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Keraites
The Keraites (also ''Kerait, Kereit, Khereid'', Kazakh: керейт; Kyrgyz: керей; Mongolian: Хэрэйд; Nogai: Кереит; Uzbek: ''Kerait''; Chinese: 克烈) were one of the five dominant Turco-Mongol tribal confederations (khanates) in the Altai-Sayan region during the 12th century. They had converted to the Church of the East ( Nestorianism) in the early 11th century and are one of the possible sources of the European Prester John legend. Their original territory was expansive, corresponding to much of what is now Mongolia. Vasily Bartold (1913) located them along the upper Onon and Kherlen rivers and along the Tuul river. They were defeated by Genghis Khan in 1203 and became influential in the rise of the Mongol Empire, and were gradually absorbed into the succeeding Mongol khanates during the 13th century. Name In modern Mongolian, the confederation is spelled , (''Khereid''). In English, the name is primarily adopted as ''Keraites'', alterna ...
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Toghrul
Toghrul ( ''Tooril han''; ), also known as Wang Khan or Ong Khan ( ''Wan han''; ; died 1203), was a Khan (title), khan of the Keraites. He was the blood brother (anda (Mongol), anda) of the Mongol chief Yesugei and served as an important early patron and ally to Yesugei's son Temüjin, later known as Genghis Khan. The main source on his life is the ''Secret History of the Mongols''. Name "Wang Khan" was the name given to Toghrul by the Jurchen people, Jurchen-led Jin dynasty (1115–1234), Jin dynasty of China; ''Chinese nobility, Wang'' means king or prince. During the 13th century, Toghrul was one of several Asian leaders who was identified with the legend of Prester John, but also King David, a brother to John. Although the Keraites converted to Nestorianism, a sect of Christianity, early in the 11th century there is no credible proof that Toghrul was himself Christian as Mongolian sources say nothing about his religion. Early life He was born around 1130, to Nestorianis ...
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Prester John
Prester John () was a mythical Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Church of the East, Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian state, Christian nation lost amid the pagans and Muslims in the Orient. The accounts were often embellished with various tropes of medieval popular fantasy, depicting Prester John as a descendant of the Three Magi, ruling a kingdom full of riches, marvels, and strange creatures. At first, Prester John was imagined to reside in India. Tales of the Nestorian Christians' evangelistic success there and of Thomas the Apostle's subcontinental travels as documented in works like the ''Acts of Thomas'' probably provided the first seeds of the legend. As Europeans became aware of the Mongols and their empire, accounts placed the king in Central Asia, and eventually Portuguese explorers came to believe that the term was a reference to Ethiopian Empire, Ethiopia, by ...
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Kalmyks
Kalmyks (), archaically anglicised as Calmucks (), are the only Mongolic ethnic group living in Europe, residing in the easternmost part of the European Plain. This dry steppe area, west of the lower Volga River, known among the nomads as Itil/Idjil, a basin on the northwest shore of the Caspian Sea, was the most suitable land for nomadic pastures. Itil or Idjil, the ancient name of the Volga River, written in the archaic Oirat script, means exactly that: the "pastures". The ancestors of Kalmyks were nomadic groups of Oirat-speaking Mongols, who migrated from Western Mongolia to Eastern Europe three times: in early medieval times, establishing in the 6th–8th centuries the Avar Khanate; in medieval times, establishing the Ulus of Juchi and Il-Kanate as Khuda-in-laws of Genghis Khan; and finally, in early modern times, establishing the Kalmyk Khanate in the 17th century. The Oirat language belongs to the western branch of the Mongolic language family, whose speakers inc ...
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Khanate
A khanate ( ) or khaganate refers to historic polity, polities ruled by a Khan (title), khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. Khanates were typically nomadic Mongol and Turkic peoples, Turkic or Tatars, Tatar societies located on the Eurasian Steppe, and politically equivalent in status to chiefdom, kinship-based chiefdoms and Feudalism, feudal Monarchy, monarchies. Khanates and khaganates were organised Tribe, tribally, where leaders gained power on the support and loyalty of their warrior subjects, gaining tribute from subordinates as realm funding. In comparison to a khanate, a khaganate, the realm of a khagan, was a Nomadic empire, large nomadic state maintaining subjugation over numerous smaller khanates. The title of khagan, translating as "Khan of the Khans", roughly corresponds in status to that of an emperor. Mongol khanates Mongol Empire (1206–1368) The Mongol Empire was the largest steppe nomadic Khaganate as well as List of largest empires, second largest empire and t ...
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Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire was the List of largest empires, largest contiguous empire in human history, history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Europe, extending northward into parts of the Arctic; eastward and southward into parts of the Indian subcontinent, mounting invasions of Southeast Asia, and conquering the Iranian plateau; and reaching westward as far as the Levant and the Carpathian Mountains. The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of several nomad, nomadic tribes in the Mongol heartland under the leadership of Temüjin, known by the title of Genghis Khan (–1227), whom a council proclaimed as the ruler of all Mongols in 1206. The empire grew rapidly under his rule and that of his descendants, who sent out Mongol invasions, invading armies in every direction. The vast transcontinental empire connected the Eastern world, East with the Western world, West, and the Pac ...
