ABSTRACT
The often spectacular differences between the subdivisions of the Indo-European language family are not echoed in the Turkic case. Cultural patterns among the Turkic peoples are submerged in larger wholes. The Turkic peoples in the former Soviet Union, on the other hand, formed part of the community of Soviet peoples for generations. In the 1990s, we witnessed a process of reorientation, with diverging and unsettled outcomes in the different republics, while Islamist ideology asserted itself to a certain extent even in Turkey. Proceeding to the various Turkic-speaking peoples, the reader should keep in mind that, until recently, the larger groups lived in multiethnic empires, and that, in general, contact with other languages continues to be a characteristic of many Turkic languages, spread as they are over the vast area of Eurasia. Relationships within Turkic may also be quite complex, but these are usually problems of a linguistic nature, which can be kept apart rather easily from problems of ethnic allegiance.
