No Turks

[Hobelhouse]

Just like it says - for whatever reason, the Turkic tribes never come about or are absorbed into someone else before they can migrate anywhere, so no Turkic ethnic groups exist. What are the effects on China? Russia? Who takes their place in Central Asia? What are the ramifications of no Seljuks/Mamluks.

 

[Neala]

I assume you mean the turkic language family doesn't exist? Or that the nomadic tribes of the steppes don't exist?

I don't think Russia would exist

Wasn't the language of the Huns turkic? If so the Western Roman Empire may last longer. Alternatively indo-european nomadic tribes may do the damage.

TBH butterflying away an entire language group would have such massive ramifications I'm not sure where to start

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Just like it says - for whatever reason, the Turkic tribes never come about or are absorbed into someone else before they can migrate anywhere, so no Turkic ethnic groups exist. What are the effects on China? Russia? Who takes their place in Central Asia? What are the ramifications of no Seljuks/Mamluks.

That would take a lot of thought to unravel, but as a POD, I would suggest something different happens in the 6th c - there was a famine which upset the balance between the Avars and their Turkic subjects (the latter had lot of cattle and the former were more devastated because they were more horse-dependent), driving the Avars West and setting in motion the waves of Turkic invasers that followed.

No Avar invasions in itself would have a huge impact on Europe, and assimilation of the Turks might too, although they would just speak something else, I suppose. Maybe they might end up Buddhist or something.

 

[Keenir]

Just like it says - for whatever reason, the Turkic tribes never come about

a plague strikes the Tien Shan mountains around 200 BC or AD (I forget when they first spread out)

or are absorbed into someone else before they can migrate anywhere, so no Turkic ethnic groups exist. What are the effects on China? Russia? Who takes their place in Central Asia? What are the ramifications of no Seljuks/Mamluks.

who takes their place? could we see a second (or more expansive) migration of Indo-Iranian peoples?

or, since they pulled it off in OTL even with the Turks in the way, maybe we get a Tibetan spread from Tibet to Baghdad.

(I thought the Avars were Turkic)

the big question is does this also remove the Finns and Hungarians from history?