The Tuhsis were a
medieval Turkic-speaking tribe, who lived alongside the
Chigil,
Yagma
The Yagmas (), or Yaghmas, were a medieval tribe of Turkic people that came to the forefront of history after the disintegration of the Western Turkic Kaganate. They were one component of a confederation which consisted of Yagma, the Karluks, th ...
, and other tribes, in
Zhetysu
Zhetysu, or Jeti-Suu ( kk, , Жетісу, pronounced ; ky, ''Jeti-Suu'', (), meaning "seven rivers"; also transcribed ''Zhetisu'', ''Jetisuw'', ''Jetysu'', ''Jeti-su'', ''Jity-su'', ''Жетысу'',, United States National Geospatial-I ...
and today southern
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, Uzbek ...
. Tuhsi were also considered remnants of the
Türgesh
The Türgesh or Türgish ( otk, 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰏𐰾:𐰉𐰆𐰑, Türügeš budun, Türgesh people; ; Old Tibetan: ''Du-rgyas'') were a Turkic tribal confederation. Once belonging to the Duolu wing of the Western Turkic ''On Oq'' elites, Tü ...
people. Turkologist
Yury Zuev
Yuri Alexeyevich Zuev or Zuyev (russian: Юрий Алексеевич Зуев; 8 December 1932 – 5 December 2006) was a Russian-born Kazakh sinologist and turkologist.
Biography
Zuev was born in the Siberian city of Tümen in a whi ...
noted a nation (國) named 觸水昆 (Mand. ''Chùshuǐkūn'' < *''t͡ɕʰɨok̚-ɕˠiuɪ
X-kuən'') in
Jiu Tangshu
The ''Old Book of Tang'', or simply the ''Book of Tang'', is the first classic historical work about the Tang dynasty, comprising 200 chapters, and is one of the Twenty-Four Histories. Originally compiled during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdo ...
, so he reconstructed 觸水昆 as *''Tuhsi-kun''; however, Nurlan Kenzheakhmet noted that
Tongdian
The ''Tongdian'' () is a Chinese institutional history and encyclopedia text. It covers a panoply of topics from high antiquity through the year 756, whereas a quarter of the book focuses on the Tang Dynasty. The book was written by Du You from 766 ...
's authors transcribed the same ethnonym as 觸木昆 (Mand. ''
Chùmùkūn'' < *''t͡ɕʰɨok̚-muk̚-kuən''), the name of a
Duolu Turk tribe, also transcribed as 處木昆 (''Chǔmùkūn'' < ''t͡ɕʰɨʌ
X-muk̚-kuən''). Even so, it's unclear whether the ethnonym Tuhsi is of Turkic origin. Tuhsi may be connected to
Cuman
The Cumans (or Kumans), also known as Polovtsians or Polovtsy (plural only, from the Russian exonym ), were a Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman–Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion (1237), many sou ...
clan Toqsoba, if ''Toqsoba'' did not derive from
Common Turkic ''toquz'' "nine" and ''oba'' "clan". Hungarian orientalist Karoly Czeglédy compares the name Tuhsi to that of a medieval Eastern Iranian-speaking
Alano-As tribe ''Duχs-Aṣ'', located in the North
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historicall ...
by
ibn Rustah
Ahmad ibn Rustah Isfahani ( fa, احمد ابن رسته اصفهانی ''Aḥmad ibn Rusta Iṣfahānī''), more commonly known as Ibn Rustah (, also spelled ''Ibn Rusta'' and ''Ibn Ruste''), was a tenth-century Persian explorer and geographer ...
, and proposes that Tuhsis had been of Iranian-speaking
As origins.
Whatever their origins, by the 11-century, Tuhsis led a nomadic lifestyle amongst the
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members speak languages belonging to ...
and on the steppe, possessed a Turkic culture, and their language belonged to the
Turkic language family. According to
Karakhanid
The Kara-Khanid Khanate (; ), also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids or the Afrasiabids (), was a Turkic khanate that ruled Central Asia in the 9th through the early 13th century. The dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek K ...
lexicographer
Mahmud of Kashgar, contemporary Tuhsis were Turkic-speaking
monoglots; after carefully analyzing linguistic materials collected from Tuhsi dialect, he praised the Tuhsi Turkic dialect, among others, for being "pure" and "most correct", both in terms of accent and vocabulary.
[Maħmūd al-Kašğari. "Dīwān Luğāt al-Turk". Edited & translated by ]Robert Dankoff
Robert Dankoff is Professor Emeritus of Ottoman & Turkish Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at University of Chicago
Robert Dankoff was born on 24 September 1943 in Rochester, New York. In 1964, he received a Bachelor ...
in collaboration with James Kelly. In ''Sources of Oriental Languages and Literature''. (1982). Part I. p. 82-84
Notes
{{notelist
References
Turkic peoples of Asia