Turkmens

The Turkmens or Turkomans (Turkmen: Türkmen/Түркмен, plural Türkmenler/Түркменлер) are a Turkic people located primarily in Central Asia, in the state of Turkmenistan, as well as in Iran, Afghanistan, North Caucasus (Stavropol Krai), and northern Pakistan. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Eastern Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages. Examples of other Oghuz languages are Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai, Gagauz, Khorasani, and Salar.

Central Asian Turkmens are not to be confused with the Turkmens (or the Turcomans) of the Near East, found primarily in Iraq (see Iraqi Turkmens), Syria (see Syrian Turkmens) and Turkey (see Yörüks), with whom they only share their ethnonym due to the fact that "Turkmen" was once a generic ethnonym for Oghuz Turkic tribes which had embraced Islam.

Origins