The People of Turkey

[dave_c]

How would you class a Turkish person? Since their boundaries lie in two continents, alot of their people are of an arab appearance but many of their people are of a Caucasian appearance. In a few years time they will be part of the EU, so are they arab or european?

[bernardo]

Some of them are European; some are Asian.  There may be a few Arabs living in Turkey, but most are not.

[dave_c]

But what do you mean in term 'Asian'? It's eastern side of turkey is part of Asia, but by that it means the Middle East (which is part of Asia) that includes Iran, Iraq, Syria etc. I always thought Turkey was mainly populated by European and Arab ethnicity, Turks would be insulted if one doesnt acknowledge their Arab background.

That's the thing about the UK the word 'Asian' is used so narrowly, people from the middle east and far east need some of acknowledement.

[Hgrove]

Actually I always thought the Turks were *not* Arab at all - although I am not actually sure what their ethnicity is.  The Turkish language is not connectect with Arabic;  it is distantly connected to Hungarian and Finnish so the Turks might be connected to those populations also.

[Hgrove]

I searched "Turks" on Wikipedia and got redirected to "Turkic".  It seems to say that the Turks are all those who speak a language of the Turkic (Altaic) family.  I'll try the link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks#Geographical_Distribution_and_ethnic_division

hope it works.

[Octavius]

Eastern Mediterranean.

 

Located on two continents: Europe and Asia. The European part of Turkey is called Thrace, while the Asian part is called Anatolia (or Asia Minor)

[bernardo]

By the term "Asian" I mean "living in, or originating from, the contintent of Asia".  By this definition, 2% are Europeanand 98% are Asian.  Only a very small percentage is Arab (if any).

[Octavius]

But 100% Turkish

[Peter Pedant]

I must say I thought the Turks divided their own country into european and asiatic - the anatolian bit is or was Asia minor.

Turkish is nothing to do with Arabic - although it used arabic script up to around 1922

[simena]

Their roots are nothing to do with Arabs. However they are mainly coming from middle Asia to help Arabs for the religous wars by 7th-8th centuries. Then they settled around the middle east countries and mainly in Anatolia (easian side of the Turkey now). They are effected by Europians, Arabs and from Romans during their history. However during last century their interest as well as their relationships with Europian countries is getting increased. If your question is related to their genetic structure :) no they have no relatives from UK, Danmark, Germany, Poland etc.. as well as Arabs. If your question is related to geography as well as culture I can call them as Europian since I beleive Eropian culture has that band-width to cover this culture as well, comparing all existing and coming EU contries!