The Tuoba ( Chinese) or Tabgatch (, ''Tabγač''), also known by other names, was an influential

Xianbei The Xianbei (; ) were an ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeastern China. The Xianbei were likely not of a single ethnicity, but rather a multiling ...

clan in early

imperial China The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Y ...

. During the

Sixteen Kingdoms The Sixteen Kingdoms (), less commonly the Sixteen States, was a chaotic period in Chinese history from AD 304 to 439 when northern China fragmented into a series of short-lived dynastic states. The majority of these states were founded b ...

after the fall of Han and the

Three Kingdoms The Three Kingdoms of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu dominated China from AD 220 to 280 following the end of the Han dynasty. This period was preceded by the Eastern Han dynasty and followed by the Jin dynasty (266–420), Western Jin dyna ...

, the Tuoba established and ruled the Dai state in

northern China Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions that display certain differences in terms of their geography, demographics, economy, and culture. Extent The Qinling, Qinling–Daba Mountains serve as the transition zone ...

. The dynasty ruled from 310 to 376 and was restored in 386. The same year, the dynasty was renamed Wei, later distinguished in

Chinese historiography Chinese historiography is the study of the techniques and sources used by historians to develop the recorded history of China. Overview of Chinese history The recording of events in Chinese history dates back to the Shang dynasty ( 1600–1046 ...

as the

Northern Wei Wei (), known in historiography as the Northern Wei ( zh, c=北魏, p=Běi Wèi), Tuoba Wei ( zh, c=拓跋魏, p=Tuòbá Wèi), Yuan Wei ( zh, c=元魏, p=Yuán Wèi) and Later Wei ( zh, t=後魏, p=Hòu Wèi), was an Dynasties of China, impe ...

. This powerful state gained control of most of northern China, supporting

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

while increasingly sinicizing. As part of this process, in 496, the Emperor Xiaowen changed the imperial clan's surname from Tuoba to Yuan (). The empire split into

Eastern Wei Wei (), known in historiography as the Eastern Wei (), was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that followed the disintegration of the Northern Wei dynasty. One of the Northern and Southern dynasties#Northern dynasties, Nor ...

and

Western Wei Wei (), known in historiography as the Western Wei (), was an imperial dynasty of China that followed the disintegration of the Northern Wei. One of the Northern dynasties during the era of the Northern and Southern dynasties, it ruled the weste ...

in 535, with the Western Wei's rulers briefly resuming use of the Tuoba name in 554. A branch of the

Tanguts The Tangut people (Tangut language, Tangut: , ''mjɨ nja̱'' or , ''mji dzjwo''; ; ; ) were a Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan people who founded and inhabited the Western Xia, Western Xia dynasty. The group initially lived under Tuyuhun aut ...

also bore a surname transcribed as Tuoba before their chieftains were given the Chinese surnames Li () and Zhao () by the Tang and

Song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...

dynasties respectively. Some of these Tangut Tuobas later adopted the surname Weiming (), with this branch eventually establishing and ruling the

Western Xia The Western Xia or the Xi Xia ( zh, c=, w=Hsi1 Hsia4, p=Xī Xià), officially the Great Xia ( zh, c=大夏, w=Ta4 Hsia4, p=Dà Xià, labels=no), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts ...

in northwestern China from 1038 to 1227.

Names

By the 8th century, 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 ...

form of the name was ''Tabγač'' (), usually anglicized as Tabgatch or Tabgach. The name appears in other Central Asian accounts as ''Tabghāj'' and ''Taugash'' and in

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

sources like

Theophylact Simocatta Theophylact Simocatta (Byzantine Greek: Θεοφύλακτος Σιμοκάτ(τ)ης ''Theophýlaktos Simokát(t)ēs''; ) was an early seventh-century Byzantine historiographer, arguably ranking as the last historian of Late Antiquity, writing in ...

