The meaning of "Turk"

[Temüjin]

someone over at AllEmpires created a thread and brought an interesting new theory about the origin of the word Turk, please check out:

www.allempires.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=27331

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

That's nothing new, all those theories are already well-known İbrahim Kafesoğlu had collected all the existing theories before back in his famous book Türk Millî Kültürü ("Turkish National Culture") first published in 1977:

- The Chinese claimed that the name Tujue 突厥 had the meaning "Helmet" in the Turkish language.

- Some Islamic scholars like Ibn al-Faqikh and al-Gardizi claimed that the name Turk drived from Trk meaning "Abandoned".

- Mahmud of Kashghar in the 11th century explained the word Turk as "age of maturity".

- In an Uyghur manuscript, the word is used with the meaning "powerful". From here, Gyula Németh thought that this was the real meaning of this name.

- Gyula Németh gathered some claims which explained the name Turk as "man sitting on the sea shore" and "charm".

- Ármin Vámbéry proposed that the name Turk drives from "türemek" meaning "to reproduce". Jean Deny agreed with this theory.

- Ziya Gökalp explained the name Turk as "Türeli" meaning "with order". Wilhelm Barthold also defended this theory.

- Gerhard Doerfer rejected the theory that the name Turk evolved as Törük -> Türük -> Türk (with the meaning "türeli") and explained it as "people forming the major folk of a state (Staatsvolk)".

[Temüjin]

i see.

[arnewise12]

thanks mighty Qaghan for answering, but isnt the meaning that it means powerful the most likely one since u have said it before if I can remember right ;D

[arnewise12]

I read that it was turkut, meaning the powerful ones, but that I remember u said it comes from turuk a uygur manuscript saying the same thing

[terekeme]

To H. I. ERKOC ,
On Turkish Tv's most repeated claim is that origin of Türk is Török, and meanin of Török is "belong to sky" and/or "people coming from sky".But in your last message you give examples of many claims except I write here.Or else you know proof of wrongness of this SKY story?

[hjernespiser]

I know Ihsan will have more information about this. Had to go look this up in my book... Rona-Tas traces the name Turk to a foreign, possibly Iranian word. Just a quick overview:

-Reconstruction of Chinese "tujue" gives "türküt". It's believed this form comes from Sogdian "trkwt". The -t is a Sogdian plural ending or the -kut is an adjectival ending.
-The Khotan Saka spelled the word "ttrukä", which can be read as "truk" or "trük".
-It's believed that the Khotanese form is earlier than the Sogdian form.
-The Khotanese used a script that allows them to have written "türkü" or "türk", but they didn't.
-Tibetan recorded the name as "Dru-gu", which preserves the Khotanese form. The Tibetan script could also have rendered "türk", for example how they used "Dur-gyis" for the later "Türgesh".
-Turkic languages do not favor a "tr" consonant cluster. So the supposition is that this could have been a foreign word adopted into a Turkic language by inserting a vowel between the t and the r.
-Ashina supposedly comes from the Saka word "asseina", which means blue. Supposedly the first rulers of the Turks were Saka in origin. This connects it with the dynasty calling itself Kök Türk.
-The Chinese record that the word means "helmet" for the shape of the Altai mountains, where metal forging was a specialty of the Turks. This meaning has not been found for this word in any Turkic language.
-In Saka the word for "lid" is "tturakä" which means that the Khotanese speakers could have contributed to this popular etymology.
-The most popular etymology is a meaning of "strong,flourishing".

Rona-Tas concludes that the name is from Saka originally and the pronunciation changed and this was found satisfactory because the name sounded similar to another word which means "flourishing". The name of the leading and founding tribe passed their name on to everyone else. He also adds that the Yakut and the Chuvash do not recognize the old name Turk. Their ancestors are believed to have split off earlier.

Edit: Don't the Turkmen say "Trukmen"?

[hjernespiser]

- Gerhard Doerfer rejected the theory that the name Turk evolved as Törük -> Türük -> Türk (with the meaning "türeli") and explained it as "people forming the major folk of a state (Staatsvolk)".

