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 strongly suggested to be a multilingual, multi-ethnic confederation consisting of mainly Proto-Mongols, and, to a minor degree, Tungusic and Turkic peoples. They originated from the Donghu people who splintered into the Wuhuan and Xianbei when they were defeated by the Xiongnu at the end of the third century BC. Following the split, the Xianbei people did not have a direct contact with the Han dynasty, residing to the north of the Wuhuan. In the first century BC, the Xianbei began to actively engage in the struggle between the Han and Xiongnu, which culminated in the Xianbei replacing the Xiongnu on the Mongolian Plateau in 93 AD.
The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongol residents of Inner Mongolia, with an estimated 5.7+ million speakers.
The Rouran Khaganate, also known as Ruanruan or Juan-juan, was a tribal confederation and later state founded by a people of Proto-Mongolic Donghu origin. The Rouran supreme rulers used the title of khagan, a popular title borrowed from the Xianbei. The Rouran Khaganate lasted from the late 4th century until the middle 6th century with territories that covered all of modern day Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, as well as parts of Manchuria in Northeast China, Eastern Siberia, Xinjiang, and Kazakhstan. The Hephthalites were vassals of the Rouran Khaganate until the beginning of the 5th century, with the royal house of Rourans intermarrying with the royal houses of the Hephthalites. The Rouran Khaganate ended when they were defeated by a Göktürk rebellion at the peak of their power, which subsequently led to the rise of the Turks in world history.
The proto-Mongols emerged from an area that had been inhabited by humans as far back as 45,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic. The people there went through the Bronze and Iron Ages, forming tribal alliances, peopling, and coming into conflict with early polities in the Central Plain.
Khagan or Qaghan is a title of imperial rank in Turkic, Mongolic, and some other languages, equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a khaganate (empire). The female equivalent is Khatun.
The Duan was a tribe of Xianbei ethnicity during the era of Sixteen Kingdoms in China. They were a powerful tribe in the Liaoxi region and played a key role during the fall of the Western Jin dynasty. Unlike the Xianbei tribes of the steppe, the Duan were unique in that they were established within the borders of China. They ruled over their dukedom of Liaoxi and later established the Duan Qi state, although neither were considered part of the Sixteen Kingdoms. The tribe was conquered by the Murong-led Former Yan in 338, but remained politically influential as maternal relatives of the Murong.
Khitan or Kitan, also known as Liao, is an extinct language once spoken in Northeast Asia by the Khitan people. It was the official language of the Liao Empire (907–1125) and the Qara Khitai (1124–1218). Owing to a narrow corpus of known words and a partially undeciphered script, the language has yet to be completely reconstructed.
The Wuhuan were a Proto-Mongolic or para-Mongolic nomadic people who inhabited northern China, in what is now the provinces of Hebei, Liaoning, Shanxi, the municipality of Beijing and the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia.
Shiwei were a Mongolic people that inhabited far-eastern Mongolia, northern Inner Mongolia, northern Manchuria and the area near the Okhotsk Sea beach. Records mentioning the Shiwei were recorded from the time of the Northern Wei (386–534) until the rise of the Mongols under Genghis Khan in 1206 when the name "Mongol" and "Tatar" were applied to all the Shiwei tribes.
Donghu was a tribal confederation of "Hu" (胡) nomadic people that was first recorded from the 7th century BCE and was taken over by the Xiongnu in 150 BCE. They lived in northern Hebei, southeastern Inner Mongolia and the western part of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang along the Yan Mountains and Greater Khingan Range.
Middle Mongol or Middle Mongolian was a Mongolic koiné language spoken in the Mongol Empire. Originating from Genghis Khan's home region of Northeastern Mongolia, it diversified into several Mongolic languages after the collapse of the empire. In comparison to Modern Mongolian, it is known to have had no long vowels, different vowel harmony and verbal systems and a slightly different case system.
The Tuoba (Chinese) or Tabgatch, also known by other names, was an influential Xianbei clan in early imperial China. During the Sixteen Kingdoms after the fall of Han and the Three Kingdoms, the Tuoba established and ruled the Dai state in northern China. The dynasty ruled from 310 to 376 and then was restored in 386. The same year, the dynasty was renamed Wei, later distinguished in Chinese historiography as the Northern Wei. This powerful state gained control of most of northern China, supporting Buddhism while increasingly sinicizing. As part of this process, in 496, the Emperor Xiaowen changed the imperial clan's surname from Tuoba to Yuan. The empire split into Eastern Wei and Western Wei in 535, with the Western Wei's rulers briefly resuming use of the Tuoba name in 554.
Tuyuhun, also known as ‘Azha from Tibetan script, is an extinct language once spoken by the Tuyuhun of northern China about 500 AD. The existence of the Tuyuhun, and consequently their language, is first attested in the Book of Song, compiled around 488 AD.
Tuoba is an extinct language spoken by the Tuoba people in northern China around the 5th century AD during the Northern Wei dynasty. It has variously been considered to be of Turkic or (Para-)Mongolic affiliation.
The Inscription of Hüis Tolgoi (HT) is a monolingual inscription in a Mongolian language found in Bulgan Province, Mongolia in 1975 by D. Navaan. The 11-line text is written in vertical Brahmi script running right to left with horizontal marks separating words. The language of the inscription was unknown until the joint expedition of Alexander Vovin, Étienne de la Vaissière, Dieter Maue and Mehmet Ölmez to Mongolia in 2014 for closer imaging of the stele. Due to certain morphological peculiarities the language of the inscription was hypothesized to be Mongolic rather than Turkic. The language, "which can be conditionally termed as a variety of Para-Mongolic," is "much closer to the mainstream Mongolic languages, such as Middle Mongolian and modern extant Mongolic languages than to Serbi-Khitan," and is beyond reasonable doubt some form of Mongolic, close to the mainstream Mongolic language.
The Yujiulü clan was the ruling clan of the Rouran Khaganate, which ruled over Northern China, the Mongolian Steppe and Southern Siberia.
Mugulü was a legendary warrior and chieftain in the Mongolian Plateau during the period when it was under the rule of tribes and peoples originating from the fragmentation of the failed and crumbling Xianbei confederation. The term "Mongol" is a likely derivation from his name.
Serbi–Mongolic is a proposed group of languages that includes the Mongolic languages as well as the Para-Mongolic languages, a proposed extinct sister branch of the Mongolic languages.
