Religion The Turkmen of
Turkmenistan, like their kin in
Uzbekistan,
Afghanistan, and
Iran are predominantly
Muslims. According the U.S. Department of State's
International Religious Freedom Report for 2019,According to U.S. government estimates, the country is 89 percent Muslim (mostly Sunni), 9 percent Eastern Orthodox, and 2 percent other. There are small communities of Jehovah's Witnesses, Shia Muslims, Baha'is, Roman Catholics, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and evangelical Christians, including Baptists and Pentecostals. Most ethnic Russians and Armenians identify as Orthodox Christian and generally are members of the Russian Orthodox Church or Armenian Apostolic Church. Some ethnic Russians and Armenians are also members of smaller Protestant groups. There are small pockets of Shia Muslims, consisting largely of ethnic Iranians, Azeris, and Kurds, some located in Ashgabat, with others along the border with Iran and in the western city of Turkmenbashy. The Turkmen adopted Islam between the 12th and 14th centuries. Sufi orders like the
Yasawiya and
Kubrawiya greatly contributed to the conversion of the Turkmens to Islam. The great majority of
Turkmen readily identify themselves as
Muslims and acknowledge
Islam as an integral part of their cultural heritage. The country of Turkmenistan encourages the conceptualization of "Turkmen Islam", or worship that is often mixed with veneration of elders and saints, life-cycle rituals, and Sufi practices. The Turkmen word
taňry, meaning "God", derives from the Turkic
Tengri, the name of the supreme god in the pre-Islamic Turkic pantheon. The Turkmen language features a multitude of euphemisms for "wolf", because of a belief that speaking the actual word while tending a flock of sheep will invoke a wolf's appearance. In other examples of syncretism, some infertile Turkmen women, rather than praying, step or jump over a live wolf in order to assist them in getting pregnant, and children born subsequently are typically given names associated with wolves; alternatively the mother may visit shrines of Muslim saints. The future is divined by reading of dried camel dung by special
fortune tellers.
Language Turkmen (
Turkmen: , , ) is a
Turkic language spoken by the Turkmens of
Central Asia, mainly of
Turkmenistan,
Iran, and
Afghanistan. It has an estimated five million native speakers in Turkmenistan, a further 719,000 speakers in Northeastern
Iran and 1.5 million people in Northwestern
Afghanistan. The Turkmen language is closely related to
Azerbaijani,
Turkish,
Gagauz,
Qashqai, and
Crimean Tatar, sharing common linguistic features with each of those languages. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between these languages. However, the closest language of Turkmen is considered
Khorasani Turkic, spoken in northeastern regions of Iran and with which it shares the eastern subbranch of Oghuz languages, as well as Khorezm, the Oghuz dialect of Uzbek language spoken mainly along the Turkmenistan border. The
standardized form of Turkmen (spoken in Turkmenistan) is based on the
Teke dialect, while Iranian Turkmen uses mostly the
Yomud dialect, and
Afghan Turkmen use the
Ersary dialect.
Literature on a
Soviet rouble, 1991 Turkmen literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in old
Oghuz Turkic and
Turkmen languages. Turkmens have joint claims to a great number of literary works written in Old Oghuz Turkic and
Persian (by
Seljuks in 11-12th centuries) languages with other people of the Oghuz Turkic origin, mainly of
Azerbaijan and
Turkey. This works include, but are not limited to the
Book of Dede Korkut,
Gorogly and others. The medieval Turkmen literature was heavily influenced by
Arabic and Persian, and used mostly
Arabic alphabet. There is general consensus, however, that distinctively Turkmen literature originated in 18th century with the poetry of
Magtymguly Pyragy, who is considered the father of the Turkmen literature. Other prominent Turkmen poets of that era are
Döwletmämmet Azady (Magtymguly's father), Nurmuhammet Andalyp, Abdylla Şabende, Şeýdaýy, Mahmyt Gaýyby and Gurbanally Magrupy. In the 20th century, Turkmenistan's most prominent Turkmen-language writer was
Berdi Kerbabayev, whose novel
Decisive Step, later made into a motion picture directed by
Alty Garlyyev, is considered the apotheosis of modern Turkmen fiction. It earned him the USSR State Prize for Literature in 1948.
