Ethnicity In Byzantine Anatolia

[Kosmo]

When the selgiuk turkish invasion took place most inhabitants of inner Anatolia were greeks or hellenized?

I know that in the coastal areas there was always a massive greek element, but I don't know about the inside regions. In the Caucasus and Cilicia armenians were present in numbers. Maybe isaurians also, but what about the people that we know from the hellenistic and roman times: bythnians, galatians, carians etc.

Did they became multilingual using greek in public and their own languages in their comunities?

I ask this because I wonder how the turks became the main ethnic element.

[Andrew Dalby]

When the selgiuk turkish invasion took place most inhabitants of inner Anatolia were greeks or hellenized?

I know that in the coastal areas there was always a massive greek element, but I don't know about the inside regions. In the Caucasus and Cilicia armenians were present in numbers. Maybe isaurians also, but what about the people that we know from the hellenistic and roman times: bythnians, galatians, carians etc.

Did they became multilingual using greek in public and their own languages in their comunities?

I ask this because I wonder how the turks became the main ethnic element.

 

Those various languages (Lydian, Lycian, Carian, Galatian, etc. etc.) were still spoken in the last two centuries BC, but it seems clear that they were rapidly giving way to Greek (because Greek was the language of the elite and of politics and commerce, also no doubt education). In the first centuries AD there is soon no further sign of any of them. Names in families changed in the direction of Greek, too. People were becoming Greek.

 

This did not happen with Armenian. As I tried to show in my /Language in Danger/, local languages under Greek and Roman rule were much less likely to die if they were cross-border languages, and that's the case with Armenian, since some of the Armenian-speaking area was (practically always) independent of Rome. The same must I think be true of Kurdish, which surely must also have been a cross-border language of the Roman Empire, though, so far as I know, there is no record of it at this time.

 

So, in Byzantine times, it was Greek across all of western and central Anatolia, up to the point where Armenian (and presumably Kurdish) would have begun.

[Kosmo]

Thank you!

I was never thinking of kurds when speaking about the Byzantine empire! Were they in the area at that time? Don't know much about their history before the XX century.

Anyway, my question was about Anatolia proper and not the eastern regions of Taurus and Caucasus were the turks were not present until later.

[Northern Neil]

Thank you!

I was never thinking of kurds when speaking about the Byzantine empire! Were they in the area at that time? Don't know much about their history before the XX century.

Anyway, my question was about Anatolia proper and not the eastern regions of Taurus and Caucasus were the turks were not present until later.

...unless one considers the Huns, who were almost certainly Turkic, if not Turkish.

[Kosmo]

I was refering to the selgiuk/osmanli turks.

I believe also that the huns were turkish, but there is no evidence for that.

And there is no evidence of huns settlement in Anatolia or other regions south of Caucasus

[Uros]

From what i know about Anatolia, the inner population was not greek, but has just said Andrew, these people speak greek language.

And Turkization(?) of Anatolia have a great boom only after Ottoman conquest.

In XIV

[Kosmo]

There were many greeks in Istanbul, mainly in Fanar area, but they were not the majority in the city. Areas like Smirna and Trabzon hed large greek poulations until the greek defeat in the war with Ataturk, but for the entire Anatolia they were still a minority.

I think turks became predominant in Inner Anatolia since the Rum sultanate, but the problem it's not clear.

[Uros]

True but is unquestionable that the Anatolia mainland is been greek at least for all XIII

[Kosmo]

I think you are right. It's hard to tell what happened there. Some were killed, some fled after Menzinkert and even later, other were assimilated while some groups remained for many centuries. The process ended in the times of Ataturk.

For the ottomans to be so strong they needed at least a minimal turkish speaking base so in late XIII century, early XIV century there was a turkish population in North Western Anatolia. Of course, many (maybe most) of their soldiers were in the begininng from the other selgiuk emirates further east and south.

[Uros]

Add also Turkization of people, conquered people often take masters customs and ways of life

[tolga]

i am a person from Anatolia. I am interested in old anatolian cultures. when doing some researche i found that site and saw ur argument on it.

 

i dont know how to explain my idea in a short tex. to say a few:

 

i have been in many part of Anatolia and i saw thet there re many type of face in every part of Anatolia. Many traditions living today have ancient anatolian root.

 

In the past in millet system of ottoman when u ask ordinary people their nationalty . they would say " i am muslim, Ortadoks or Armenian" the term Turk meant Muslim people so Arabians and Bosnian people Albanian people called Turk.

 

in the past the term Turk meant villager. you can see them in the old documents literatures......

My grandfather told me a story in which an old woman cursed him "you turk get out off that tree" when he was stealing some plum on the tree. But she was muslim and spoke turkish in his Village..... a simlpe turk according to todays standards.

 

I have some Armenian anchestery from my father line and I have a Greek grandmom (mother of my grandmom). People in turkey listen similar music with greek and Armenians. i am not similar to people in Turkistan. it cant.

