Seok (, from a Siberian Turkic word meaning 'bone', e.g. , Kyrgyz and Tuvan "bone" (Swadesh list no. 65)
a
Turkic Database
compiled by Christopher A. Straughn, PhD, MSLIS) is an international term for a

clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, a clan may claim descent from a founding member or apical ancestor who serves as a symbol of the clan's unity. Many societie ...

used in

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

from the Middle Asia to the

Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...

. Seok is usually a distinct member of the community; the name implies that its size is smaller than that of a distinct tribe. It is a term for a

among the Turkic-speaking people in

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

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 ...

, and the

. The term "Seok" designates a distinct ethnical, geographical, or occupational group distinguishable within a community, usually an extract from a separate distinct tribe. Smaller tend to intermarry and dissolve after a few centuries, or a couple of dozens generations, gaining new ethnic names, but still carrying some elements and proscriptions of their parent , like the incest restrictions. Larger tend to survive for millennia, carrying their tribal identification and a system of blood and political alliances and enmities. In the Turkic societies, the integrity and longevity of the was based on the blood relations, fed by a permanent alliance of conjugal tribes. After a separation with a conjugal partner caused by a forced migration, which amounts to a communal divorce, a would seek and establish a new permanent conjugal partnership, eventually obtaining new cultural, genetical, and linguistical traits, which in ethnological terms constitutes a transition to a new ethnicity. Potapov L.P., ''"Ethnic composition and origin of Altaians. Historical ethnographical essay"'', p. 22 on

Sources

Turkic peoples of Asia Ethnology Turkic words and phrases {{ethnology-stub