's ''History'' as Taugas () and Taugast (). Zhang Xushan and others have argued for the name's ultimate derivation from a transcription into Turkic languages of the Chinese name "Great Han" ''Dà Hàn'', . Tuoba is the

atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...

of the

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

pronunciation Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. To This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or all language in a specific dialect—"correct" or "standard" pronunciation—or si ...

of the Chinese (''Tuòbá''), whose pronunciation at the time of its transcription into

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese language, Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expande ...

has been reconstructed as *''tʰak-bɛt'' or *''Thak-bat''. The same name also appears with the first character transcribed as or and with the second character transcribed as ; it has also been anglicized as T'o-pa. and as Toba. The name is also attested as Tufa (, ''Tūfà'' or ''Tūfǎ''), whose Middle Chinese pronunciation has been reconstructed as *''tʰuwk-pjot'', *''T'ak-bwat'', or *''T'ak-buat''. The name is also sometimes clarified as the Tuoba Xianbei (, ''Tuòbá Xiānbēi'').

Ethnicity and language

According to

Hyacinth (Bichurin) Nikita Yakovlevich Bichurin (; – ), better known under his archimandrite monastic name Hyacinth, sometimes known as Joacinth or Iakinf, was one of the founding fathers of Russian Sinology. He translated many works from Chinese into Russian, w ...

, an early 19th-century scholar, the Tuoba and their

Rouran The Rouran Khaganate ( Chinese: zh, c=, p=Róurán, label=no), also known as Ruanruan or Juan-juan ( zh, c=, p=Ruǎnruǎn, label=no) (or variously ''Jou-jan'', ''Ruruan'', ''Ju-juan'', ''Ruru'', ''Ruirui'', ''Rouru'', ''Rouruan'' or ''Tantan'') ...

enemies descended from common ancestors. The ''Weishu'' stated that the Rourans were of Donghu origins and the Tuoba originated from the Xianbei,

Wei Shou Wei Shou () (506–572), courtesy name Boqi (伯起), was a Chinese people, Chinese author born in Quyang County in Julu Commandery (today Xingtai, Hebei) who served under the Northern Qi, Northern Qi dynasty.(魏收，字伯起，小字佛助，� ...

. ''

Book of Wei The ''Book of Wei'', also known by its Chinese name as the ''Wei Shu'', is a classic Chinese historical text compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and is an important text describing the history of the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to 5 ...

''. Vol. 1 who were also Donghu's descendants. The Donghu ancestors of Tuoba and Rouran were most likely

proto-Mongols The proto-Mongols emerged from an area that had been inhabited by humans as far back as 45,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic. The people there went through the Bronze Age, Bronze and Iron Ages, forming tribal alliances, peopling, and com ...

. Nomadic confederations of

Inner Asia Inner Asia refers to the northern and landlocked regions spanning North Asia, North, Central Asia, Central, and East Asia. It includes parts of Western China, western and northeast China, as well as southern Siberia. The area overlaps with some d ...

were often linguistically diverse, and Tuoba Wei comprised the para-Mongolic Tuoba as well as assimilated

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 ...

such as Hegu (紇骨) and Yizhan (乙旃); consequently, about one quarter of the Tuoba tribal confederation was composed of

Dingling The Dingling (174 BCE); (200 BCE); Eastern Han Chinese: *''teŋ-leŋ'' < Old Chinese: *''têŋ-rêŋ'' were an ancient people who appear in Chinese historiography in the context of the 1st century BCE. The Dingling are considered to have been ...

elements as Tuoba migrated from northeastern Mongolia to northern China.

Alexander Vovin Alexander Vladimirovich Vovin (; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American linguist and philologist, and director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France. He wa ...

(2007) identifies the Tuoba language as a

Mongolic language The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in North Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language f ...

. On the other hand,

Juha Janhunen Juha Antero Janhunen (born 12 February 1952) is a Finnish linguist whose wide interests include Uralic and Mongolic languages. Since 1994, he has been Professor in East Asian studies at the University of Helsinki. He has done fieldwork on Samo ...

proposed that the Tuoba might have spoken an Oghur Turkic language.

