Why Do the Turkic Peoples Look Disimilar?

Question

Even the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks look different. By the Turkic peoples I mean the Turkish peoples stretching from Turkey all the way to Uighur Province in China

Answer 1

Think about the geographic area you are talking about.  It is kind of like asking, "Why do African people look dissimilar?"  Even Chinese have lots of variation.

But, to give an idea of some reason for why Turkic people in certain places tend to have certain features, basically note that any population tends to mix with the local population.  So, obviously Turks in Iran might resemble Iranians a little more than Turks in China (though, I must say that Uighurs have a surprising amount of Caucasoid resemblance given their location).  Turks in Turkey will then clearly have mixed with the various native Anatolian populations, not to mention Ottoman populations in general.

Then again, I might have a hard time differentiating between a Kirgiz Turk and a Turk from Kazakhstan, or even between a Turkmen and an Ozbek Turk.  Interestingly, last summer a Ukrainian physicist passing by was so curious about where I was from, and when I finally answered "Turkey", he noted that I look "much more Turkmen than Ozbek".  He explained that Turkmen tend to have narrower faces and finer features than Ozbeks, whom he said have very round faces and much more pronounced Asiatic features.  But, I know some Iranian Turkmen with extremely round faces, some with super slanted (though blue!) eyes.

My mom-in-law told me that my halalar (father's sisters) look "tam Selcuklu" (exactly Selcuk), but I am not exactly sure what that entails either.

Add: Per Fidget, I would also like to note that although Turks are clearly a "mixed" population, it is not obvious exactly *when* all the mixing occurred.  We have buffered Caucasians and Asians for millenia, which can also be seen from some fair and Persian-featured Uighur Turks all the way in China.  I think that, even more than the post-Ottoman mixing with the West, a DNA test across the board (Anatolia through the steppes, to the end of Siberia) would be likely to reveal variation (from Caucosoid features and coloring to Mongolian features and coloring) amongst Turkic populations that goes back a long long time.  I am curious: Can anyone refute or support this now?

Add: Oekaki, you are right about big cities and the coasts, but some Central Anatolian villages are still fairly Turkic.  At least my father's and buyuk-anneanne's villages were known to be Turkmen, Afsar, and Karamanoglu (in Konya and near Karaman).  My mom's father and maternal grandfather are a different story though since they were not of rural origin (thus I too am mixed).  So, Turkish people tend to be mixed in the cities would be more accurate to say, I think.

Answer 2

Turks of Turkey are not Turkic by ethnicity. Their language and some aspects of their culture are Turkic (or have Turkic origins), but genetically they are quite mixed.

Answer 3

It would be interesting to look at the Mitochondrial DNA of a specimen of Turkic people. It would reveal an immense variety of ancestral genes.

Remember that post Islamic influence on the Turks, moslem men have always been able to take non-moslem wives which means a lot of new blood (and new gene pool) coming in to play. Just look at the Ottoman sultans - not one of them had an originally moslem (ie Turkish) mother! One (Aimee/Naksedil) was French - a cousin of Napoleon's Josephine, another (Roxelana/Hurrem Sultan) was Slavic.

During the Ottoman period (at least) people travelled, lived and worked in widely different areas, inevitably they inter-married.

Through many years of teaching in Turkey I have had students of almost every racial type - red-heads, blue-eyed, Asian looking, Slavic, Mediterranean, blonde etc -  All Turks! Some knew of a Bulgarian/Circassian/Creten etc (great) grand-parent; many didn't, but the evidence was before my eyes!

I'm all for it - I myself know I have English, Welsh, Irish, Dutch, German, Spanish and Italian blood! The next generation can add Turkish, French and American to that list. We are all mongrels, it makes us strong!

Answer 4

hi,

please check out this link:

Who Are the Turks?

by Justin & Carolyn McCarthy,

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

Answer 5

Because Turkic peoples cover a vast, vast area, and we all have been mixed with our neighbors.

Did you know that certain native tribes in Northern America carry Turkic genes? Proven fact.

They don't look like Uygurs much, now, do they?

Answer 6

Even Koreans and Japanese are ethnically related to Turks. Mongols look far more Chinese than Turks but ethnically and linguistically Mongolians are more Turkic than Chinese. It depends how far back you want to go.

East Asians are generally very attracted to eurasians but they don't realise that central asia is where most eurasian-looking people are located.

Answer 7

For the same reason why Northern Germans have more Slavic features than the Southern ones. For the same reasons why Northern Italians/Spaniards look lighter than the Southern ones. For the same reason why some Russians from the East look different than the ones from St.Petersburg. It depends on the amount of intermixing and how affective the climate was on physiognomy. Still, I doubt you'll find people saying "I'm Slavic/Germanic" in Turkey, if one has to choose, we're all Turkic. What is the use of telling a Northern German fighting the Russians that he is more Slavic than Germanic?