 from the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), and 2 from the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan.

In the December 2005 elections, about 5 Turkmen candidates were elected to the Council of Representatives, according to the ITF [10]. This included one candidate from the ITF (its leader Sadettin Ergec), and an estimated 4 candidates from other parties.

Notes

1. ^ This paragraph is a quote from Curtis, Glenn E. ed. Turkmenistan: a country study. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1996 (this work is not copyrighted). [11]

See also

• Turkmen language
• Oğuz Turks
• Demographics of Iran
• Ethnic minorities in Iran
• Yoruk