Republic of Turkey or... Republic of Anatolia?

[poiuytrewq0987]

Turks today have very little original Turkic inputs. In a way, Oghuz Turks were Anatolian-washed (the original term being white-washed) by Anatolian peoples. They who were largely unaffiliated until the Oghuzs when they started to align with a group of conquerors, a first after many conquerors came to pass.

Modern Anatolians are a mixture of various migrants who came to the region in the past and of original Anatolian peoples like Hitties.

I believe the collapse of the Hittie Empire was a major life-changing event for many Anatolians. It gave way for various conquerors like Persians and Macedonians to easily shift control of the region to one other and force down several failed Persianizations, Hellenizations, Romanizations on the people.

If the Hittie Empire didn't collapse, a strong modern Anatolian identity indigenous to the region might have emerged.

But alas, that didn't happen, instead, a foreign Muslim Turkish largely the result of the Golden Horde conquered the region and for some reason a lot of Anatolians liked them and converted to their cause and religion. It was there, that single decision by Anatolians, made the forging of modern Turkish identity by likes of Ataturk inevitable.

Now, my question, as stated in the thread title, is... should Turks remain true to their identity their possible predecessors from far back adopted and further solidified by Ataturk or try to return to a more older, indigenous identity of the Hitties that could have emerged had the Hittie Empire avoided collapse?

[Padre Organtino]

Erm, actually they have nothing to do with Hittites and more with Pontic Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, Lazs and etc. That age old identity was long gone even before Turkish invaders came.

[poiuytrewq0987]

Erm, actually they have nothing to do with Hittites and more with Pontic Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, Lazs and etc. That age old identity was long gone even before Turkish invaders came.

I never said they were direct descendants of Hitties but it's logical to believe that the bulk of Anatolian peoples descended from the people who lived under that empire (an empire which was indigenous to the region). They remained unaffiliated mostly and only identified with Greek, Armenian and Roman empires because they came and conquered them. But it is clear that none of Anatolians felt true to their conquerors until the Turks came and they finally began to support an empire that conquered them en masse.

[Eva]

Those are artificial attempts to somehow integrate Turks into the region.

No Hittite speaker ever became Turkish speaker.
The transition was not directly from some ancient Anatolian language into Turkish. They first became Armenian or Greek and only then, after the Turkish invasion did many of them Forcefully become muslim and speak Turkish.

[Padre Organtino]

I never said they were direct descendants of Hitties but it's logical to believe that the bulk of Anatolian peoples descended from the people who lived under that empire (an empire which was indigenous to the region). They remained unaffiliated mostly and only identified with Greek, Armenian and Roman empires because they came and conquered them. But it is clear that none of Anatolians felt true to their conquerors until the Turks came and they finally began to support an empire that conquered them en masse.

By the time Turks came such identity did not exist and I dare to say that Georgian/Armenians were there next to Hittites practically from the start of the time. So if anything Turks can rediscover their Balkan/Caucasus identities but Hitites and the like are just history and nothing more.

[Ar-Man]

This is one of their funny theories, when they claim that Summerians spoke turkish

[orangepulp]

Now, my question, as stated in the thread title, is... should Turks remain true to their identity their possible predecessors from far back adopted and further solidified by Ataturk or try to return to a more older, indigenous identity of the Hitties that could have emerged had the Hittie Empire avoided collapse?

First of all we do have Turkic roots even if minor. Second we must look at other aspects other than genetics such as language and culture. We speak a Turkic language and we do have some Turkic culture along with native culture.

Before the Turkic conquest, the natives of Asia Minor identified as Romans and spoke a Roman language though the natives were not Greek. Now that the conquerors were Turks the natives intermingled and identified as Turks. The ruling class dominates.

[Peyrol]

First of all we do have Turkic roots even if minor. Second we must look at other aspects other than genetics such as language and culture. We speak a Turkic language and we do have some Turkic culture along with native culture.

Before the Turkic conquest, the natives of Asia Minor identified as Romans and spoke a Roman language though the natives were not Greek. Now that the conquerors were Turks the natives intermingled and identified as Turks. The ruling class dominates.

Latin never had a deep penetration in ancient Anatolia, infact no-one romance language has developed in the region after Western Empire collapse...most diffused languages were greek koinè, ancient armenian and probabily also a bit of ancient persian.

[Nairi]

Latin never had a deep penetration in ancient Anatolia, infact no-one romance language has developed in the region after Western Empire collapse...most diffused languages were greek koinè, ancient armenian and probabily also a bit of ancient persian.

It's an infamous Turkish way, all Armenian churches also are presented to tourists as Roman/Byzantine.

[Γέλως]

Before the Turkic conquest, the natives of Asia Minor identified as Romans and spoke a Roman language though the natives were not Greek.

By Late Antiquity, the Greeks referred to themselves as Rhomaioi (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι) or Romioi (Greek: Ρωμιοί), i.e. "Romans", since after AD 212 virtually all Greeks were Roman citizens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Greeks

Linguistically, Byzantine or medieval Greek is situated between the Hellenistic (Koine) and modern phases of the language. Since as early as the Hellenistic era, Greek had been the lingua franca of the educated elites of the Eastern Mediterranean, spoken natively in the southern Balkans, the Greek islands, Asia Minor and the ancient and Hellenistic Greek colonies of Western Asia and Northern Africa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Greeks#Language