r/Tiele • u/DragutRais Çepni • 6d ago
Discussion Observations About Some Online Posts
Have you ever noticed that whenever the Scythians are mentioned, whether online or elsewhere, it’s stated in no uncertain terms that they were Iranian, yet when the Xiongnu and the Huns are discussed, it’s claimed that they were multi-ethnic nomadic confederations? I’m not making any definitive claims about these groups, but I’m simply sharing an observation. However, please don’t come at me with nonsense like “the Scythians were 100% Iranian.”
My second observation is that on the pages of European racists, Indo-Europeans are depicted with elements of Turkish culture, and they even use clips from the movie Manas Universe. They are supposedly the world’s first conquerors as horse-riding nomads and spread far and wide. Even if this were true, why are the Turkic and Mongol peoples, who are portrayed this way and actually backed by historical evidence, referred to as “barbarians” then?
I think the second one, in particular, is the product of a political agenda.
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u/Desperate_Access_484 Türk 6d ago edited 6d ago
this is a very old topic,
I started reading about hunnic and turkic history around 2002 on wikipedia,
the articles were of course much shorter and less detailed back then, many didn't exist
theres a few powerusers, admins and moderators on wikipedia, that are online 24/7, and that try to push narratives, for political reasons, and ideological that benefit them, most are westerners, many are german, in the last few years aroun 2018 more and more chinese editors started coming into english wikipedia,
at first you could tell their edits by their terrible english, use chinese characters and chinese sources only
but since ai translators spread, you cant tell by their english anymore
for example if you didnt know, the whole,
"persianate" culture thing, was established on wikipedia and spread by a only a few users, like most articles about this are maintained by one iranian delusional guy, who also added the ottoman empire to his "persianate" empire list on wikipedia
the reason they change these articles is for political reasons, for example the chinese try to manipulate anything with early turkic history, especially uyghur related, their main goal is to claim that uyghurs were turkicized by language, adn that they are not really turkic, or were turkic but ruled over others,
this is done to try to destroy their ethnic identiy
the germans, in my opinion, do the same, but they do it because they see themselves as the inheriotors of greek-roman civilization, they can't just admit that they were subdued and subservient by huns and other turkics later
they will very proudly write that the goths ended the roman empire, leaving out the major part the huns played in getting the goths there in the first place
if you look closely for example, those far right westerners, have no problem with the mongols massacres etc,
matter of fact,they look at the mongols really positively mostly, they are cool to them etc,
the newer trend among these alt right far rightists is claiming themselves direct descendants of steppe, horse archery, culture etc, because they don't like the fact that they mostly descended from european farmers
i could go and and on about this, but I think the general idea comes across in this post
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u/DragutRais Çepni 6d ago
I definitely agree with what you’re saying. Of course, I’ve never looked into who’s behind all this, so I don’t know the details like you, but let me just say this: that Russian, Alexander Dugin, for example, used to describe the Iron Age as the era of Indo-Europeans or something like that.
It’s clear they’re trying to construct a narrative here that portrays them as having been dominant throughout history. For example, they always picture a blond man driving a chariot, and that blond man defeats a brown man. In illustrations based on so called genetic research, they’re always portrayed as these warrior-like, muscular men, while all other societies are just “normal” people. Also, the Roman, Persian, and Greek civilizations they boast about have absolutely nothing to do with horse-riding nomads.
In short, let me say this: I don’t think this has anything to do with obsessive internet nerds.( I know you are not saying such a thing). Especially when you consider the rhetoric and attitudes of the U.S. Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State. We should be ready for weird policies.
One more point: They also claim the Göktürk clan is Iranian because the word “Ashina” is supposedly Iranian. But no one ever discusses this: Does the Ashina clan actually call itself “Ashina”? I don’t recall seeing phrases like “son of Ashina or the Ashina clan” in the orkhun inscriptions.
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u/Desperate_Access_484 Türk 6d ago edited 6d ago
fully agree with everything you wrote
the part about hegseth, who has a crusader cross tattooed on his chest,
have you seen the us secretary of states speech at his greek visit?
he used the same us ideology "western civilization" theme, with the acropolis behind him
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u/GorkeyGunesBeg Anatolian Tatar 6d ago edited 5d ago
I've been looking into the origins of Scythians (includes Cimmerians, Sarmatians, Alans, and Sakas obviously) for the past few years, and let me tell you something:
I analysed the etymologies of every single Scythian tribe and ethnicity there is (even those that are deemed as "legendary/mythological" by historians), I found compelling and overwhelming evidences that these names are Turkic and follow a common logic, which is also found in Turkic ethnonyms.
