MEANING OF THE WORD TURK

 

However, the origin and the real meaning of the word Turk are really important, in my opinion, for that it will help us improve our general understanding of Turks. It will be good if you ( I am included) Turkish or Turkic participants  could achieve to keep their nationalistic sentiments away from the issue. Doing such will enable us to reach a good explanation of the origin and to come close to real meaning of the word.

 

As far as I know, the first recorded Turkic form of the word is Törük/Türük. Törük/Türük should be the word in which we must look for an etymologic explanation.

 

I know there are some people who assume a relation between Törük/Türük and old Turkic word Törü, law or order (other variants include Türü, Töre, Türe and Tüze, all of them means law, order. Each word here listed as variants are akin to each other, they bear possibly slight differences in meaning though.). Those people who assume such a relation try to explain the word Türük as having the meaning of the one who has a system of order, the one who has a system of laws.

 

A recent but more logical sounding theory proposes that the word Törük/Türük derives from the verb törü- ( to spring up, to sprout up, to appear, to derive). According to this theory, Türük means the ones created, the ones  appeared, the ones derived, the ones descended) In this view Türük basically means human.

 

 

Other theories assume that Turk means robust, strong, beautiful etc... , however, no longer these theories are thought to be serious.   

 

Please write your opinion, share your knowledge and information, tell us what theory you like best and why. 

 

I lack sources, Please try to do your best to base your argument upon sources as much as you can. I will be looking forward to replies, especially sense making ones.

 

Regards, 

 

 

Firstly, We are all aware of the existence of many open or closed threads about the issue. Secondly, you should also recognize our need to discuss this matter in an appropriate fashion, if you consider the fact that all of the previously opened and still open threads are lost in irrelevant arguments.

Yes this is very striking and it is really weird that linguists and historians could not realize the logic behind it. Modern Anatolian Turkish verb Türemek and its old Turkic equivalent Törü- seem to be what lies beneath the very word Törük/Türük ( ModT : Türk). Explaining this so makes a real sense in my opinion.

 

However, we must always keep in mind that the school of those who claim Törük/Türük and Törü are related and the other recent school of those who claim Törük and the verb Törü are related have not compromised yet.  Personally I really look forward to see such a compromise, but I am still not sure about which hypothesis is correct although I prone to consider the latter is correct.

 

There is no similar or close Turkic word having any meaning close to Strong. Robust and Beautiful. Strong Robust and Beautiful meanings attributed to the word Turk are now out of question. Only two hypotheses I explained are questioned, correct answers have not been found for both yet though.