The Lanikaz ( ar, Nilqāz) was a Turkic tribe or clan. They were one of seven original tribes that made up the

Kimek confederation The Yemek were a Turkic tribe constituting the Kimek-Kipchak confederation, whose other six constituent tribes, according to Abu Said Gardizi (d. 1061), were the Imur (or Imi), Tatars, Bayandur, Kipchaks, Lanikaz, and Ajlad. Ethnonym Min ...

. They originated from the

Central Asian steppes The Eurasian Steppe, also simply called the Great Steppe or the steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Transnistria ...

. The Lanikaz were one of seven original tribes that made up the Kimek confederation, along with the Imur/Imi, Imak

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

, Kipchak,

Bayandur The Bayandur (, tr, Bayındır, tk, Baýyndyr) or Bayundur, was one of the 24 Oghuz Turkic tribes. Originally one of the 7 original tribes that made up the Kimek–Kipchak confederation, they later joined the Oghuz Turks. The Bayandur origina ...

, and

Ajlad The Ajlad was a Turkic tribe or clan. They were one of seven original tribes that made up the Kimek confederation. They originated from the Central Asian steppes. The Ajlad were one of seven original tribes that made up the Kimek confederation, a ...

. The Kimek tribes originated in the Central Asian steppes and had migrated to the territory of present-day

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

. The Lanikaz, as part of the Kimek, were mentioned by

Gardizi Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd-al-Ḥayy ibn Żaḥḥāk b. Maḥmūd Gardīzī ( fa, ابوسعید عبدالحی بن ضحاک بن محمود گردیزی), better known as Gardizi (), was an 11th-century Persian historian and official, who is notable for ...

. Their ethnonym may be derived from ''alan-i-kaz(ar)'' meaning "

Khazar 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 ...

Alans The Alans (Latin: ''Alani'') were an ancient and medieval Iranian nomadic pastoral people of the North Caucasus – generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae. Modern historians have connected the Al ...

". V. F. Minorsky rendered the name as Nilkaz, S. Agajanov as Nilkar. S. M. Akhindjanov connected the name ''Nilkaz'' to the Nilkan clan of the Mongolian tribe of Djalayir. S. Divitçioğlu rendered it Nilqas. Y. Zuev calls the spelling "Lanikaz" an 'obviously distorted name of the Kimek tribe in the Gardizi list', and corrects it to Laktan, which Zuev further links to Middle Chinese 駱駝 ''*lɑk̚ dɑ'' "

camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...

". The location of the Kimek Laktan 落坦 (''Luotan'' < MC: *''lɑk̚-tʰɑn^X''), before the Kimek's return to the area of Black Irtysh, in the Chinese annals is described as east from the lake Külün on the northern left bank of the river Argun. Zuev observes that Chinese annals contain a 'number of messages about congratulatory visits of Kimeks-Laktans to

Chang'an Chang'an (; ) is the traditional name of Xi'an. The site had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin Shi ...

, attesting to the political importance of this tribe. They do not contain any other information.'Zuev, Yu. (2002) p. 135

Note

References

Sources

* Zuev Yu.A., ''"Early Türks: Essays on history and ideology"'', Almaty, Daik-Press, 2002, (In Russian) * * * Pletneva S.A., "Kipchaks", Moscow, "Science", 1990, p. 74, *Kimball L., "The Vanished Kimak Empire", Western Washington U., 1994, pp. 371–373 * * * Turkic peoples of Asia Kimek confederation Extinct Turkic peoples {{Asia-ethno-group-stub