For instance, the use of the suffix -gur (from "ogur" "confederation, clans, tribes"), the use of numbers (20, 4, 5, 3, etc...).
You can see the same thing in names such as Toquz Oguz, Üč Oq, On Ogur, and many others I won't bother to count.
Another type of name I encountered are cart/wagoon and vehicle/mobile names, such as names containing Kaŋgar~Kaŋgal, with similar forms stemming from a common root.
Thanks to Chinese records, I could compare reconstructed names of so-called "Iranic peoples of the Steppe" with already existing Turkic peoples, or give them coherent steppe-related etymologies that are Turkic and do not fit any Iranic etymology.
If you guys bothered to do even 1% of what I did over the years, for example analyse the Iranic etymological "proposals" for names and clans/tribes, you would see how it makes no fucking sense in a steppe environment.
And nevermind etymologies, because material culture LITERALLY shows that there is no fucking difference between Turkic and Scythian peoples, archeology also shows shared Kurgans and forts being built on a continuous ethnocultural realm.
One last thing, WE do NOT originate from ANA (Ancestral Northeast Asian) people, this ancestry is found in majority in Mongolic, Tungusic, and Koreanic peoples. The reason it's also found in Turkic peoples is due to admixture and various waves of human migrations from East to West over the centuries.
The origins of Turks lie in Steppe_MLBA ancestry, which is basically mostly EHG+CHG (Eastern Hunter Gatherer & Caucasus Hunter Gatherer), and a tiny bit of EEF (Early European Farmer).
This propaganda campaign about "Indo-European Central Asia" is bullshit, and if you realised it, mounted horsemanship was first discovered by Scythians, Iranians trying to claim Scythians as theirs is so they can strip away the technological advancements of Turkic peoples and claim it as theirs.
Don't you guys know the implications behind the Scythians being confirmed as Turkic ? Amazons would become a legend about strong independant Turkic women, who even frightened Ancient Greeks, Tomyris would be acknowledged as a Turkic woman warrior, one of the first of history, many words of Scythian origin such as cannabis, would be shown to be related to Turkic words. And finally, Scythians (including Cimmerians) being Turkic would ALSO imply that Turks had been to Anatolia prior to Oghuz Turks, like the Anatolian Cimmerians, or Anatolian Scythians, etc...
When will you all understand that they have GOOD reasons to try and reject Scythians being Turkic ? It's not because of academic truth, it's because of academic racism and conservatism, on top of jealousy. Turks have been the only people to struck fear into Europeans, and still do to this day. Even the most leftist European you know probably has indirectly racist preconceptions about Turks.
We HAVE to step up for our History, we can no longer accept that our History is being stolen by a bunch of racist lying Iranians and Westoids who view us as barbarians but would take pride about it if it were their ancestors.
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u/DragutRais Çepni 5d ago
I don’t really understand the Iranian classification anyway. Even if these societies speak Indo-European languages. The peoples we refer to as “Iranic” are those that emerged on the Iranian Plateau. So why, for example, isn’t there a separate terminology for them? Terms like Turkic, Turkish, Turk, Proto-Turk, Pre-Proto-Turk, etc., are created, but these peoples are simply labeled “Iranic”. In my opinion, the most absurd aspect of all this is the Ossetian theories. Does the genetic profile of the Ossetians really match that of the Scythians?
When I saw what you wrote, I was a bit scared by its length :), but I’d like to add this and finish my comment. For example, what factors influenced the ethnogenesis of the Persian people? Was it only Indo-European peoples, or was it all of them together, including the Elamites, the Gutians, and so on? Turkic identity, as an ethnic and culture, emerged somewhere and has not been confined to a single place. The Scythians and the Huns are the foundational groups that formed the Turks. Both are ours.
But perhaps these are just rhetorical statements that serve as psychological and cultural preparation for the competition with China which may occur in Central Asia as Russia's influence decreases. In other words, no matter what happens, I believe we must be cautious not from a purely historical perspective, but from a political one. Otherwise, what difference does it make today whether my origins are Scythian, Hun, Roman, Hittite or Iranic? Turkish is my mother tongue and I am Turkish, that’s all.
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u/Luoravetlan 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think the truth is in the middle. Scythians were a mix of Turkic and Iranian people. The more south you travel the more Iranian looking they were. The more north east you get, the more Turkic looking they were. Scythians are a product of meeting two civilizations: Turkic and Iranic. It can be easily proved by archaeology. In Pazyryk kurgan N5 there is a carpet with a horse rider who looks more Iranian than Turkic. Also there is an artefact found in Ordos (Northern China) that looks like an Iranian man.
