The Kayı or Kayi tribe (

Karakhanid 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 ...

: قَيِغْ ''qayïγ'' or ''qayig''; , ) were an Oghuz Turkic people and a sub-branch of the Bozok tribal federation. In his ''

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 ...

'', the 11th century Kara-Khanid 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 ...

cited as of one of 22 Oghuz tribes, saying that Oghuz were also called Turkomans. The name ''Kayı'' means "''the one who has might and power by relationship''" and the Turkmen proverb says that "''people shall be headed by Kayı and Bayat tribes" ().''

Origin

In his history work ''

Shajara-i Tarākima ''Shajara-i Tarākima'' () is a Chagatai language, Chagatai-language historical work completed in 1659 by Khan of Khiva and historian Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur. ''Shajara-i Tarākima'' is one of the two works composed by Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur that hav ...

'', the Khan of

Khiva Khiva ( uz-Latn-Cyrl, Xiva, Хива, ; other names) is a district-level city of approximately 93,000 people in Khorazm Region, Uzbekistan. According to archaeological data, the city was established around 2,500 years ago. In 1997, Khiva celebr ...

and historian,

Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur ( Chagatai and , Abulgazi, Ebulgazi, Abu-l-Ghazi, August 24, 1603 – 1663) was the Khan of Khiva from 1643 to 1663. He was a member of the Uzbek Shaybanid dynasty. He spent ten years in Persia before becoming khan, and was ...

, mentions among the 24 ancient Turkmen (

Oghuz Turkic The Oghuz languages are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family, spoken by approximately 108 million people. The three languages with the largest number of speakers are Turkish, Azerbaijani and Turkmen, which, combined, account for more ...

) tribes, direct descendants of

Oghuz Khagan Oghuz Khagan or Oghuz Khan (; ; ) is a legendary khan of the Turkic people and an eponymous ancestor of Oghuz Turks. Some Turkic cultures use the legend of Oghuz Khan to describe their ethnic and tribal origins. The various versions of the narra ...

. Oghuz Khagan is a semi-legendary figure thought to be the ancient progenitor of Oghuz Turks. translates as "strong". In his extensive history work “

Jami' al-tawarikh ''Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh'' () is a work of literature and history, produced in the Mongol Ilkhanate. Written by Rashid al-Din Hamadani (1247–1318 AD) at the start of the 14th century, the breadth of coverage of the work has caused it to be call ...

” (Collection of Chronicles), the statesman and historian of the

Ilkhanate The Ilkhanate or Il-khanate was a Mongol khanate founded in the southwestern territories of the Mongol Empire. It was ruled by the Il-Khans or Ilkhanids (), and known to the Mongols as ''Hülegü Ulus'' (). The Ilkhanid realm was officially known ...

Rashid-al-Din Hamadani Rashīd al-Dīn Ṭabīb (;‎ 1247–1318; also known as Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍlullāh Hamadānī, ) was a statesman, historian, and physician in Ilkhanate Iran. Soviet

Sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ...

and

Turkologist Turkology (or Turcology or Turkic studies) is a complex of humanities sciences studying languages, history, literature, folklore, culture, and ethnology of people speaking Turkic languages and the Turkic peoples in chronological and comparative c ...

Yury Zuev Yuri Alexeyevich Zuev or Zuyev (; 8 December 1932 – 5 December 2006) was a Russian-born Kazakhstani sinologist and turkologist. Biography Zuev was born in the Siberian city of Tyumen in a white-collar family. Zuev studied at the Lenin ...

based on the analysis of tribal names and

tamga A tamga or tamgha (from ) was an abstract seal or brand used by Eurasian nomads initially as a livestock branding, and by cultures influenced by them. The tamga was used as a livestock branding for a particular tribe, clan or family. They wer ...

s from

Tang Huiyao The ''Tang Huiyao'' () is an institutional history of the Tang dynasty compiled by Wang Pu and presented to Emperor Taizu of Song in 961. The book contains 100 volumes and 514 sections; it has an abundant content for the period before 846, and sca ...

, identifies a number of ancient

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

n Turkic tribes as Oghuz-Turkmen tribes, one of them is the Kay tribe, whom the

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

knew as Xí 奚 (< MC *''γiei''). After examining Chinese sources & consulting the works of other scholars ( Pelliot, Minorsky), Zuev proposes that the Kay had belonged to the proto-Mongolic

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 ...

tribal union

Yuwen The Yuwen ( < Eastern Han Chinese: *''wa^B-mun'' <

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...

and that Kay had been ethnic and linguistic relatives of the Mongolic-speaking

Khitans The Khitan people (Khitan small script: ; ) were a historical nomadic people from Northeast Asia who, from the 4th century, inhabited an area corresponding to parts of modern Mongolia, Northeast China and the Russian Far East. As a people desce ...