The most common definition of a people's self-designation is "people", or something similar like "the people". Now Turk is different because, like a few other ethnic names, it's some sort of adjective added on to a word meaning "people", i.e., Turk Bodun (maybe Bod is the real ethnic name). This is somewhat common even today. Shor (shor kizhi) comes from "sledge people". Kuerik (kuerik kizhi) comes from "squirrel people" (according to Menges). And so on... So I doubt Doerfer's theory.

On a somewhat related note, a popular theory has the name Magyar coming from two words, "Magy" and "Er", as in them being the Magy people. But Magy also means "people", being the Hungarian form of Manshi. There's no one who goes around calling themselves the "People people". Maybe they were called the Magy-er by a Turkic group who became their ruling class?

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

thanks mighty Qaghan for answering, but isnt the meaning that it means powerful the most likely one since u have said it before if I can remember right ;D

I read that it was turkut, meaning the powerful ones, but that I remember u said it comes from turuk a uygur manuscript saying the same thing

In Old Uyghur, Türk was sometimes used with the meaning "Powerful", but this must a meaning the name acquired after the Gokturk Empire.

To H. I. ERKOC ,
On Turkish Tv's most repeated claim is that origin of Türk is Török, and meanin of Török is "belong to sky" and/or "people coming from sky".But in your last message you give examples of many claims except I write here.Or else you know proof of wrongness of this SKY story?

I must say I never heard this theory before.

Plus, Török is the form of Turk in Hungarian.

-Reconstruction of Chinese "tujue" gives "türküt". It's believed this form comes from Sogdian "trkwt". The -t is a Sogdian plural ending or the -kut is an adjectival ending.

Sinologists have different ideas about this. James Russell Hamilton claimed that the Chinese characters 突厥 represented *Türküt, the plural form of Türk. Edwin G. Pulleyblank thought the opposite, saying that 突厥 was the representation of Türk (Türük) itself. Plus, I don't know about Soghdian, but -t is also a plurality suffix in Turkic and Mongolic.

-The Khotan Saka spelled the word "ttrukä", which can be read as "truk" or "trük".
-It's believed that the Khotanese form is earlier than the Sogdian form.
-The Khotanese used a script that allows them to have written "türkü" or "türk", but they didn't.
-Tibetan recorded the name as "Dru-gu", which preserves the Khotanese form. The Tibetan script could also have rendered "türk", for example how they used "Dur-gyis" for the later "Türgesh".
-Turkic languages do not favor a "tr" consonant cluster. So the supposition is that this could have been a foreign word adopted into a Turkic language by inserting a vowel between the t and the r.

Hmm interesting points.

-Ashina supposedly comes from the Saka word "asseina", which means blue. Supposedly the first rulers of the Turks were Saka in origin. This connects it with the dynasty calling itself Kök Türk.

I had a discussion about this matter in another forum, so I will just copy-paste what I had written before:

Unfortunately, there aren't any commonly-accepted explanations for the reconstruction of the tribal name Ashina 阿史那. Sergej Grigor'evič Kljaštornyj Сергей Григорьевич Кляшторный first claimed that Ashina was either Khotanese āṣāna ("precious, noble") or Tokharian āṣām / aṣām. He later claimed that this name might be Khotanese āṣṣeina / āššena ("sky, blue"), Soghdian axšāne ("sky, blue") or Tokharian āśna ("dark blue"). Thus, he linked the expression Kök Türük found twice in the monuments of Köl Tigin and Bilgä Qaġan with that, claiming that Old Turkic Kök ("blue") was the Turkic form of Indo-European Ashina. Christopher Beckwith made a different but somewhat similar proposal, pointing to a non-Turkic origin of the name. He linked it with Arsilas Άρσίλας recorded by the 6th-century Roman (Byzantine) historian Menandros Μένανδρος as the "most ancient monarch of the Turks". He later reconstructed it as Arśïla, connecting it with Old Turkic Arslan ("lion"), but noting that it probably didn't mean "lion" in the beginning and was probably Tokharian, while he also noted that it might have been also related with Turfanese Tokharian Ārśilāńci, a form of the title of Turfanese rulers. When I visited Saadettin Gömeç several months ago, he asked him what he thought about these theories, he said they were all wrong, and the name Ashina probably drived from supposedly Old Turkic Čon meaning "wolf", which was borrowed into Mongolian as Čono / Činō, which was later re-borrowed into Anatolian Turkish as Čon (Çon). However, such a word as Čon meaning "wolf" is not attested to be existing in Old Turkic, so it is very hard to believe this theory. In conclusion, there are several different views, which are not possible to deny, but also not possible to accept without thinking and doubting.