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Khanate
A khanate ( ) or khaganate refers to historic polity, polities ruled by a Khan (title), khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. Khanates were typically nomadic Mongol and Turkic peoples, Turkic or Tatars, Tatar societies located on the Eurasian Steppe, and politically equivalent in status to chiefdom, kinship-based chiefdoms and Feudalism, feudal Monarchy, monarchies. Khanates and khaganates were organised Tribe, tribally, where leaders gained power on the support and loyalty of their warrior subjects, gaining tribute from subordinates as realm funding. In comparison to a khanate, a khaganate, the realm of a khagan, was a Nomadic empire, large nomadic state maintaining subjugation over numerous smaller khanates. The title of khagan, translating as "Khan of the Khans", roughly corresponds in status to that of an emperor. Mongol khanates Mongol Empire (1206–1368) The Mongol Empire was the largest steppe nomadic Khaganate as well as List of largest empires, second largest empire and t ...
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Qara Khitai
The Qara Khitai, or Kara Khitai ( zh, t=喀喇契丹, s=哈剌契丹, p=Kālā Qìdān or zh, c=黑契丹, p=Hēi Qìdān, l=Black Khitan, links=no), also known as the Western Liao ( zh, t=西遼, p=Xī Liáo, links=no), officially the Great Liao ( zh, t=大遼, p=Dà Liáo, links=no), was a dynastic regime based in Central Asia ruled by the Yelü clan of the Khitan people. Being a rump state of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty, Western Liao was culturally Sinicized to a large extent, especially among the elites consisting of Liao refugees. The dynasty was founded by Yelü Dashi (Emperor Dezong), who led the remnants of the Liao dynasty from Manchuria to Central Asia after fleeing from the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty conquest of northern China. The empire was usurped by the Naimans under Kuchlug in 1211; traditional Chinese, Persian, and Arab sources consider the usurpation to be the end of the dynasty, even though the empire would not fall until the Mongol conquest in 1218. So ...
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Nestorianism
Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinary, doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian Nestorius (), who promoted specific doctrines in the fields of Christology and Mariology. The second meaning of the term is much wider, and relates to a set of later theological teachings, that were traditionally labeled as Nestorian, but differ from the teachings of Nestorius in origin, scope and terminology. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines Nestorianism as:"The doctrine of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople (appointed in 428), by which Christ is asserted to have had distinct human and divine persons."Original Nestorianism is attested primarily by works of Nestorius, and also by other theological and historical sources that are related to his teachings in the fields of Mariology and Christology. His theology was infl ...
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Mongolian Language
Mongolian is the Prestige (sociolinguistics), principal language of the Mongolic languages, Mongolic language family that originated in the Mongolian Plateau. It is spoken by ethnic Mongols and other closely related Mongolic peoples who are native to modern Mongolia and surrounding parts of East Asia, East, Central Asia, Central and North Asia. Mongolian is the official language of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia and a recognized language of Xinjiang and Qinghai. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5–6 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongols in China, ethnic Mongol residents of the Inner Mongolia of China. In Mongolia, Khalkha Mongolian is predominant, and is currently written in both Cyrillic script, Cyrillic and the traditional Mongolian script. In Inner Mongolia, it is dialectally more diverse and written in the traditional Mongolian script. However, Mongols in both countries often use the Latin script for conve ...
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Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by population density, most sparsely populated sovereign state. Mongolia is the world's largest landlocked country that does not border an Endorheic basin, inland sea, and much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west and the Gobi Desert to the south. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and List of cities in Mongolia, largest city, is home to roughly half of the country's population. The territory of modern-day Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the First Turkic Khaganate, the Second Turkic Khaganate, the Uyghur Khaganate and others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which became the largest List of largest empires, contiguous land empire i ...
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Turco-Mongol
The Turco-Mongol or Turko-Mongol tradition was an ethnocultural synthesis that arose in Asia during the 14th century among the ruling elites of the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate. The ruling Mongol elites of these khanates eventually assimilated into the Turkic populations that they conquered and ruled over, thus becoming known as Turco-Mongols. These elites gradually adopted Islam, as well as Turkic languages, while retaining Mongol political and legal institutions. The Turco-Mongols founded many Islamic successor states after the collapse of the Mongol khanates, such as the Kazakh Khanate, the Tatar khanates that succeeded the Golden Horde (e.g., Crimean Khanate, Astrakhan Khanate, Khanate of Kazan), and the Timurid Empire, which succeeded the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia. Babur (1483–1530), a Turco-Mongol prince and a great-great-great-grandson of Timur, founded the Mughal Empire, which ruled majority of the Indian subcontinent. The Turks and Tatars also ...
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Traditional Chinese Characters
Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to written Chinese, write Chinese languages. In Taiwan, the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education (Taiwan), Ministry of Education and standardized in the ''Standard Form of National Characters''. These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various Chinese family of scripts, countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variant Chinese characters, variants of the predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, as ...
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