A 🧵returning to some themes relating to Altaic Khaganates. For a general background one can read this summary we wrote recently:
manasataramgini.wordpress.com
One development that has happened since is the publication of another paper on multiple genomes from the Avar Khagnate.
manasataramgini.wordpress.com
One development that has happened since is the publication of another paper on multiple genomes from the Avar Khagnate.
I began my first serious foray into Altaic history by reading René Grousset's "Empire of the steppes" and Chingiz Khan. It is fashionable these days, even though they have written no sweeping history like his, for modern Altaic scholar to crap on Grousset as otiose. Whatever our
current improvements in understanding, I still feel it is important to read& appreciate the pUrvAchArya-s. The thrill of reading Grousset cover to cover as a kid is 1 of those indelible feelings -- it was followed by many an afternoon of wandering as though on horseback thinking
about the various hypothesis of the ethnogenesis, warfare & cultural achievements of the people of the steppe going back to our own Aryan ancestors. That nostalgic flourish apart, 1 thing that struck us from Grousset's work was that there were 2 Hun Khaganates, which temporally
sandwiched the Xianbei "Khaganate" between them. Now the aDNA results strongly support this idea. The historical course of these Khaganates was also rather parallel -- both expanded westerwards and invaded Europe founding states therein. The latest paper:
cell.com
cell.com
establishes that Avar Khaganate was an offshoot of the Khaganate known as "Ruan-Ruan" in the chIna tradition, even as the earlier western Eurasian Hun states were offshoots of the Xiongnu Khaganate. When we later read the letter of Chingiz Khan where he referred to the old days
of the Shanyu as the legitimate ruler of the Mongols, it became clear to us that the Chingizid Mongols likely saw themselves as linked to these early Hun Khaganates with the Turkic interludes as "illegitimate" rulers of Mongol lands. Among other things it seems to have been the
motivation for Chingiz Khan to decisively make Mongolia for the Mongols. This raises the question of what about the Khitans & the Xianbei? Here again from a much later time we see Chingiz Khan having some leniency &even tacit expression of kinship with the Khitan who had earlier
established an empire in China. As we noted in the above article the Khitan language has been only partly deciphered. What can be read suggests that it is clearly para-Mongolic but quite distant from Chingizid Mongolian. In light of this we have to return to famous brAhmI script
Khüis Tolgoi inscription deciphered by Vovin as a Mongolic language closer to Chingizid Mongolian that any other; for more see thread:
This, along with the aDNA data suggests that the Avar elite indeed spoke a Mongolic language & were more closely related
This, along with the aDNA data suggests that the Avar elite indeed spoke a Mongolic language & were more closely related
to the Chingizid Mongols than the Khitan. Thus, we could say that the succession on the steppe interleaved Mongolic with the para-Mongolic Xianbei and Khitans:
Afanasievo: IE
Aran: Indo-Iranian
Hun/Xiongnu: Mon
Xianbei: Para-Mon
Avar/Rouran: Mon
Gok Turk: Turk
Uighur: Turk
Kirghiz: Turk
Khitan/Liao: Para-Mon
Tangut elite: Para-Mon
Tangut general: Tibetan
Jurchen: Tungusic
Chingizid: Mon
Manchu: Tungusic
Aran: Indo-Iranian
Hun/Xiongnu: Mon
Xianbei: Para-Mon
Avar/Rouran: Mon
Gok Turk: Turk
Uighur: Turk
Kirghiz: Turk
Khitan/Liao: Para-Mon
Tangut elite: Para-Mon
Tangut general: Tibetan
Jurchen: Tungusic
Chingizid: Mon
Manchu: Tungusic
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