The Ethnic Roots of the Turks
50th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Kazan 2007
The Turkic languages belong to the Altaic language family as well; the time of the Turkic languages formation is traditionally considered to be the beginning of Common Era. Indeed, the ethnonym “Turk” was included into the historical sources in the beginning of Common Era, and as a common name for the tribes speaking similar languages began being applied only at the period of the Turkic kahanates development and the Arabian Muslim civilization expansion.
However, the languages and ethnic groups being the Turks ethnical roots bore other ethnonyms made up from the Turkic roots and by the Turkic patterns. Have a look at a table enclosed where the primary ethnonyms, the secondary and the tertiary ethnonyms of the ethnical roots of the Turks formed from the primary ones are shown.
The primary ethnonyms are the cognate words ar/ir “men, people”, as/yas/оя “young men”, sak/saka/chak/soy “children, clan, tribe”, syun/hun “a man, fellow people”, kishi “a man, aliens”, kang “older people” (the last is not included in the table).
As the parts of tribes bearing the primary ethnonyms multiplied, migrated, separated and united, the secondary and tertiary ethnonyms appeared by the means of various definitions and by the addition to the primary ones the affixes of possession — lyk/-ly/-dyk/-dy/-tyk/-ty/-t meaning “together with somebody”: kumandy “a tribe including kumans’.
The most widespread were the tribes bearing the ethnonym ar/ir, which became the root for producing more than 40 secondary and tertiary ethnonyms of the ethnic roots of the Turks.
Some secondary ethnonyms, for instance, subar, sumar,/summer (shumer), gugar,kuman in the sources date from IV–III millenniums BC. As for the primary ones, they must have been applied earlier, roughly, 10–7 thousand years ago.
In the European-focused study of the Turkic languages the tribes, bearing the ethnonym, spread long before the ethnonym Turk, are generally recognized to be of Iranian origin, and the languages of old Iranian manuscripts are artificially related to them. For instance the ethnonym ariy derived from the ethnonym ar/ir which denotes a supposedly peculiar race or Indo-Aryans, which ethnonyms do not contain any ar/ir. Mistakenly those tribes bearing the pure Turkic ethnonyms sak/saka, sogdy, s’k’d‘/skide, Tohar/dagar, kimmer, pardy/party, kusan/kasan/kushan, usun’, kaspi, tabgach/tabgas etc. are related to the Iranian-speaking.
These ethnonyms and all others shown in the table belong to the names of the tribes that are the ethnical roots of the Turks.
The system of the Turkic ethnonyms.
| I. The primary ethnonyms of the concept “people, clan, tribe” | ar/ir ‘men, people’ | as/yas/os ‘young people’ | Sak/saka/ chaka/soy ‘clan, tribe, children’ | syun/hun ‘ a man’ | ok/ak ‘clan,tribe’ | bi/bek/pi ‘ the rich’ | men/min ‘men, people’ | kishi ‘a man’ | |
| phonetic variations | er/ir/erk (erkek) | az/uz/ush/ az/yaz | hak/sok/ zak/dak | Sunni/san/ shan | ik/yk | pey/bay | ben | kyuzhi/ kishi | |
| II. The secondary and tertiary ethnonyms with the following definitions: | su/hu/shu, bulak | Suar, subar, sabir, summer, balkar, bolgar, shuar (shor) | suas | ||||||
| taw/tav/dag/ tag,kes | tawerk (turk), dagar, tohar, trak, kasar, tavr | tawlas, tabgach | tawok tu-er-ok > turk | kaspi, traspi, tuba(y) | |||||
| agach, mishe, burta | akatir/akatsir, misher/madzhar | burtas | |||||||
| known adjectives | kuar, kuerk, saragur, (o)lugar, iirk, avar (oar), katiar, tatar, gandar, gugar | gagauz, kyrgyz, karagach | kusak, kypchak, kazak, karasoy, varsak | kusan/kazan, kashan, sarysyun | chitak, kimek, yazok | argippi, nogaybek | sarymen, kuman, karaman | kukizhi | |
| unknown adjectives | kachar, afshar, salar, salgur, berenzher, katigur, kimmer, uregir, baktiar | apas, haladzh, hartezh, ishguza | yemek, buchak, kuruk, apasiak | altay kizhi, tuba kizhi, chuy kizhi | |||||
| ethnonyms | sakar, okur, ogur, biger, kangar, bier, onogur, asgur/asur | hakas, okuz, kangaras, huaras(m), horezm | tursaka, ersak | assyun, usun’, sakasun’ | kangak, ograk, trak | azerbi, syunbi, (bier, biger) | turkmen | azkizhi, tyurgishi, shorgishi |
III. The secondary ethnonyms formed by the addition of affixes -Iyk/-ly/-dyk/-dy/-tyk/-ty/-t/ -ny: Ostyk/Ostyak/Ishtek; Sogdag/Sogdy/Skydy (rus: skif), Pardy /Barly (rus: parfyan), Sindi/Syundi, Kumandy, Saraly, Barabaly, Yurmaty, Karadagly, sunny / hunny.
Note. Besides, there are:
- The ethnonyms including the names of totems: Gelon (Yilan), Shonkar.
- Ethnonyms – names of the appearance: Karakalpak, Karapapah.
- Ethnonyms – names of the leaders: No gay, Uzbek.