The
Turkic term ''oÄŸuz'' or ''oÄŸur'' (in
z- and
r-Turkic, respectively) is a historical term for "military division, clan, or tribe" among the
Turkic peoples
Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Asia, West, Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members ...
.
With the
Mongol invasions of 1206–21, the Turkic
khaganates were replaced by
Mongol or hybrid
Turco-Mongol confederations, where the corresponding military division came to be known as ''
orda''.
Background
The 8th-century
Kul Tigin stela has the earliest instance of the term in
Old Turkic
Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from the Second Turkic Kh ...
epigraphy: ''Toquz Oghuz'', the "nine tribes".
Later the word appears often for two largely separate groups of the
Turkic migration
The Turkic migrations were the spread of Turkic peoples, Turkic tribes and Turkic languages across Eurasia between the 4th and 11th centuries. In the 6th century, the Göktürks overthrew the Rouran Khaganate in what is now Mongolia and expanded in ...
in the early medieval period, namely:
*
Onogur ("ten tribes")
*
Utigurs
*
Kutrigurs
*
Uyghur
*
Saragurs
The stem ''uq-, oq-'' "kin, tribe" is from a Proto-Turkic ''*uk''.
The Old Turkic word has often been connected with ''oq'' "arrow";
Pohl (2002) in explanation of this connection adduces the Chinese ''T'ang-shu'' chronicle, which reports: "the khan divided his realm into ten tribes. To the leader of each tribe, he sent an arrow. The name
f these ten leaderswas 'the ten ''
she, but they were also called 'the ten arrows'."
[the "arrows" connection was first reported by Édouard Chavannes, ''Documents sur les Tou-kiue (Turcs) occidentaux'', 1900.][Walter Pohl, ''Die Awaren: ein Steppenvolk im Mitteleuropa, 567-822 n. Chr'', C.H.Beck (2002), , p. 26-29.]
An ''oguz'' (''ogur'') was in origin a military division of a
Nomadic empire
Nomadic empires, sometimes also called steppe empires, Central or Inner Asian empires, were the empires erected by the bow-wielding, horse-riding, nomadic people in the Eurasian Steppe, from classical antiquity (Scythia) to the early modern era ...
, which acquired tribal or ethnic connotations, by processes of
ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis (; ) is the formation and development of an ethnic group. This can originate by group self-identification or by outside identification.
The term ''ethnogenesis'' was originally a mid-19th-century neologism that was later introduce ...
.
See also
*
Turkic peoples
Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Asia, West, Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members ...
*
Oghur Turks
*
Oghuz Turks
*
Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...
*
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...
*
Khaganate
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, ...
*
Turkic migration
The Turkic migrations were the spread of Turkic peoples, Turkic tribes and Turkic languages across Eurasia between the 4th and 11th centuries. In the 6th century, the Göktürks overthrew the Rouran Khaganate in what is now Mongolia and expanded in ...
*
Orda (organization)
References
*Karoly Czeglédy, ''On the Numerical Composition of the Ancient Turkic Tribal Confederations'', Acta Orient. Hung., 25 (1972), 275-281.
Further reading
*
*
{{Turkic topics