, prior to being known as an Oghuz-Turkmen tribe by the 9th century. Likewise, Hungarian scholar Gyula Németh (1969) links ''Kayı(ğ)'' to the (para-)Mongolic ''Qay''/''Xí'', whom Tibetans knew as ''Dad-pyi'' and

Göktürks The Göktürks (; ), also known as Türks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks, were a Turkic people in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main powe ...

knew as ''Tatabï''; however, Németh's thesis is rejected by

Mehmet Fuat Köprülü Mehmet Fuat Köprülü (December 5, 1890 – June 28, 1966), also known as Köprülüzade Mehmed Fuad, was a highly influential Turkish sociologist, Turkologist, scholar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of the Rep ...

among others. Later on, Németh (1991) proposes that Mg. ''Qay'' is derived from

Tk. The taka (, , sign: , code: BDT, short form: Tk) is the currency of Bangladesh. In Unicode, it is encoded at . Issuance of banknotes 10 and larger is controlled by Bangladesh Bank, while the 2 and 5 govt. notes are the responsibility of the ...

root ''qað-'' "snowstorm, blizzard"; nevertheless, Golden points out that ''Qay'' has several Mongolic etymologies: ''ɣai'' "misfortune", ''χai'' "interjection of grief", ''χai'' "to seek", ''χai'' "to hew". Even so, Köprülü rejects scholarly attempts to link the formerly Mongolic Qay/Xi to the Oghuz Turkic tribe Qayı(ğ); he points out that

Kashgari Kashgari is a Uyghur family name, meaning "the one from city of Kashgar". Kashgar is a historic city in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region in China. The name may refer to: * Abdur Rahman Kashgari (1912-1971), Scholar of Uyghur background * Hamza K ...

's ''

'' distinguished the Qay tribe from the Qayığ branch/sub-tribe of the Oghuz-Turkmen tribe.

History

According to Ottoman tradition,

Osman I Osman I or Osman Ghazi (; or ''Osman Gazi''; died 1323/4) was the eponymous founder of the Ottoman Empire (first known as a bey, beylik or emirate). While initially a small Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman principality during Osman's lifetime, h ...

, the founder of

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, was a descendant of the Kayı tribe. This claim has, however, been called into serious question by many modern historians. The only evidence for the Ottomans' Kayı descent came from genealogies written during the fifteenth century, several centuries after the life of Osman. More significantly, the earliest genealogies written by the Ottomans did not include any reference to Kayı descent at all, indicating that it may have been fabricated at a later date. The famous Oghuz- Turkic folk narrator, soothsayer and bard Gorkut-ata (Dede Korkut) belonged to the Kayı tribe. In the 10th century, the

Oghuz Yabgu State The Oghuz Yabgu State or Oghuz il (Old Turkic: Oghuz Land) was a Turkic state, founded by Oghuz Turks in 750, located geographically in an area between the coasts of the Caspian and Aral Seas. Oghuz tribes occupied a vast territory in Kazakh ...

was headed by supreme leaders (or

Yabghu Yabghu (,Entr"𐰖𐰉𐰍𐰆

Turkic peoples">Turkic stat ...

) who belonged to the Kayı tribe. According to Soviet Union">Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

archaeologist and ethnographer Sergey Tolstov, part of the Kayi tribe moved in the Middle Ages from Central Asia to modern day Ukraine, they are known in the Rus' chronicle as ''kovuy'' and ''kaepichi'' as one of the tribes that formed the Turkic tribal confederation called the

Black Klobuks Chorni Klobuky or Chornye Klobuki, meaning "black hats" (from and ), was a generic name Rurik dynasty The Rurik dynasty, also known as the Rurikid or Riurikid dynasty, as well as simply Rurikids or Riurikids, was a noble lineage allegedly founded by the Varangian prince Rurik, who, according to tradition, established himself at Novgorod in the ...

of the

Rus' Khaganate Rus' Khaganate (, ''Russkiy kaganat'', , ''Ruśkyj kahanat''), or Kaganate of Rus is a name applied by some modern historians to a hypothetical polity suggested to have existed during a poorly documented period in the history of Eastern Europe b ...

; Golden however considers the Kaepichi to be descendants of the Mongolic or para-Mongolic Qay instead.

Legacy of the Kayı tribe

Soviet and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and

A. V. Superanskaya associates the Kayı tribe with the origin of the name of the city of

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

; however, Canadian Ukrainian linguist

Jaroslav Rudnyckyj Jaroslav-Bohdan Antonovych Rudnyckyj (, ; November 28, 1910 – October 19, 1995) was a Ukrainian-Canadian linguist and lexicographer with a specialty in etymology and onomastics, folklorist, bibliographer, travel writer, and publicist. Care ...

connects the name

to the

Proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium BC through the 6th ...

root *kyjь, which should be interpreted as meaning 'stick, pole' as in its modern Ukrainian equivalent Кий; therefore, the toponym should in that case be interpreted as 'palisaded settlement'. In

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

, twenty seven villages bear the name of . In

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...

, the tribe is one of the main divisions of the Gökleň

Turkmens Turkmens (, , , ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, living mainly in Turkmenistan, northern and northeastern regions of Iran and north-western Afghanistan. Sizeable groups of Turkmens are found also in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, ...

living in the Balkan velayat and consists of the following clans: and others. The are also a subtribe of the Bayat Turkmens of the Lebap velayat.

Inspirations

The name and logo of the

İyi Party The Good Party (Turkish language, Turkish: ''İYİ Parti'') is a Turkish nationalism, nationalist, Kemalism, Kemalist and Conservatism, conservative List of political parties in Turkey, political party in Turkey, established on 25 October 2017 b ...

(''İyi'' means ''Good'' in Turkish) of

Meral Akşener Meral Akşener (née Gürer, ; born 18 July 1956) is a Turkish politician, teacher, historian and academic who is the founder of the Good Party (İYİ Party). Akşener first entered parliament as a deputy of the True Path Party (DYP) in the 19 ...

is inspired by the seal of the Kayı tribe.

Notes

References

Sources

* Kafesoğlu, İbrahim. ''Türk Milli Kültürü''. Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü, 1977
''page 134''
*Gmyrya, L. 1995. ''"Hun country at the Caspian Gate: Caspian Dagestan during the epoch of the Great Movement of Peoples"''. Makhachkala: Dagestan Publishing * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kayı Ottoman dynasty Oghuz tribes