An elteber (Ethno Cultural Dictionary, TÜRIK BITIG
/ref> or ''(h)elitbär''; Chinese 頡利發 ''xié-lì-fā'' < EMCh: *''γεt-li^H-puat'') was a

client king A client state in the context of international relations is a state that is economically, politically, and militarily subordinated to a more powerful controlling state. Alternative terms for a ''client state'' are satellite state, associated state ...

of an autonomous but

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

polity A polity is a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of political Institutionalisation, institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources. A polity can be any group of people org ...

in the hierarchy of the Turkic khaganates including

Khazar Khaganate The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a Nomadic empire, nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukra ...

. In the case of the Khazar

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, ...

, the rulers of such

vassal A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain ...

peoples as the

Volga Bulgars Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria (sometimes referred to as the Volga Bulgar Emirate) was a historical Bulgar state that existed between the 9th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now Europea ...

(only until 969, after that they were independent and created a powerful state), Burtas and North Caucasian Huns were titled elteber or some variant such as ''Ilutwer'', ''Ilutver'' ( North Caucasian Huns), ''Yiltawar'' or İltäbär (

Volga Bulgaria Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria (sometimes referred to as the Volga Bulgar Emirate) was a historical Bulgar state that existed between the 9th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now Europea ...

) (until 969). An Elteber (

Almış Almış or Almuš (Almysh Elteber, Almish Yiltawar, , , ), Elteber, iltäbär of the Volga Bulgars, is believed to have been the first Islam, Muslim ruler (emir) of Volga Bulgaria. Almış was a son of Şilki (). He ruled the Volga Bulgars, prob ...

) is known to have met the famous

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

traveller

Ibn Fadlan Ahmad ibn Fadlan ibn al-Abbas al-Baghdadi () or simply known as Ibn Fadlan, was a 10th-century traveler from Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate, famous for his account of his travels as a member of an embassy of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir to the king ...

and requested assistance from the

Abbasids The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes i ...

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

. The earliest extant mention of the term is for a ruler of the North Caucasian Huns in the 680s, referred to in

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

sources from

Caucasian Albania Caucasian Albania is a modern exonym for a former state located in ancient times in the Caucasus, mostly in what is now Azerbaijan (where both of its capitals were located). The modern endonyms for the area are ''Aghwank'' and ''Aluank'', among ...

as ''

Alp Ilutuer Alp Ilutuer was the Ilutuer (vassal ruler) of the North Caucasian Huns during the 680s CE. He is mentioned in the account of Bishop Israel of Caucasian Albania, who travelled to Alp Ilutuer's court. During his stay in the land of Huns in 681� ...

''. The title was also mentioned in ''Letter to

Kültegin Kul Tigin ( zh, 闕特勤, Pinyin: Quètèqín, Wade–Giles: chüeh-t'e-ch'in, AD 684–731) was a general and a prince of the Second Turkic Khaganate. Etymology Necip Asım (1921) initially gave his name as ''köl'', based on the et ...

'' in 732. It was used by rulers of pre-Islamic Volga Bulgaria during the period of their vassalage to the Khazars. Rásonyi (1942:92), apud Golden (1980:149), glossed an "il teber" as "one who steps on the ''il'' at the head of conquered tribes"; with ''il'' descending from Proto-Turkic *''ēl'' "realm" (Clauson, 1972:121; Sevortijan, 1974:339) whereas ''täbär'' from Turkic root *''täp-'' "to kick with foot" (or *''tep-'' / *''dēp-'' "to stamp, tramp"). However, Erdal (2007:81-82) objects to Rásonyi's proposal: Erdal points out that "the Orkhon Turkic aorist of ''täp-'' would be ''täpär''" and instead suggests a non-Turkic origin for the title. Róna-Tas (2016:72–73) proposes an Iranian etymology; he compares the Turkic title ''(H)elteber'' to Manichean Bactrian ''l’dβr'', Written Sogdian ''δātβar'', Sogdian ''ryttpyr'' / ''dyttpyr'' (*''litbir''), etc. from Middle Iranian *''lātbär'' <

Old Iranian The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian language ...

*''dāta-bara'' "who brings the law", ultimately from

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

roots *''dʰēH'' "to put, place" & ''bʰer-'' "to bring", respectively.

References

* Kevin Alan Brook. ''The Jews of Khazaria.'' 3rd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2018. *

Gerard Clauson Sir Gerard Leslie Makins Clauson (28 April 1891 – 1 May 1974) was an English civil servant, businessman, and Orientalist best known for his studies of the Turkic languages. He was born in Malta. The eldest son of Major Sir John Eugene Clauso ...

. “él:”, in ''An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. * Douglas M. Dunlop. ''The History of the Jewish Khazars,'' Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954. *

Marcel Erdal Marcel Erdal (born 8 July 1945) is a linguist and Turkologist. He is Head of the Turcology department at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. He graduated from Istanbul's Robert College in 1963. Publications * ''The Turkic Nagy-Szent-Miklos Ins ...

, "The Khazar Language" in ''The World of the Khazars''. Brill, 2007. pp. 75–108. * Peter B. Golden. ''Khazar Studies: An Historico-Philological Inquiry into the Origins of the Khazars.'' Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1980. * Norman Golb and

Omeljan Pritsak Omeljan Yosypovych Pritsak (; 7 April 1919 – 29 May 2006) was the first Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of History of Ukraine, Ukrainian History at Harvard University and the founder and first director (1973–1989) of the Harvard Ukrainian Rese ...

, ''Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century.'' Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982. *

András Róna-Tas András Róna-Tas (born 30 December 1931) is a Hungarian historian and linguist. Biography He was born in 1931 in Budapest. Róna-Tas studied under such preeminent professors as Gyula Ortutay and Lajos Ligeti, and received a degree in folklore ...

,
Bayan and Asparuχ. Nine Notes on Turks and Iranians in East Europe
, in Éva Á. Csató ''et al.''(ed.), ''Turks and Iranians. Interactions in Language and History.'' ''The Gunnar Jarring Memorial Program at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study.'' (''Turcologica'', Vol. 105), Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-447-10537-8, pp. 65–78. *Ervand Sevortjan. ''Etymological Dictionary of Turkic Languages'' (in Russian), volume 1, Moscow: Nauka, 1974.
"*tep- / *dēp-"
in

Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguistics, historical linguist and philology, philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothetical proto-languages, including hi ...

Vladimir Dybo Vladimir Antonovich Dybo (; 30 April 1931 – 7 May 2023) was a Soviet and Russian linguist, Doctor Nauk in Philological Sciences (1979), Professor (1992), Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2011). A specialist in comparative ...

, Oleg Mudrak (2003), ''Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages'', Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. Heads of state Khazar titles Noble titles Volga Bulgaria Titles of the Göktürks {{Khazaria

See also

References