"The original homeland of the Turoyo language is the so-called Tur-'Abdin, a compact area in the eastern part of Mardin province, in south-east Turkey. The Turoyo-speaking population who lived there were Christian and largely adhered to the Syrian Orthodox Church. The ethnocide of the Armenians in 1915 also brought death and destruction to Tur 'Abdin but did not lead to a wholesale extermination of the ethnic group. By 1970 an estimated 20,000 Turoyo speakers still lived in the area, but due to continuing pressure they gradually emigrated to Western Europe and other parts of the world. The Turoyo-speaking diaspora in Central Europe and Scandinavia is estimated at some 40,000 people, and there are also large communities in the United States, Canada and Australia while only a few hundred speakers remain in the original homeland."