René Grousset René Grousset (; 5 September 1885 – 12 September 1952) was a French historian who was curator of both the Cernuschi Museum and the Guimet Museum in Paris and a member of the prestigious Académie française. He wrote several major works on ...

, writing in the early 20th century, identifies the Tuoba as a Turkic tribe. According to

Peter Boodberg Peter Alexis Boodberg (born Pyotr Alekseyevich von Budberg; 8 April 1903 – 29 June 1972) was a Russian-American scholar, linguist, and sinologist who taught at the University of California, Berkeley for 40 years. Boodberg was influential in ...

, a 20th-century scholar, the Tuoba language was essentially Turkic with Mongolic admixture. Chen Sanping observed that the Tuoba language contains both elements. Liu Xueyao stated that the Tuoba may have had their own language which should not be assumed to be identical with any other known languages. Andrew Shimunek (2017) classifies Tuoba (Tabghach) as a "Serbi" (i.e.,

para-Mongolic Para-Mongolic is a proposed group of languages that is considered to be an extinct sister branch of the Mongolic languages. Para-Mongolic contains certain historically attested extinct languages, among them Khitan language, Khitan and Tuyuhun lang ...

) language. Shimunek's Serbi branch also consists of the

Tuyuhun Tuyuhun (; LHC: *''tʰɑʔ-jok-guən''; Wade-Giles: ''T'u-yühun''), also known as Henan () and Azha (; ), was a dynastic monarchy established by the nomadic peoples related to the Xianbei in the Qilian Mountains and upper Yellow River valley, ...

and Khitan languages.

History

The Tuoba were a Xianbei clan. The distribution of the Xianbei people ranged from present day

Northeast China Northeast China () is a geographical region of China, consisting officially of three provinces Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The heartland of the region is the Northeast China Plain, the largest plain in China with an area of over . The regi ...

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 po ...

, and the Tuoba were one of the largest clans among the western Xianbei, ranging from present day

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

province and westward and northwestward. They established the state of Dai from 310 to 376 AD and ruled as the

from 386 to 536. The Tuoba states of Dai and Northern Wei also claimed to possess the quality of earth in the Chinese

Wu Xing Wuxing may refer to: Places in China Counties and districts * Huzhou, formerly Wuxing County, Zhejiang, China * Wuxing District (吴兴区), central district of Huzhou Subdistricts (五星街道) * Wuxing Subdistrict, Mudanjiang, in Dong'an Dis ...

theory. All the chieftains of the Tuoba were revered as emperors in the ''

'' and the ''

History of the Northern Dynasties The ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the '' Twenty-Four Histories'' canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618 CE: the histories of Northern Wei, Wester ...

''. A branch of the Tuoba in the west known as the Tufa also ruled the Southern Liang dynasty from 397 to 414 during the

period. The

started to arrange for Chinese elites to marry daughters of the

Tuoba royal family in the 480s. More than fifty percent of Tuoba Xianbei princesses of the Northern Wei were married to southern Chinese men from the imperial families and aristocrats from southern China of the

Southern dynasties The Northern and Southern dynasties () was a period of political division in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following the tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty. It is sometimes considered as ...

who defected and moved north to join the Northern Wei. Some Chinese exiled royalty fled from southern China and defected to the Xianbei. Several daughters of the Xianbei Tuoba

Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei ((北)魏孝文帝) (October 13, 467 – April 26, 499), personal name Tuoba Hong (拓拔宏), later Yuan Hong (元宏), was an emperor of China's Northern Wei dynasty, reigning from September 20, 471 to April 26, ...

were married to Chinese elites: the Han Chinese

Liu Song Song, known as Liu Song (), Former Song (前宋) or Song of (the) Southern dynasties (南朝宋) in historiography, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and the first of the four Northern and Southern dynasties#Southern dynasti ...

royal married of the Northern Wei; married , a descendant of

Jin dynasty (266–420) The Jin dynasty or Jin Empire, sometimes distinguished as the or the , was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty in China that existed from 266 to 420. It was founded by Emperor Wu of Jin, Sima Yan, eldest son of Sima Zhao, who had previou ...

royalty; married ; and married

Xiao Baoyin Xiao Baoyin () (486 – 10 June 530), courtesy name Zhiliang (智亮), was an imperial prince of the Chinese Southern Qi dynasty. In 502, as Southern Qi was on the edge of being taken over by the general Xiao Yan, who was preparing by killing the i ...

