Why Greeks and Turks are NOT similar to each other

Aims of the following article:

1)to highlight the cultural, linguistic, racial and mental differences between Greece and Turkey, which, in case of Greece, represent the 90% of Greek identity, especially in terms of Greeks proper
2) along with the historical reasons that lead to this conclusion, in order to respond to the question “what are some similarities between Greeks and Turks”.

Turkish vs Greek Culture

Considering at least 4 aspects of culture, Architecture, music/dances, folk costumes and cuisine, Greek culture is clearly distinguishable from Turkish, with Greek being clearly shifted towards Latin speaking countries (and sometimes South-east European countries) and Turkish towards the middle east (Arabic countries), and sometimes Central Asia (Uralic-Altaic countries)

Mainstream Greek architecture:

Romance architecture (South Italy and South Spain):

Vs Turkish architecture:

The same goes for folk Music, Greek folk Music:

Turkish folk music:

The same goes for folk costumes, since some people take them into consideration:

Greek:

For comparison, Sardinian (an equally Mediterranean European nation)

Turkish Folk costumes:

Turkish and Greek similarities, from these aspects can occur to a low degree only in terms of Turks and “inner Anatolian Greeks” (such as Cappadokian Greeks), because of Byzantine originated similarities (not central Asian) with Greek groups which used to live in Turkey until 1923, and today they live mainly in northern Greece. However, when we are talking about Greeks proper (from mainland, especially the south, and the islands), the differences are obvious.

Linguistically, the two languages are completely different, with Greek being an Indoeuropean language, with a pronunciation commonly accepted as similar to Romance languages, meanwhile Turkish language and accent are Altaic-central Asian.

Of course both languages can share words from each other, but at least in terms of Greek language, along with 300 common Turkish words, it also shares 400 italian, and a similar number of words from other European languages.

By mentality, the Lewis model clarifies the differences, with Greece, once again being associated with Southern European countries:

The last but not least, Race (genetics and racial types). In terms of racial types, only pigmentation seems to be similar in both countries. But the facial structure is completely different in the majority of Greeks and Turks, with Greeks mostly having Mediterranean and Alpine types (see Coon, 1939), and Turks having mostly anadolid, and some times even Turanid types.

But even genetically, in all pca (genetic graphs), Greece is clearly a Southern European country, meanwhile, Turkey is a middle eastern country with some European as well as East Asian (mongoloid) influence, both effects being reflected not only in official studies, but in personal results as well (Gedmatch etc)

The misconception that Turks and Greeks have many similarities, is related to 2 main factors: The Byzantine originated similarities between Turks and inner Anatolian Greeks (a Greek group which is not included in this article), and the attempt of Turkey’s Europeanization, which naturally made the particular country to look first at its closest European neighbor. The common Mediterranean climate would also be a factor

However, from a historical point of view, there was no reason for Greeks proper and Turks, to end up similar with each other. For a little less than 400 years (unlike other Southeastern countries which remained for more than 500 years as Ottoman, and obviously share similarities with Turkey), most of Greeks were forced to pay taxes to the Ottoman empire, as part of it.

But then again, apart from the fact that there were non-Ottoman parts of Greece, either we talk about Venetian ruled Ionian islands, along with some Aegean islands, or about Autonomous and independent parts of the mainland (see main etc), even the fully Greek ruled parts of Greeks, did not have more contacts than just paying taxes to the Ottoman empire. In most of the country there were not even Turkish communities.

The conclusion:Either Greece and Turkey are not similar, or Turkey is similar to Romance countries too. I would choose the first, as at least for an experienced eye, The difference between Turkish and Mediterranean European culture is huge