Tarkhan

Ancient Central Asian title Tarkhan (Old Turkic: 𐱃𐰺𐰴𐰣, romanized: Tarqan, Mongolian: ᠳᠠᠷᠬᠠᠨ Darqan or Darkhan; Persian: ترخان; Chinese: 達干/達爾罕/答剌罕; Arabic: ترخان; Punjabi: ترکھاݨ; alternative spellings Tarkan, Tarkhaan, Tarqan, Tarchan, Turxan, Tarcan, Turgan, Tárkány, Tarján, Tarxan) is an ancient Central Asian title used by various Turkic, Hungarian, Mongolic, and Iranian peoples. Its use was common among the successors of the Mongol Empire and Turkic Khaganate. Etymology The origin of the word is not known. Various historians identify the word as either East Iranian (Sogdian or Khotanese Saka) or Turkic. Although Richard N. Frye reports that the word "was probably foreign to Sogdian", Gerhard Doerfer points out that even in Turkic languages, its plural is not Turkic (sing. tarxan → plur. tarxat), suggesting a non-Turkic origin. L. Ligeti comes to the same conclusion, saying that "tarxan and tegin [prince] form the wholly un-Turkic plurals tarxat and tegit" and that the word was unknown to medieval western Turkic languages, such as Bulgar. Taking this into consideration, the word may be derived from medieval Mongolian d