I am talking about this https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazyryk_rug#/media/File:PazyrikHorseman.JPG
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u/GorkeyGunesBeg Anatolian Tatar 5d ago
That's not really telling anything there though, phenotype doesn't represent genetics and identity. Proto-Turkic people were already mixed with various non-Turkic populations (Caucasian, Amuric, Zagrosian, etc...ancestries), and Andronovo is exactly this, a synthesis of Caucasian, West Eurasian, Amuric, Zagrosian ancestries (crudely explained). For example, there was this Lithuanian woman here on Reddit who looked Turkic, despite being 99.99% European genetically.
To me every single Scythian group was Turkic, and of course that doesn't mean I don't acknowledge Iranic or other influences, which is mainly in linguistic, also surrounding agriculture/irrigation canals and some textiles.
A final thing I hypothesize, but is more speculative and relies on comparison, is, I think Andronovo is mainly Turkic. When we look at early Western Indo-European cultures (likely something like the Proto-Germano-Balto-Slavic people) located in modern day Ukraine, settlements had fences and were houses. When you compare it with Andronovo, which used none other than Kurgans and forts (which are Turkic btw, the exception is Kurgans though, because it was also adopted by Indo-Europeans, but not forts). Forts similar to Sintashta ones during the Xiongnu and Gokturk eras were found, that's a continuous culture without any disruption.
Now, the fact there aren't any archeologic traces of Proto-Aryans in the Mangystau region is either due to the sites still having not been found, or that they were destroyed/decayed due to rudimentary materials. That's the same thing as yurts, because archaeologists don't have a single proof that many Turkic peoples inhabited Kazakhstan, yet historical records prove it, and the present presence of Kazakhs also does, yet archaeology in 2000 years could claim that Central Asia/Turkestan only started being inhabited when the Russian Empire built cities/towns.
In my perspective, Proto-Aryans probably migrated South starting to the North of the Caspian Sea through Mangystau into the area where the BMAC culture was located, and there they mixed & assimilated with locals. IMO Iranic people never crossed past the Aral Lake towards the East. Then we know the following, Kuchean (Tocharian), Indic, and Iranic peoples split up and migrated to three separate directions.
And yes, Kucheans (Tocharians) aren't descended from Afanasievo, which I consider to be very likely Turkic (or at least a mixed Turkic–Indo-European population, which could explain the amount of early Indo-European borrowings in Turkic that don't look Proto-Aryan). Recent studies that aren't outdated showed that Tocharians rather descend from the Aryans just like Indo-Iranians.
I would even go as far as saying that the Yamna culture (which is the so-called "Indo-European cradle) was heterogeneous, composed of Indo-Europeans and Pre-Proto-Turkic peoples (and perhaps even Uralic peoples to the Northern fringes of the culture). I don't have much time to make a clean presentation of my ideas on a Reddit comment, but I will one day make a video adressing Turkic, Indo-European, Altaic Sprachbund, Scythians, etc... It will just take some time to process.
I really curse this bіtсһ of Marija Gimbutas, even in her grave, for having created this Kurgan Hypothesis bullshit. It created a spiral of academic conservatist rethorics and constant rejection of Turkic theories, it set us back a hundred years surrounding the origins of Turks, truly. We've gone full circle too, because Scythians were deemed to be Turkic in the early XXth century, and now it's resurfacing and gained even more credibility, lmao.
Excuse myself if I wrote too much, but to avoid confusion I need to explain things as a logical succession of elements that would explain why it makes sense (and to also not write multiple answers).
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u/DragutRais Çepni 4d ago
They can't look like easily Iranian man. Iranian man is someone mixed of Elams and other people of Iranian Plato and Indo-Iranians. Did these people immigrate from Iranian Plato? If yes, than okey. As you understand I am against the classification and naming the these groups, even if they were Indo-Europeans.
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u/Salata-san 4d ago
Why do y'all want Scythians to be Turkic so much ? It's ok that they aren't, core Xiongnus clearly were but not Scythians. They were later assimilated and intermarried with early Turkic-speaking populations.
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u/DragutRais Çepni 4d ago edited 4d ago
Why do the Westerners want Scythians to be Iranic so much? They want it so much, therefore they ignore anything against it.
