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[Boreades]

Tall red-haired Turks?
Wonders never cease!

[TisILeclerc]

hvered
'Galatians are Turks.'

Without wanting to bring Celts into the mix surely the Galatians were part of the 'Celtic' invasion force the Greeks knew and loved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatians_%28people%29

Before that the place was Anatolia and populated by a variety of groups

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolia

Until the Asiatic Turks came across from Asia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_migration

They were Johnny Come Lately's who decided to stay.

Perhaps the Russians shall not have Constantinople, but the Turks certainly did.

[Mick Harper]

According to THOBR principles, the Anatolians were Turkish-speakers. Do you have any precise evidence that they weren't?

[Boreades]

The Dying Gaul for one.

"The original may have been commissioned some time between 230 and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Galatians, the Celtic or Gaulish people of parts of Anatolia (modern Turkey)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul

[Mick Harper]

Wrong according to THOBR. The Gauls of France according to orthodoxy spoke Gaulish=Welsh=Celtic. According to me they either spoke French or they were Welsh/Celtic overlords of a French speaking general population. The same situation presumably held sway in Anatolia. If it didn't this would mean that the Osmanli Turks managed to utterly eradicate the huge and culturally superior population of Anatolia and replace them with themselves for no conceivable reason. Just like the Anglo-Saxons and the 'British'-speakers in England!

[TisILeclerc]

They managed to eradicate the Armenians and Greeks without much of a problem. Although they say they didn't

And why did they insist on calling that place Constantinople when they could have called it Istanbul from the start?

[Mick Harper]

The Greeks and the Armenians were both localised minorities. The Turks were overwhelmingly the majority population at the time. The Turks had good reasons for eliminating both groups (as they saw it). Istanbul is the Greek name. It means Our Town in Demotic. Why the Turks changed a Latin name into a Greek name is beyond even my powers of explanation.

[TisILeclerc]

'The Seljuks were a group of nomadic Turkish warriors from central Asia who established themselves in the Middle East during the 11th Century as guardians of the declining abbasid caliphate. After 1055 founded the great Seljuk Sultanate; an empire centered in Baghdad and including Iran, Iraq, and Syria. They helped to prevent the Fatimids of Egypt from making Shiite Islam dominant throughout the Middle East. In the 12th century, they blocked inland expansion by the crusader states on the Syrian Coast. Their defeat of the Byzantinesø at the battle of Manzikert (1071) opened the way for the Turkish occupation of Antolia.'

This must be all wrong then?

http://www.themiddleages.net/people/seljuks.html

[Mick Harper]

No. This is all standard stuff. What's your point?

Their defeat of the Byzantinesø at the battle of Manzikert (1071) opened the way for the Turkish occupation of Antolia.'

Do you really think the ordinary people of Anatolia were Byzantines? i e Greek-speakers? The idea is preposterous because we know exactly where the Greeks were from 500 BC to 1922 AD. In enclaves around the coast. The inhabitants of the Anatolian interior were Turkish-speakers (except in the north-west, they were Armenian-speakers and in the south-east Kurdish-speakers). The Seljuks (who by the way are Turkic-speakers not Turkish-speakers) just replaced the Byzantines as the ruling elite, exactly as the Anglo-Saxons replaced the Romans and were themselves replaced by the Normans.

Unless of course you propose that the Seljuks decided to massacre the entire population, do all the labouring work themselves but adopt the dear-departed peasantry's language. It's possible. I admit Turkish ruling elites (Seljuk, Osmanli) can be complete bastards.

[Boreades]

Wrong according to THOBR. The Gauls of France according to orthodoxy spoke Gaulish=Welsh=Celtic. According to me they either spoke French or they were Welsh/Celtic overlords of a French speaking general population. The same situation presumably held sway in Anatolia. If it didn't this would mean that the Osmanli Turks managed to utterly eradicate the huge and culturally superior population of Anatolia and replace them with themselves for no conceivable reason. Just like the Anglo-Saxons and the 'British'-speakers in England!

I'm confused. What huge and culturally superior population of Anatolia?