Kök (Blue) in Kök Türük is an adjective, not a noun as the others proposed. The noun here is Türük. Titles were also made this way; the regular administrative titles like Qaġan, Yabġu, Šad, Tigin, Čor, Iltäbär, etc always had at least one adjective infront of itself, such as Illig, Bilgä, Ïšbara, Külüg, Köl, etc... Well every tribe name has a meaning and they might even be considered adjectives, but they all have become nouns. At least this is what I view. But in Kök Türük, we can see that the Kök here is not a tribal name, but just an adjective of the people name Türük. Tribal names were usually not used as adjectives for noun people names.

He also adds that the Yakut and the Chuvash do not recognize the old name Turk. Their ancestors are believed to have split off earlier.

This is also something repeated all the time in Turkish history books. Actually the ancestors of Sakhas (Yakut), the Qurïqan, were among the subject peoples ruled by the Gokturks. Ancestors of the Chuvash, the Bulghars, were too.

Edit: Don't the Turkmen say "Trukmen"?

No, they say Türkmen.

The most common definition of a people's self-designation is "people", or something similar like "the people". Now Turk is different because, like a few other ethnic names, it's some sort of adjective added on to a word meaning "people", i.e., Turk Bodun (maybe Bod is the real ethnic name). This is somewhat common even today. Shor (shor kizhi) comes from "sledge people". Kuerik (kuerik kizhi) comes from "squirrel people" (according to Menges). And so on... So I doubt Doerfer's theory.

"Tribe" in Old Turkic was Bod. "People" was made by adding the plurality suffix -n to it, making it Bodun. Kün was also used in the meaning of "People", but it was not as commonly used as Bodun. If the tribes formed a political union, or they were forced to unite because of a political reason, every tribe was called Oq (Arrow) and it's plural was Oġuz, formed with the plurality suffix -z.

On a somewhat related note, a popular theory has the name Magyar coming from two words, "Magy" and "Er", as in them being the Magy people. But Magy also means "people", being the Hungarian form of Manshi. There's no one who goes around calling themselves the "People people". Maybe they were called the Magy-er by a Turkic group who became their ruling class?

Yes, this was first proposed by Gyúla Németh

[nomadi]

- Ármin Vámbéry proposed that the name Turk drives from "türemek" meaning "to reproduce". Jean Deny agreed with this theory

I accept.

Türk's meaning Türemiþ. In Mongolian language " Törükkü " meaning " Born ,Borned " " Dogmus "

[nomadi]

Jun 28, 2009 18:19:57 GMT 3 H. İhsan Erkoç said:

thanks mighty Qaghan for answering, but isnt the meaning that it means powerful the most likely one since u have said it before if I can remember right ;D

In Old Uyghur, Türk was sometimes used with the meaning "Powerful", but this must a meaning the name acquired after the Gokturk Empire.


I must say I never heard this theory before.

Plus, Török is the form of Turk in Hungarian.


Sinologists have different ideas about this. James Russell Hamilton claimed that the Chinese characters 突厥 represented *Türküt, the plural form of Türk. Edwin G. Pulleyblank thought the opposite, saying that 突厥 was the representation of Türk (Türük) itself. Plus, I don't know about Soghdian, but -t is also a plurality suffix in Turkic and Mongolic.


Hmm interesting points.