( 萧宝夤), a member of

Southern Qi Qi, known in historiography as the Southern Qi ( or ) or Xiao Qi (), was a Chinese imperial dynasty and the second of the four Southern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties era. It followed the Liu Song dynasty and was succee ...

royalty.

Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei (, 507 – 26 January 531; r. May 528 – Jan 531), personal name Yuan Ziyou (), courtesy name Yanda (彥達), was an emperor of China's Northern Wei dynasty. He was placed on the throne by General Erzhu Rong, w ...

's sister the Shouyang Princess was wedded to Emperor Wu of Liang's son . One of

Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei ((北)魏孝武帝) (510 – February 3, 535), personal name Yuan Xiu (元脩 or 元修), courtesy name Xiaoze (孝則), at times known as Emperor Chu (出帝, "the emperor who fled"), was the last emperor of the Xian ...

's sisters was married to Zhang Huan, a Han Chinese, according to the ''Book of Zhou''. His name is given as Zhang Xin in the ''Book of Northern Qi'' and ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' which mention his marriage to a Xianbei princess of Wei. His personal name was changed due to a

naming taboo A naming taboo is a cultural taboo against speaking or writing the given names of exalted persons, notably in China and within the Chinese cultural sphere. It was enforced by several laws throughout Imperial China, but its cultural and possibly ...

on the emperor's name. He was the son of Zhang Qiong. When the

Eastern Jin dynasty Eastern or Easterns may refer to: Transportation Airlines *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai * Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 192 ...

ended, Northern Wei received the Han Chinese Jin prince as a refugee. A Northern Wei Princess married Sima Chuzhi, giving birth to Sima Jinlong (司馬金龍).

Northern Liang The Northern Liang (; 397–439) was a Dynasties in Chinese history, dynastic state of China and one of the Sixteen Kingdoms in Chinese history. It was ruled by the Juqu (沮渠) family of Lushuihu ethnicity, though they are sometimes categorized ...

Xiongnu King

Juqu Mujian Juqu Mujian (; before 420 – 447), named Juqu Maoqian (沮渠茂虔) in some sources, also known by his posthumous name as the Prince Ai of Northern Liang (北涼哀王), was a prince of the Lushuihu-led Northern Liang dynasty of China. By the t ...

's daughter married

Sima Sima or SIMA may refer to: People * Sima (Chinese surname) * Sima (Persian given name), a Persian feminine name in use in Iran and Turkey * Sima (Indian given name), an Indian feminine name used in South Asia * Sima (surname) * Sima (born 1 ...

Jinlong.

Genetics

According to Zhou (2006) the haplogroup frequencies of the Tuoba Xianbei were 43.75% haplogroup D, 31.25% haplogroup C, 12.5% haplogroup B, 6.25% haplogroup A and 6.25% "other." Zhou (2014) obtained

mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondrion, mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the D ...

analysis from 17 Tuoba Xianbei, which indicated that these specimens were, similarly, completely East Asian in their maternal origins, belonging to haplogroups D, C, B, A and haplogroup G.

Chieftains of Tuoba Clan 219–376 (as Princes of Dai 315–376)

Legacy

As a consequence of the Northern Wei's extensive contacts with Central Asia, Turkic sources identified Tabgach, also transcribed as Tawjach, Tawġač, Tamghaj, Tamghach, Tafgaj, and Tabghaj, as the ruler or country of China until the 13th century. The

Orkhon inscriptions The Orkhon inscriptions are bilingual texts in Middle Chinese and Old Turkic, the latter written in the Old Turkic alphabet, carved into two memorial steles erected in the early 8th century by the Göktürks in the Orkhon Valley in what is modern- ...

in the

Orkhon Valley The Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape sprawls along the banks of the Orkhon River in Central Mongolia, some 320 km west from the capital Ulaanbaatar. It was inscribed by UNESCO in the World Heritage List as representing the development of ...

in modern-day

from the 8th century identify Tabgach as China. In the 11th century text, 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 ...

