Are Turkish people considered middle eastern or european?

Question

I always thought of the Turks to be middle eastern like Arabs, etc. I looked it up & it basically said the country is in the middle of the middle east & europe. So are they a mixture of both? Please explain.. thank you !!!

Answer 1

Totally blunt, look it up on on Google images, type: Middle East. Almost all of the maps have Turkey included. I know it's technically Anatolia, but that's getting into technicalities.

Answer 2

Depends on who does the "considering". I personally consider Turks neither entirely European nor entirely Middle Eastern. They are on the border, both geographically and culturally.

Answer 3

hi,

please check out this link:

Who Are the Turks?

by Justin & Carolyn McCarthy

http://www.ataturk.com/content/view/28/6...

Answer 4

'I always thought of the Turks to be middle eastern like Arabs'....that is just something you  'thought' like alot of people 'think' Italians have dark  slick hair and work for the mafia.

' I looked it up & it basically said the country is in the middle of the middle east & europe.'.......u looked it up and 'it' said that? well i looked america up and 'it' said america is near mexico,so americans mixed white and latino?

' So are they a mixture of both?' uhm...russia borders china,are russians a mixture of both?

im getting fed up of these types of questions,all u had to do was go to wikipedia and type in turks or turkey and ud find out anything,but u obvsiouly didnt 'look it up'.

Answer 5

We are not selfish like Europeans

We are not using religious knowledge at the education like Arabs.

By the way we are not Arab.

Answer 6

we are Turks, not European not middle eastern. we are Turkish !

Answer 7

Europeans or middle easterns are not races..There are areas/continents.

Turks are Caucasian->medditeranian/asian->central

And the country is considered Eurasian.

Also,boxlives70,i want to correct you to something:Crete, is not a country ,(you wrote about countries like:spain,crete,albania).

:)

edit: yes,I just corrected it ,because it look like you portrayed like a country.

Cretans are very "stuck" with Crete,Its a fact....

edit:i wonder why the thumbs down....LOL

Answer 8

Here we go again. I'll never grow tired of writing this. We are not Middle Eastern, we are not European, we are Turks. Geographically speaking, Turkey is a EuroAsian country.

Yahoo Answers had to put us into some category, right? I would much prefer them to put Turkey in "Turkey Continental" but they choose to put it into Europe. Why don't you consult them about their decision?

Answer 9

Why do people always try to put nations into "racial" categories?

" European" and " Middle-Eastern" are not races, they are just cultural concepts.

Turks belong to neither of these groups...Or we may consider they belong to both.

And also Central Asian, which isn't a race either.

Therefore we may say they are Eurasians.

edit : Mr Beemer : you are partially right about Turks having been mixed with Caucasians,Kurds,Arabs,Slavs Hellens, Persians. But you seem to confuse Turks and Mongolians, who were actually both Ouralo-Altaic ethnicities, and they are not the same nation. And there is big difference between Asians and other Asians, you know...Every Asian is not Chinese.

Answer 10

you probably think that what is the underlying truth about this debate or what's european identity mean? they all come from varied origin,culture,language etc. we're just turks  russia and turkey two of them span asia(mostly) and europe maybe thats why we see them under the europe category who knows

Answer 11

Turkey lies on 2 continents - Europe and Asia. Their origin is from Asia, but they are certainly not Arabs.

Answer 12

first of all turkish is an asian nation turkish came to europe with atilla the hun(huns r also turkish) im turkish livin now in kazakhstan my wife is russian and soon ll have a baby, about all this middle east thing in turkey living around 15 million kurdish who r middle eastern never mix turkish with kurdish , its vry easy to understan typical turkish is white to open brown skin dark hair 178-185 height cultured and kind , and never discuss dishwashers n waiters from ur holiday trip to turkey as a typical turkish man , we still have connections with asia and if ull look to the map al asia r turkic nations kazakistan turkmenistan kirgizistan tajikistan azerbeijan , and non of them r from middle east, we never was from middle east just read history and open a map

Answer 13

Classifications are becoming more and more out of touch with reality these days. Today I'm Anatolian. Tomorrow I may go over the bridge for business and become European. Do I ever realize? No.

