Elteber ( otk, 𐰃𐰠𐱅𐰋𐰼, elteberEthno Cultural Dictionary, TÜRIK BITIG
/ref> or ''(h)elitbär''; Chinese 頡利發 ''xié-lì-fā'' < EMCh: *''γεt-li^H-puat'') was the

client king A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite state, ...

of an autonomous but

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or 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 drain the surrounding drai ...

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

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

in the hierarchy of the Turkic khaganates including

Khazar Khaganate The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

. In the case of the Khazar

Khaganate A khaganate or khanate was a polity ruled by a Khan (title), khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. That political territory was typically found on the Eurasian Steppe and could be equivalent in status to tribe, tribal chiefdom, principality, monarch ...

, 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 suzerai ...

peoples as the

Volga Bulgars Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria, was a historic Bulgar state that existed between the 7th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now European Russia. Volga Bulgaria was a multi-ethnic state ...

(only until 969, after that they were independent and created a powerful state), Burtas and

North Caucasian Huns The Khuni, Huni or Chuni were a people of the North Caucasus during late antiquity. They have sometimes been referred to as the North Caucasian Huns and are often assumed to be related to the Huns who later entered Eastern Europe. However, the ethn ...

were titled elteber or some variant such as ''Ilutwer'', ''Ilutver'' (

), ''Yiltawar'' or İltäbär (

Volga Bulgaria Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria, was a historic Bulgar state that existed between the 7th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now European Russia. Volga Bulgaria was a multi-ethnic state ...

) (until 969). An Elteber (

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

) is known to have met the famous

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

traveller

Ibn Fadlan Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn Rāšid ibn Ḥammād, ( ar, أحمد بن فضلان بن العباس بن راشد بن حماد; ) commonly known as Ahmad ibn Fadlan, was a 10th-century Muslim traveler, famous for his account of his ...

and requested assistance from the

Abbasids The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

. The earliest extant mention of the term is for a ruler of the

in the 680s, referred to in

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

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 t ...

as '' Alp Ilutuer''. The title was also mentioned in ''Letter to

Kültegin , native_name_lang = otk , image = Turkic Head of Koltegin Statue (35324303410).jpg , caption = Bust of Kul Tigin found at the Khoshoo Tsaidam burial site, in Khashaat, Arkhangai Province, Orkhon River valley. Located in the Na ...

'' 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 or 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 languages are grouped ...

*''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. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

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

References

Kevin Alan Brook Kevin () is the anglicized form of the Irish masculine given name (; mga, Caoimhghín ; sga, Cóemgein ; Latinized as ). It is composed of "dear; noble"; Old Irish and ("birth"; Old Irish ). The variant '' Kevan'' is anglicized from , a ...

. ''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. The eldest son of Major Sir John Eugene Clauson, Gerard Clauson att ...

. “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 July 8, 1945) is a linguist and Turkologist, professor and head of the Turcology department at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. He graduated from Robert College (Istanbul) in 1963. Publications * ''The Turkic Nagy-Szent-Mi ...

, "The Khazar Language" in ''The World of the Khazars''. Brill, 2007. pp. 75-108. *

Peter B. Golden Peter Benjamin Golden (born 1941) is an American historian who is Professor Emeritus of History, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University. He has written many books and articles on Turkic and Central Asian Studies, such as ''An i ...

. ''Khazar Studies: An Historico-Philological Inquiry into the Origins of the Khazars.'' Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1980. *

Norman Golb Norman Golb (15 January 1928 – 29 December 2020) was the Ludwig Rosenberger Professor in Jewish History and Civilization at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Golb was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States, on 15 January 1 ...

and

Omeljan Pritsak Omeljan Yosypovych Pritsak ( uk, Омелян Йосипович Пріцак; 7 April 1919, Luka, Sambir County, West Ukrainian People's Republic – 29 May 2006, Boston) was the first Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Har ...

, ''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. 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 and easter ...

,
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 (russian: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguist and philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothet ...

Vladimir Dybo Vladimir Antonovich Dybo (russian: Влади́мир Анто́нович Дыбо́; born 30 April 1931) is a Soviet and Russian linguist, Doctor Nauk in Philological Sciences (1979), Professor (1992), Academician of the Russian Academy of Sci ...

, 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