Music The musical art of the Turkmens is an integral part of the musical art of the
Turkic peoples. The music of the Turkmen people is closely related to the
Kyrgyz and
Kazakh folk forms. Important musical traditions include traveling singers called
bakshy, who sing with instruments such as the two-stringed
lute called
dutar. Other important musical instruments are
gopuz,
tüydük,
dombura, and gyjak. The most famous Turkmen bakshys are those who lived in the 19th century: Amangeldi Gönübek, Gulgeldi ussa, Garadali Gokleng, Yegen Oraz bakshy, Hajygolak, Nobatnyyaz bakshy, Oglan bakshy, Durdy bakshy, Shukur bakshy, Chowdur bakshy and others. Usually they narrated the woeful and gloomy events of the Turkmen history through their music. The names and music of these bakshys have become legendary among the Turkmen people, and passed orally from generation to generation. The Central Asian classical music tradition
muqam is also present in Turkmenistan. In the 20th century,
Danatar Ovezov began composing classical music using Turkmen themes, and that classical expression of Turkmen motifs and melodies reached its apotheosis in the compositions of
Nury Halmammedov.
Folk crafts in Moscow, Russia
Embroidery Turkmen pictorial
embroidery became widespread in the
Scythian period and reached great perfection in other periods. It is known that for a long time the Turkmens were engaged in the production of
silk as the main material for embroidery, and Turkmen women and girls embroidered their dresses with colored silks. All these deeds are clearly expressed in the songs of
Turkmen women and in the oral
Turkmen literature. The main materials for Turkmen embroidery are thread and fabric. There are several types of threads: natural threads such as silk and
cotton threads; synthetic and acrylic threads. As for the types of fabrics, silk and
woolen fabrics are usually used for embroidery. It is customary for the Turkmens to embroider with colored silks girls' and men's skullcaps (
tahya), collars and sleeves of women's dresses (and in more distant times, men's shirts), the lower part of pants protruding from under the dress, various small bags for storing small things.
Weaving Weaving is one of the types of home craft that has its roots in the deep past. During excavations of many ancient and early medieval settlements on the territory of Turkmenistan, archaeologists discovered fragments of cotton and woolen fabrics, the analysis of which does not exclude local production: the warp and wefts (transverse threads) have the same thickness, the yarn is single, the weave is simple. The techniques of weaving craft of Turkmen women are similar to homespun production of other peoples. First, there were three stages of preparation of different types of threads. To obtain cotton thread: 1) cleaning cotton from seeds using a small machine, loosening the resulting fiber with rods, rolling into small bunches; 2) spinning the fiber with a spinning wheel, twisting it into a thread and winding the threads into skeins; 3) winding the threads on the hook and bobbin. For woolen thread: 1) washing and drying wool, scuttling with twigs until a fluffy mass is obtained; 2) combing, loosening, yarn and twisting into a thread with a spindle, winding into skeins; 3) dyeing skeins. For silk thread: 1) cleaning and unwinding (sarmak) cocoons (goza) with a spinning wheel (parh), steaming in a boiler with boiling water; 2) fixing the threads on the spindle using a rotating spinning wheel, twisting the threads into one thread, rewinding them from the spindle into a ball, then into skeins; 3) dyeing skeins, drying in the sun. Home weaving was extremely widespread throughout the territory of Turkmenistan. In almost every family, weaving skills were instilled in girls from an early age. They began to learn the art of making yarn, weaving and sewing from the age of 8–10. Fabrics, depending on the purpose, were divided into various types: for sewing women's and men's clothing, thin fabric for camel wool dressing gowns, for cotton tablecloths was highly valued. Bags for storing grain and flour were made of fabric of thick twisted yarn, narrow strong strips of fabric (5–12 cm) were used to fasten the poles to the yurt lattice. Using a simple technique of weaving, the craftswomen achieved a great effect in the manufacture of peculiar national fabrics, which cannot be reproduced in mechanical production: a loom consisting of 3-4 columns dug into the ground, a transverse roller, a heald. Tools made of wood in the form of a
saber were used to seal the weft threads. The
Royal Geographical Society reported in 1882,The food of the Tekkes [
sic] consists of well-prepared pillaus and of game; also of fermented camels' milk, melons, and water-melons. They use their fingers in conveying food to their mouths, but guests are provided with spoons. In sharp contrast to other Central Asian and Turkic ethnic groups, Turkmen do not eat horse meat, and in fact eating of horse meat is prohibited by law in Turkmenistan. Conquest by the Russian Empire in the 1880s introduced new foods, including such meats as beef, pork, and chicken, as well as potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, and cucumbers, though they did not find widespread use in most Turkmen households until the Soviet period. While now consumed widely, they are, strictly speaking, not considered "traditional".