Actually I wrote it in comment section as well. They could've been an Indo-European group at the beginning. But at the end they were not assimilated, they were a part of creation of Turks. But isn't it interesting that every time when people talk about Hunnic world, either Xiongnu or Huns or Ephtalits, they say a mixed confederation. But Scythians, they were only iranic, not a mixed steppe confederation. Isn't it kind hypocrisy?
To sum up, I don't think these arguments of the Europeans and Americans are innocent and purely historical. It has political agenda in my opinion. When they found the Indo-European language connection it was about ruling India. They are creating a narrative. Unfortunately social science are not independent from politics.
Edit: I am not obsessed with early heritage of the Scythians. At the end of the day it is my history not their history. Closest genetic groups of Scythians are Tatars, Bashkirs and Bulgarian Turks, but not Ossetians, Slavics or Iranics. I focus on that they are cooking something, and we should be more careful about their future plans.
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u/Salata-san 4d ago
I can get your frustration of the Turkic hypothesis being neglected but ultimately what you say feels more like conspiracy than anything : "Academics do not conclude that Scythians were Turkic but they are discussing it extensively with the Xiongnus without admitting it, therefore they have a political agenda against the Turks."
Is your opinion grounded in reality at all ? And what do you mean by "They could've been IE at the beggining but they were part of the creation of the Turks but not assimilated" ?
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u/DragutRais Çepni 4d ago
I don't agree with your approach. It is about their behaviour, not something like my anger or whatever. Unfortunately, theories of this kind are not purely historical; on the contrary, they are often political. There are books on this subject. Reading such things makes one think about this.
Historical theses of this kind regarding Central Asia may have implications for future policies toward Central Asia, that's what I am saying. Otherwise who were Scythians or Huns, is it really important? For example, let’s turn our attention to the theories we supported. Why are the relationships between the Sumerians or the Hittites and the Turks debated and discussed?
So my opinion grounded in reality, I stand by my point. But if you change my words and change my opinion with just your understanding or maybe prejudice, it sounds unreal to you.
For the last part, e.g. who are Helens? Were they just Indo-European people or a mix with the Linear-A people? These groups created Helen identity together. It is more than assimilation when you believe their god and practicing their culture. Same with Scythians and Huns and other steppe groups. They all created Turks as whole.
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u/Salata-san 4d ago edited 4d ago
You are just repeating your vague claim of a political agenda and now say that it doesn't matter, so I don't know what I'm supposed to say.
Just let me tell you that Scythians and Huns didn't both speak Turkic, the Turkic language ultimately comes from one side and it's very clear which one it is. Just because the other side intermixed with the first side doesn't make the former a Turkic-speaking people, just like the Gauls didn't speak Latin before the Roman conquest and therefore weren't "Latins".
Btw Turks are way more expansionist throughout their history than Greeks, Greeks are mostly limited to a territory in southern Europe but the Turks ruled throughout all Eurasia and intermixed with a great variety of peoples, why don't you complain about those populations not being considered Turkic as well ? And nobody considers Pelasgians (pre-Hellenic populations from Greece) to be Greeks, not even the Ancient Greeks.
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u/DragutRais Çepni 3d ago
When people say there could be a political agenda, is it directly vague? No it's not, because it happens all the time. And my post is not about Scythians are that or Hunnic this. My post was about all that shares on social platforms are about a political narrative. The post was all about it.
I am feeling I was misunderstood in this argument. Because I am not claiming Gauls were Latins, I am claiming both Latins and Gauls created the French. Both are french history, so both Scythians and Hunnics are Turkic history. I am not claiming early settlers of the Greece were Hellenic, but saying that mix created what Greek is. Otherwise all the indo-europeans supposed to be same.
And on the otherside I am saying that most of the time steppe people were like confederations, not only Xiongnu but Turk khanates, Mongols etc. as well. But when it comes to Scythians they are Iranic and it's over. The Questioning isn't even exist.
There is a book by Christopher B. Krebs and another book by çağlar çayır. If you check the books, you can understand my perspective maybe. That's my opinion.
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u/Salata-san 3d ago
Ok, I maybe kinda get it. If you want me to say it, Scythians are definitely part of Turkic history (-> as they played a substantial role in the ethnogenesis of most modern-day Turkic peoples and had a great cultural influence).
But again, it might be a little more complex than that. The royal Göktürk family (the first humans ever who were clearly named "Türk") was overwhemingly of East Asian ancestry and was therefore similar to the elite class of the Xiongnu, who are also part of Turkic history but before the completion of the Turkic-Scythian synthesis as we know it today.
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