I had a discussion about this matter in another forum, so I will just copy-paste what I had written before:

Unfortunately, there aren't any commonly-accepted explanations for the reconstruction of the tribal name Ashina 阿史那. Sergej Grigor'evič Kljaštornyj Сергей Григорьевич Кляшторный first claimed that Ashina was either Khotanese āṣāna ("precious, noble") or Tokharian āṣām / aṣām. He later claimed that this name might be Khotanese āṣṣeina / āššena ("sky, blue"), Soghdian axšāne ("sky, blue") or Tokharian āśna ("dark blue"). Thus, he linked the expression Kök Türük found twice in the monuments of Köl Tigin and Bilgä Qaġan with that, claiming that Old Turkic Kök ("blue") was the Turkic form of Indo-European Ashina. Christopher Beckwith made a different but somewhat similar proposal, pointing to a non-Turkic origin of the name. He linked it with Arsilas Άρσίλας recorded by the 6th-century Roman (Byzantine) historian Menandros Μένανδρος as the "most ancient monarch of the Turks". He later reconstructed it as Arśïla, connecting it with Old Turkic Arslan ("lion"), but noting that it probably didn't mean "lion" in the beginning and was probably Tokharian, while he also noted that it might have been also related with Turfanese Tokharian Ārśilāńci, a form of the title of Turfanese rulers. When I visited Saadettin Gömeç several months ago, he asked him what he thought about these theories, he said they were all wrong, and the name Ashina probably drived from supposedly Old Turkic Čon meaning "wolf", which was borrowed into Mongolian as Čono / Činō, which was later re-borrowed into Anatolian Turkish as Čon (Çon). However, such a word as Čon meaning "wolf" is not attested to be existing in Old Turkic, so it is very hard to believe this theory. In conclusion, there are several different views, which are not possible to deny, but also not possible to accept without thinking and doubting.

Kök (Blue) in Kök Türük is an adjective, not a noun as the others proposed. The noun here is Türük. Titles were also made this way; the regular administrative titles like Qaġan, Yabġu, Šad, Tigin, Čor, Iltäbär, etc always had at least one adjective infront of itself, such as Illig, Bilgä, Ïšbara, Külüg, Köl, etc... Well every tribe name has a meaning and they might even be considered adjectives, but they all have become nouns. At least this is what I view. But in Kök Türük, we can see that the Kök here is not a tribal name, but just an adjective of the people name Türük. Tribal names were usually not used as adjectives for noun people names.


This is also something repeated all the time in Turkish history books. Actually the ancestors of Sakhas (Yakut), the Qurïqan, were among the subject peoples ruled by the Gokturks. Ancestors of the Chuvash, the Bulghars, were too.


No, they say Türkmen.


"Tribe" in Old Turkic was Bod. "People" was made by adding the plurality suffix -n to it, making it Bodun. Kün was also used in the meaning of "People", but it was not as commonly used as Bodun. If the tribes formed a political union, or they were forced to unite because of a political reason, every tribe was called Oq (Arrow) and it's plural was Oġuz, formed with the plurality suffix -z.

On a somewhat related note, a popular theory has the name Magyar coming from two words, "Magy" and "Er", as in them being the Magy people. But Magy also means "people", being the Hungarian form of Manshi. There's no one who goes around calling themselves the "People people". Maybe they were called the Magy-er by a Turkic group who became their ruling class?

Yes, this was first proposed by Gyúla Németh

Erhan Afyoncu says " Oguz meaning Öküz (Bull ) "

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

That is a funny theory without any real basis. And Erhan Afyoncu is an Ottoman history expert, not Central Asian.

[nomadi]

My idea

Western Kok Turuks are Oghuz Turks because Later W. Kok Turuks lands are Oghuz Yabgu lands , Seljukian oghuz lands and Today Turkmenistan. Language too smilar

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Wrong. The Western Kök Türüks were centered at Jetisu (Semireč'e Семиречье; today's Southern Kazakhstan and Northern Kyrgyzstan) to the east of River Jaxartes, not at the north of Aral. The Oġuz Yabġu State was located west of the West Türük Qaġanate. And Turkmenistan has nothing to do with these areas.