Nomadic heritage in 1890 between 1905 and 1915 Before the establishment of
Soviet power in
Central Asia, it was difficult to identify distinct ethnic groups in the region. Sub-ethnic and
supra-ethnic loyalties were more important to people than ethnicity. When asked to identify themselves, most Central Asians would name their kin group, neighborhood, village, religion or the state in which they lived; the idea that a state should exist to serve an ethnic group was unknown. That said, most Turkmen could identify the tribe to which they belonged, though they might not identify themselves as Turkmen. Most Turkmen were nomads until the 19th century when they began to settle the area south of the
Amu Darya. Many Turkmen became semi-nomadic, herding sheep and camels during spring, summer, and fall, but planting crops, wintering in oasis camps, and harvesting the crops in the summer and autumn. As a rule they did not settle in cities and towns until the advent of the Soviet government. This mobile lifestyle precluded identification with anyone outside one's kin group and led to frequent conflicts between different
Turkmen tribes, particularly regarding access to water. In collaboration with the local nationalists, the Soviet government sought to transform the Turkmen and other similar ethnic groups in the USSR into modern socialist nations that based their identity on a fixed territory and a common language. Prior to the
Battle of Geok Tepe in January 1881 and subsequent conquest of Merv in 1884, the Turkmen "retained the condition of predatory, horse-riding nomads, who were greatly feared by their neighbours as 'man-stealing Turks.' Until subjugated by the Russians, the Turkmens were a warlike people, who conquered their neighbours and regularly captured ethnic Persians for sale as slaves in Khiva. It was their boast that not one Persian had crossed their frontier except with a rope round his neck." After gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Turkmen historians went to great lengths to prove that the Turkmen had inhabited their current territory since time immemorial; some historians even tried to deny the nomadic heritage of the Turkmen. Turkmen lifestyle was heavily invested in horsemanship and as a prominent horse culture, Turkmen horse-breeding was an ages old tradition. Before the Soviet era, a proverb stated that the Turkmen's home was where his horse happened to stand. In spite of changes prompted during the Soviet period, the Ahal Teke tribe in southern Turkmenistan has remained very well known for its horses, the
Akhal-Teke desert horse – and the horse breeding tradition has returned to its previous prominence in recent years. Many tribal customs still survive among modern Turkmen. Unique to Turkmen culture is
kalim which is a
groom's "
dowry", that can be quite expensive and often results in the widely practiced tradition of
bridal kidnapping. In something of a modern parallel, in 2001, President Saparmurat Niyazov had introduced a state enforced "
kalim", which required all foreigners who wanted to marry a Turkmen woman to pay a sum of no less than $50,000. The law was repealed in March 2005. Other customs include the consultation of tribal elders, whose advice is often eagerly sought and respected. Many Turkmen still live in extended families where various generations can be found under the same roof, especially in rural areas. The five traditional carpet rosettes, or
gul, called
göl in Turkmen, that form motifs in the country's
state emblem and
flag, represent the five major
Turkmen tribes.
Sport Sports have historically been an important part of Turkmen life. Such sports as
horseback riding and
Goresh have been praised in Turkmen literature. During the
Soviet era, Turkmen athletes competed in numerous competitions, including
Olympic Games as part of the
Soviet Union team and, in 1992, as part of the
Unified Team. After Turkmenistan gained her independence, new ways of establishing physical and sports movements in the country began to emerge. To implement a new sports policy, new multi-purpose stadiums, physical education and health complexes, sports schools and facilities were built in all regions of the country. Turkmenistan also has a modern Olympic village which hosted
2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, and is unparalleled in Central Asia. Turkmenistan supports the country's sports movements and encourages sports on a state level. While
football remains the most popular sport, such sports as Turkmen goresh, horseback riding and lately
ice hockey are also very popular among Turkmens. ==Demographics and population distribution==