3rd of October closing in - Hotline for Turkey

[Viking]

Iceland? Oh, come on. I'm a big fan of Iceland, been there twice on holiday (but then I've been to the Faroes three times, and I'm confident no other Org member can claim that,) but the second best country in the world to live in?

IIRC the UN said so, based on Human Development Index.

Lets get real. Its a lava desert in the north atlantic just south of the arctic circle. Not really a good model for Turkey.

I know. I was just looking at some interesting facts.

[LeftEyeNine]

For friends denying the long roots of Turks :

According to Mahmud of Kashgar, an 11th century Turkic scholar and various other traditional Islamic scholars and historians, the name "Turk" stems from "Tur" who can be identified with the Biblical "Tiras" one of the sons of Japhet, who also comes from the same lineage of Gomer (Cimmerians) and Ashkenaz (Scythians, Ishkuz) who were some of the earliest Turks. Japhet was the son of the Biblical Noah, whos descendants settled in the land corresponding to Central Asia and Euroasia, the region between the Ural and Altai mountains, a land described as Turkistan or Turan. In the Zend Avesta (Yasna 46.12) the "Tur" people are mentioned.

In the earliest Turkic dictionary extant, the eponymous hero of the Turks, Alp Er Tunga, is identified with the character Afrasiyab in Persian literature. Alp Er Tunga dates from the time of the Scythians (Ishkuz) and is a symbolic figure in Turkic tradition; the Gokturks of the sixth century carried on the tradition of Alp Er Tunga and they too believed to be descendants of a wolf, just as Alp Er Tunga had. He appears with the name "Frangasyan" in the Zend Avesta, and according to the "Book of Kings" written by the Farsi author Ferdowsi, Afrasiyab was hunted down and killed in Azerbaijan. The name "Turk" was initially pronounced "Turuk, Tur-uk" is a plural of "Tur." Thus one meaning of the word Turk is "The Turs." The second meaning of Turk is "strong" or "powerful." Some have stated that the name Turk is a name of a helmet-shaped hill in present-day Xinjiang yet the lineage of Turks to Japhet and the early Tur people and the designation of strong/powerful are the definition and root of the word

It is generally believed that the first Turkic people were native to Central Asia. Some historians claim that the Turks originated in Western Asia, and migrated to Central Asia in prehistoric times; while others believe that migration to Western Asia occurred via Central Asia before the advent of the Huns. Some scholars consider the Huns, whose origins may go back to 1200 BC, as one of the earlier Turkic-Mongol tribes.

The precise date of the initial expansion from the early homeland remains unknown. The first state known as "Turk", giving its name to the many states and peoples afterwards, was that of the Gokturks (gog = "blue" or "celestial") in the 6th century AD. The head of the Asena clan led his people from Li-jien (modern ZhelaiZhai) to the Juan Juan seeking inclusion in their confederacy and protectioon from China. His tribe were famed metal smiths and were granted land near a mountain quarry which looked like a helmet from which they got their name 突厥. A century later their power had increased such that they conquered the Juan Juan ad set about establishing their Gok Empire

First one is Nomenclature and second part is from the History topics about Turks extracted from Wikipedia..