The Turkmens are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, northeastern Iran, Syria, Iraq and North Caucasus (Stavropol Krai).

They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai, Gagauz and Salar.

Originally, all Turkic tribes that were not part of the Turkic dynastic mythological system (for example, Uigurs, Karluks, Ethans and a number of other tribes) were designated "Turkmens".

Only later did this word come to refer to a specific ethnonym.

The etymology of the term derives from Türk plus the Sogdian affix of similarity -myn, -men, and means "resembling a Türk" or "co-Türk".

A prominent Turkic scholar, Mahmud Kashgari, also mentions the etymology Türk manand (like Turks).

The language and ethnicity of the Turkmen were much influenced by their migration to the west.

Kashgari calls the Karluks Turkmen as well, but the first time the etymology Turkmen was used was by Makdisi in the second half of the 10th-century CE.

Like Kashgari, he wrote that the Karluks and Oghuz Turks were called Turkmen.Historically, all of the Western or Oghuz Turks have been called Türkmen or Turkoman; however, today the terms are usually restricted to two Turkic groups: the Turkmen people of Turkmenistan and adjacent parts of Central Asia, and the Turkomans of Iraq and Syria.