Turks

Not to be confused with Turkey.

Turkish people or Turks (Turkish: Türkler) are the largest Turkic people who speak various dialects of the Turkish language and form a majority in Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Most Turks are Muslims. There is also a large Turkish diaspora in the Middle East and Europe due to the past extent of the Ottoman Empire and current immigration of Turks to these regions.

Quotes about Turks

• To illustrate how dramatically populations can displace each other over time, the historian E.M. Kulischer once reminded his readers that in A.D. 900 Berlin had no Germans, Moscow had no Russians, Budapest had no Hungarians, Madrid was a Moorish settlement, and Constantinople had hardly any Turks. He added that the Normans had not yet settled in Great Britain and before the sixteenth century there were no Europeans living in North or South America, Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa.
  • Neil Howe, Richard Jackson (2008) The Graying of the Great Powers: Demography and Geopolitics in the 21st Century. p. 15

• All Turkes do detest the colour of blacke, and thinke those that weare it, shall never enter into Paradise: But the colour of greatest request among them is greene; wherewith if any Christian be apparrelled, he shall be sure of Bastinadoes, and other punishments: Neither may he use the name of their Prophet Mahomet in his mouth, (under the paine of a cruell censure to be inflicted upon him) whom they so much adore, and honour.
  • William Lithgow, Totall Discourse, IV, 145