 

may be i should say " i was hatti then persian....West roman..........Ottoman Turk..now i am turk in Turkey"

 

may be assimilated or not i think i am child of marriage between many anatolian cultures. May be if Byzantine didnt lost

i would be a greek or armenian or of another culture in Anatolia.

 

Thanks for reading me,

 

Best regards ..........

[docoflove1974]

may be i should say " i was hatti then persian....West roman..........Ottoman Turk..now i am turk in Turkey"

 

may be assimilated or not i think i am child of marriage between many anatolian cultures. May be if Byzantine didnt lost

i would be a greek or armenian or of another culture in Anatolia.

 

A very telling statement, Tolga. And quite a bit of truth in it: in the Anatolian geographic area, there have been so many different peoples and cultures, that there is quite the mix in the blood of modern Turks.

 

It reminds me of a conversation we had on here regarding Italians v. ancient Romans. I know that, though my mother's family is from Genoa and north-western Lombardy, I can't say that I have all that much 'Roman' blood in me, rather a mix of various Celtic tribes, Gothic, Roman, perhaps Etruscan...perhaps much more! And that's just my mother's side...my dad's family has been in the US since the days of the 13 Colonies, and there is Cherokee blood in there, too (another mish-mash). So who knows!

 

I don't know about you...but I'm just plain ol' human

[Kosmo]

A turkish friend of mine from Istanbul told me he is of laz origins and told me that they are generaly viewed by many turks as slow minded. The laz population lives around Trabzon (the eastern part of the turkish Black Sea border) and in neighbouring Georgia. Their direct ancestors lived in the roman province and the kingdom of Lazica where they were influenced by greeks and romans. After conversion to islam in ottoman times they were partially assimilated in the turk speaking population.

 

This is a fine example of how ethnicity survived, but was shaped by political change. The laz elite, maybe, started to became hellenized since Alexander and until after ottoman conquest retained a greek character. The ottoman supremacy made them convert to islam and this also inflenced their language. The turkish nationalism of the last century probably added to their assimilation.

 

As a side note the existance of laz population both in Trabzon area and in Georgia it's a possible explanation for the creation of the Trabzon Empire by the Commnens with the help of the georgian queen Tamara.

 

PS. I met sometime ago a beautiful turkish girl from Alanya (and her husband ) and she told me that some ancestor of her was sudanese. My 8 grand-grandparents were from 5 nations. The 4 with the same ethincity were from different regions. While I have mixed bloodlines I have just one ethnicity and I'm not very fond of it.

[tolga]

A turkish friend of mine from Istanbul told me he is of laz origins and told me that they are generaly viewed by many turks as slow minded. The laz population lives around Trabzon (the eastern part of the turkish Black Sea border) and in neighbouring Georgia. Their direct ancestors lived in the roman province and the kingdom of Lazica where they were influenced by greeks and romans. After conversion to islam in ottoman times they were partially assimilated in the turk speaking population.

 

This is a fine example of how ethnicity survived, but was shaped by political change. The laz elite, maybe, started to became hellenized since Alexander and until after ottoman conquest retained a greek character. The ottoman supremacy made them convert to islam and this also inflenced their language. The turkish nationalism of the last century probably added to their assimilation.

 

Kosmo,

 

i am a man from Turkey, My name is Tolga

 

i cant agree with ur Laz friends opinion about what turkish people in genereal think of them. Laz people are very clever people especialy they have natural ability for engineering and structural field. you can see them in many sector relating to these fields. They are well respected for their success. May be he or she was effected by some radical nationalist.

 

i dont understand what he or you meant by "saving their greek charecter". Greek culture and Turkish culture are very similar to each other. Traditions, clothes, dances, dishes.

 

Plus there wasnt a assimilation policy in historical records. May be we are people assimilated in the course of life without any interwentions. But the word "assimilation" doesnt explain much thing in Anatolia where is a crossroad of civilizations. if it would, we could easily find a solutions to our identity crisis in Anatolia.

 

i have many laz friend here i havent heard such things.

 

[Kosmo]

Tolga, maybe my firend was mistaken. I can't really say anything about the subject of how laz are viewed in Turkey. Many countries have jokes or preconceived opinions about people from regional groups like the jokes about scots.

 

"Greek culture and Turkish culture are very similar to each other. Traditions, clothes, dances, dishes." I fully agree, but we can't deny that they have different identity. The fact they are quite similar points to two directions.

1. Some populations of Anatolia were greeks or hellenized and they transmited this greek traditions to modern turks.

2. Turks, as overlords of Greece, transmited some of their customs to greeks. This happened in many areas not only in Greece. Words, stories, music, costumes were spread thruout the Balkans (some of them might have older, byzantine origins).

 

Ciorba, sarma, Nastratin Hogea etc are things that prove that Balkans and Anatolia had (for a very long time) a common civilisation despite different languages. The problem is (and I see no answer) on how it's defined an ethnic group. If only language it's the used criteria (like nationalist do) then greek expanded from the coastal regions to the interior of Anatolia and after this was gradually replaced by turkish. If we would use genetics we will find that some of the genes are there since a long time ago while others are from all corners of Eurasia.