Argu, or the Arghu languages, are a branch of

Common Turkic languages Common Turkic, or Shaz Turkic, is a taxon in some classifications of the Turkic languages that includes all of them except the Oghuric languages which had diverged earlier. Classification Lars Johanson, Lars Johanson's proposal contains the follo ...

along with Oghuz, Kipchak, Karluk and Siberian Turkic. Unlike other branches, this group is not multilingual, and the historical Argu language and its descendant Khalaj are the only languages of this group.Ölmez, Mehmet (1995). Halaçlar ve Halaçça. ''Çağdaş Türk Dili'', ''84'', 15-22. The Arghu (), were a bilingual group of Turkic tribes in the 11th century. The first and only mention of the Argu tribes and Argu language was by Al-Kashgari. He wrote that they lived among the mountains and that is why they were called Argu, meaning "in between". In the same period (9th/10th century), the name Khalaj was also recorded by travelers. With the discovery of modern Khalajs, it is found that language of Khalajs is the same language as Argu language in the ''

Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk The ' (; translated to English as the ''Compendium of the languages of the Turks'') is the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, compiled between 1072–74 by the Kara-Khanid scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari, who extensively documented t ...

''. Some of the linguistic reasons demonstrate that Khalaj is a descendant of Arghu: # The

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 ...

''-ny(-)'' sound is preserved as ''-n(-)'' in both Arghu and Khalaj. # There is labialization in both. (''E.g.'' bardum, käldüm ''instead of'' bardïm, keldim) # According to Al-Kashgarî, Argu tribes use the word 'dag' to mean 'not'. The only Turkic language that uses the word 'dag' to mean 'not' today is Khalaj. Oghuzs use the words from *degül, and others *ermeŕ. # Arghu has ''δ'' instead of ''z''. This is also seen in Khalaj. Mahmud Al-Kashgarî also mentioned the Khalaj (''Karakhanid:'' خَلَج) in his ''Divan'', but he did not record them as Argu. In the Turkmen article, it is recorded that Khalajs are Turkmen but that they do not consider themselves such. "The Turkmens are actually twenty-four tribes, but the Khalajs, which are made up of two tribes, are not considered Oghuz themselves, as they are sometimes separated from them Argu tribes lived in Talas, Balasagun and Sayram regions. They were adjacent to the Turkmen. According to al-Kashgari, the Turkmen and Argu were influenced by each other's languages. The name Khalaj was recorded by Arab geographers around the

Syr Darya The Syr Darya ( ),; ; ; ; ; /. historically known as the Jaxartes ( , ), is a river in Central Asia. The name, which is Persian language, Persian, literally means ''Syr Sea'' or ''Syr River''. It originates in the Tian Shan, Tian Shan Mountain ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

in the 9-10th centuries. Their winter quarters remained in the

Talas Region Talas (; ) is a regions of Kyrgyzstan, region (''oblast'') of Kyrgyzstan. Its capital is Talas, Kyrgyzstan, Talas. It is bordered on the west and north by Jambyl Region of Kazakhstan, on the east by Chüy Region, on the south by Jalal-Abad Region ...

. This is the area where the Argu were located in the 11th century.

Al-Khwarizmi Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi , or simply al-Khwarizmi, was a mathematician active during the Islamic Golden Age, who produced Arabic-language works in mathematics, astronomy, and geography. Around 820, he worked at the House of Wisdom in B ...

, along with Kancina, shows the Khalaj as the remaining tribes from the

Hephthalites The Hephthalites (), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian languages, Iranian as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in Sanskrit and Prakrit as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in Central Asia during the 5th to ...

. The Khalaj must have migrated to Iran later. Their homeland, where they were first recorded, is south

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

References

{{Turkic languages Turkic languages