The Xinjiang Region of China

[Onur]

If the Tocharians could make it to Xinjiang I don't see why they couldn't have made it to Mongolia either. Do you think the original Altaic speakers looked more like Caucasians despite the fact that this proposed linguistic group includes not only Turkic and Mongolian, but also Japanese and Korean? Or do you think Turkic peoples were originally Caucasian who adopted an Altaic language? Where do you think the Altaic group of languages originated?

SOM, you are so in the classification of racial and language groups. This is not that wise because especially for the early medieval central Asia, it`s so difficult to categorize people and claim that "X are IE speakers and Caucasians, Y are Altaic speakers and Mongols". These are early 20th century ethnocentric ideas and it was highly driven by the politics at that time. Uralic and Altaic people was considered as same b4 early 20th century but then all of a sudden it`s changed due to the reconstruction of European map, due to politics. Now, some even says that the existence of these language groups are disputed and some other says that all IE and Uralic/Altaic groups should be considered as one, named Nostratic. So, you better don't trust these language classifications so much.


Neither Tocharians nor Turkic people was fully Mongolic or fully Caucasoid. Before the 8-13th century, when some germanic, slavic and Turkic people was still living in central Asia, Eurasia, the population of that place was caucasoid in majority. You can see that if you look at the historical maps of that region. Then after 8th century, various tribes started to migrate in to the Balkans. Turkic, Circassian, Georgian migrations to the mesopotamia in 9-10th centuries. Massive Turkic migrations to the Anatolia in 11th century and finally the expulsion of various Turkic groups to the Europe during the campaigns of Genghis Khan and massacre of the rest by Mongol army. Today`s central Asia has shaped by the Mongol army in 13th century and even after that, it`s not fully mongoloid today but half caucasoid.

I believe that the Turkic people were partly mongoloid but dominantly caucasoid, suitable to the population of central Asia, Eurasia in early medieval era. We don't know when these people adopted Turkic language but we know that even in 7th century, Turkic was a highly developed language with literature and with some Persian influence/interaction (suitable to the population of Eurasia again, eg Alans). Most people thinks that the Turkic languages originated in today`s Kazakhstan, Mongolia. Then obviously, these people became even more caucosoid as they migrated in to the further west, Balkans and Anatolia, the percentage of mongoloid people in Turkey dropped to 4-5%. I think the percentage of mongoloid people in Balkans are also 3-5%. It`s 9-10% in today`s Russia. 35% in Kazakhstan, 40% among Uygurs.