'' ("Compendium of the languages of the Turks"), Turkic scholar

Mahmud al-Kashgari Mahmud ibn Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Kashgari; ; , Мәһмуд Қәшқири; , Махмуд Қашғарий was an 11th-century Kara-Khanid scholar and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Kashgar. His father, Husayn, was the mayor of ...

, writing in Baghdad for an Arabic audience, describes Tawjach as one of the three components comprising China. At the time of his writing, China's northern fringe was ruled by Khitan-led Liao dynasty while the remainder of

China proper China proper, also called Inner China, are terms used primarily in the West in reference to the traditional "core" regions of China centered in the southeast. The term was first used by Westerners during the Manchu people, Manchu-led Qing dyn ...

was ruled by the

Northern Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, endin ...

. Arab sources used Sīn to refer to northern China and Māsīn to represent southern China. In his account, al-Kashgari refers to his homeland, around Kashgar, then part of the

Kara-Khanid Khanate The Kara-Khanid Khanate (; zh, t=喀喇汗國, p=Kālā Hánguó), also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids or the Afrasiabids (), was a Karluk Turkic khanate that ruled Central Asia from the 9th to the early 13th century. Th ...

, as Lower China. The rulers of the Karakanids adopted ''Tamghaj Khan'' (Turkic: the Khan of China) in their title, and minted coins bearing this title. Much of the realm of the Karakhanids including

Transoxania Transoxiana or Transoxania (, now called the Amu Darya) is the Latin name for the region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Tur ...

and the western

Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, Northwestern China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, Ch ...

had been under the rule of the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

prior to the

Battle of Talas The Battle of Talas (; ) was an armed confrontation between the Abbasid Caliphate along with the Tibetan Empire against the Tang dynasty in 751. In July of that year, the Tang and Abbasid armies clashed at the Talas River over control of the r ...

in 751, and the Karakhanids continued to identify with China, several centuries later. The ''Tabgatch'' name for the political entity has also been translated into Chinese as ''Taohuashi'' (). This name has been used in China in recent years to promote ethnic unity.

References

Citations

Sources

* Bazin, L. ''"Research of T'o-pa language (5th century AD)"'', T'oung Pao, 39/4-5, 1950 '"Recherches sur les parlers T'o-pa (5e siècle après J.C.)"''(in French
Subject: Toba Tatar language
* * Boodberg, P.A. ''"The Language of the T'o-pa Wei"'', Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 1, 1936. * * Clauson, G. ''"Turk, Mongol, Tungus"'', Asia Major, New Series, Vol. 8, Pt 1, 1960, pp. 117–118 * Grousset, R. ''"The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia"'', Rutgers University Press, 1970, p. 57, 63–66, 557 Note 137,

* * * Pelliot, P.A. ''"L'Origine de T'ou-kiue; nom chinoise des Turks"'', T'oung Pao, 1915, p. 689 * Pelliot, P.A. ''"L'Origine de T'ou-kiue; nom chinoise des Turks"'', Journal Asiatic, 1925, No 1, p. 254-255 * Pelliot, P.A. ''"L'Origine de T'ou-kiue; nom chinoise des Turks"'', T'oung Pao, 1925–1926, pp. 79–93; * . * . * Zuev, Y.A. ''"Ethnic History Of Usuns"'', Works of Academy of Sciences Kazakh SSR, ''History, Archeology And Ethnography Institute'', Alma-Ata, Vol. VIII, 1960, (In Russian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Tuoba Tuoba, Ancient peoples of China Xianbei