Cheers!

PS. When was Anatolia ever considered Middle Eastern? Anatolia has always been Anatolia.

Edit: Desert Fox, these lands were called Asia Minor, not Western Middle East. Geographical, cultural and ethnic differences are proof.

Answer 14

Most of my ancestors came from European countries to Turkey (from Spain, Crete, Albania). This is what I know. I might have some Arabic roots as well because my family is from Mersin. I really don't know. It could be.

One of my best friends has Asian roots. He told me that some of his cousins look like Chinese. Today, I had some work in the Turkish Embassy and the guy at the desk had reddish blond hair and green eyes. It was the type that you can't put under the sun for more than 2 minutes. There are even black people in Turkey (I don't mean Mehmet Aurelio who is naturalized but black people with no connection to other countries).

Turkey is a melting pot and its people can't be put in stereotypes.

EDIT: You're sweet Gwen... Thank you!

EDIT: Crete is not a country of course. My grandmother was from Crete and spoke and wrote in Greek fluently. She used to say that she is from Crete. I never heard her saying I'm from Greece.

Answer 15

Turks come from Asia, genetically they are of chinese, seljuk, mongol origin. But now they are geographically located in Anatolia, racially mixed with Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Russians, Arabs, Persians, Assyrians.

Answer 16

The Turks are from outer space... we are descendants of a space race.. kinda like Klingons but far better than them

so your primal deifnitions -Asian-Middle Easttern or European- are too weak and useless to define the greatness of the Turkish race ..

Now you may dismiss to get a life.. go boy go

Answer 17

Lets talk about facts, Turks are mixed races and there are alot of Turkic countries, but TURKISH people are Turks from Turkey only. NO we are not arabs no we are not mongolians.

If u want to know about our roots, turks were originaly not asians, they were first mentioned by chinese people on silk road before the 9th millenium, turks were tradesmen and chinese described them as red haired people because aparently they mainly had either red hair or blonde hair. Turks were caucasian race that traveled to china and adapted their looks by mating with them.

Turks split into different groups such as ottomans, seljuks and huns and etc.

Today the turkish people from turkey (not azeri, not kazaks not uzbeks or any other turks) are located in euroasia, their genes are proven by scientists to be european because of years and years of mating with eastern europeans.

Turkish people are not arabs nor middle easterns, people may think that due to 20% population are kurds, kurds roots come from iran, so they are the reletives of the arabic people.  Some turkish may pass as an arab because of their dark hair and some turkish people has dark skin too. it is a natural mistake as many greeks in australia i have met I guessed their nationality as iranian, because they also have dark features.

As for turkish culture, turks culture is pretty much identical to the greeks, same music food looks and etc, the only thing apart is that turks are muslims and greeks are not. Many greeks has become turks just because they were muslim greeks and greece and turkey did population exchange.

Cypriot turks and cypriot greeks have identical genes, and those genes are different from the genes of Turkey and genes of Greece. I am a turkish cypriot and a greek nor turk can tel me apart from eachother.I have been to greece and Turkey.

My informations does not come from opinion they are facts.

If u want to search up about turkish people instead of listening to racist people who doesnt want turkish people in europe so they call us arabs, why dont u use wikipedia or watch a turkish movie? You will be suprised what we look like since people label us and stereo type us as total different looks.

Most people even think Turkey is 3rd world country when we are ranked 15th richest and our economy is boosting up fast.

Our country laws are Democratic, our country doesnt run by muslim religion.

Ne mutlu turkum diyene

Answer 18

i always thought Middle East . . .

Answer 19

bixlives: I am so sorry my hand slipped, and I accidentally gave you a thumbs down when I meant a thumbs up.  I am very sorry, and I actually think that your answer is very nice (note to asker)!

I wish the thumbs down button would not be so close to the thumbs up one!!