Ottoman Turks

Ottoman Turks
Osmanlı Türkleri
Painting of an Ottoman Turkish sipahi, 1657
Total population
Regions with significant populations
 Ottoman Empire (esp. Anatolia and Balkans)[1]
Languages
Old Anatolian Turkish[note 4]
Ottoman Turkish[note 5]
Religion
Sunni Islam (majority)
Alevism (minority)
Related ethnic groups
Turkish people
  1. ^ Muslims of the Ottoman Empire, excluding the Vilayet of the Hejaz.
  2. ^ Muslims of the Ottoman Empire, excluding the Vilayet of the Hejaz.
  3. ^ Muslims of Anatolia and some parts of the Balkans.
  4. ^ Among peasantry and non-elite urban population.
  5. ^ In literature and by elites.

The Ottoman Turks (Turkish: Osmanlı Türkleri) were a Turkic ethnic group native to Anatolia. Originally from Central Asia, they migrated to Anatolia in the 13th century and founded the Ottoman Empire, in which they remained socio-politically dominant for the entirety of the six centuries that it existed. Their descendants are the present-day Turkish people, who comprise the majority of the population in the Republic of Turkey, which was established shortly after the end of World War I.

Reliable information about the early history of the Ottoman Turks remains scarce, but they take their Turkish name Osmanlı from Osman I, who founded the House of Osman alongside the Ottoman Empire; the name "Osman" was altered to "Ottoman" when it was transliterated into some European languages over time. The Ottoman principality, expanding from Söğüt, gradually began incorporating other Turkish-speaking Muslims and non-Turkish Christians into their realm. By the 1350s, they had begun crossing into Europe and eventually came to dominate the Mediterranean Sea. In 1453, the fall of Constantinople, which had served as the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, enabled the Ottoman Turks to control all major land routes between Asia and Europe. This development forced Western Europeans to find other ways to trade with Asians.[2][3][4] Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Turkish identity ceased to exist; the Ottoman Turkish language, which was written using the Perso-Arabic script, developed into the modern Latinized Turkish language.

  1. ^ Shaw, Stanford (1978). "The Ottoman Census System and Population, 1831-1914". Cambridge. JSTOR 162768.
  2. ^ Tolan, John; Veinstein, Gilles; Henry Laurens (2013). Europe and the Islamic World: A History. Princeton University Press. pp. 167–188. ISBN 978-0-691-14705-5.
  3. ^ İnalcık, Halil (1989). "Chapter VII. The Ottoman Turks and the Crusades, 1329-1451". In Zacour, N. P., and Hazard, H. W. (ed.). A History of the Crusades: Volume VI. The Impact of the Crusades on Europe. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. pp.175-221.
  4. ^ İnalcık, Halil (1989). "Chapter VII. The Ottoman Turks and the Crusades, 1451-1522". In Zacour, N. P., and Hazard, H. W. (ed.). A History of the Crusades: Volume VI. The Impact of the Crusades on Europe. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 311-353.