Re: question - Turco-Japanese (a thought experiment for the group here)

Quoting Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>:


> > As said, a successful Mongol invasion of Japan might not have resulted in
> > many
> > Turks ending up there.
>
> AFAIK, the fate of almost every successful Mongol invasion was--- complete
> assimilation of the conqueror to the local culture/language (Mughal India,
> China).  A few loanwords here and there, maybe, but no profound effect.
Well, there's always Kalmykia. It's very much the exception, tho.

> Their unsuccessful invasions of Europe and the Middle East had almost no
> lasting effect (of course they were driven back and didn't hang around for
> long).
I'm not positive that invasions that placed Iran and Russia under Mongol rule
for generations can fairly be labeled as "unsuccessful". They weren't driven
back from central Europe, BTW; they withdraw due to internal political reasons,
and never got round to returning.

Of course, the Mongols have been made responsible for pretty much everything
about Russia that differentiates it from Central Europe. Now, there's
doubtlessly been much exaggeration here - we do not see any need for a similar
external explanaton why Czechia and Germany are not identical, after-all - but
its hardly fanciful to think it had _some_ influence on Russia's "Sonderweg".

> For a conquering group's language/culture to be adopted by the defeated
> group, seems to require that the conqueror's qualities are perceived somehow
> as "superior" and desirable.
This seems true.

> Or else perhaps, simply overwhelming numbers-- as the Turks in Anatolia. But
> note again, the Ottoman-dominated peoples of the Balkans, Arab world and
> Persia never adopted the Turkish language to any large degree.
>
> Something that has always intrigued me about Anatolia-- what happened to all
> the Greek- (and perhaps other-)speaking people who were there before the
> Turks came? Did their languages have no effect on Turkish??Only the
> Armenians seem to have survived.
I've always wondered about this too. Why was Anatolia turkicized when Iran never
was. One should note, tho, that there were alot of graecophones in Anatolia up
to that little population exchange project after WWI.


                                                     Andreas

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