[Cicero]

As I recall, John Keegan in A History of Warfare says that the Turks were a nomadic herdsman people who lived on the steppes before they migrated west and conquered present-day Turkey.

As Keegan points out, herdsmen tend to be particularly proficient and bloodthirsty warriors. The Turks have been settled for a long time, but they are still tough fighters.

[muawiyah]

The term "Turk" is unfortunately applied to every group speaking an Uralic-Altaic language. It's pretty obvious that there are many different ethnic groups involved, and not all of them were wandering tribes of primitive herdsmen.

These languages are fairly well related to the Dravidian languages of Southern India, and those people are among the very first civilized folk on Earth.